eling toward his friend had always remained
in many respects the feeling of the undergraduate toward the don. His
sense of it now filled him with a curious awkwardness.

'I know why you are come,' said Langham slowly, after a scrutiny of his
visitor.

'I am here by a mere accident,' said the other, thinking perfect
frankness best. 'My wife was present when her sister received your
letter. Rose gave her leave to tell me. I had gone up to ask after them
all, and came on to you,--of course on my own responsibility entirely!
Rose knows nothing of my coming--nothing of what I have to say.'

He paused, struck against his will by the looks of the man before him.
Whatever he had done during the past twenty-four hours he had clearly
had the grace to suffer in the doing of it.

'You can have nothing to say!' said Langham, leaning against the
chimney-piece and facing him with black, darkly-burning eyes. 'You know
me.'

Never had Robert seen him under this aspect. All the despair, all the
bitterness hidden under the languid student's exterior of every day had,
as it were, risen to the surface. He stood at bay, against his friend,
against himself.

'No!' exclaimed Robert, stoutly, 'I do not know you in the sense you
mean. I do not know you as the man who could beguile a girl on to a
confession of love, and then tell her that for you marriage was too
great a burden to be faced!'

Langham started, and then closed his lips in an iron silence. Robert
repented him a little. Langham's strange individuality always impressed
him against his will.

'I did not come simply to reproach you, Langham,' he went on, 'though I
confess to being very hot! I came to try and find out--for myself only,
mind--whether what prevents you from following up what I understand
happened last night is really a matter of feeling, or a matter of
outward circumstance. If, upon reflection, you find that your feeling
for Rose is not what you imagined it to be, I shall have my own opinion
about your conduct:--but I shall be the first to acquiesce in what you
have done this morning. If, on the other hand, you are simply afraid
of yourself in harness, and afraid of the responsibilities of practical
married life, I cannot help be begging you to talk the matter over with
me, and let us face it together. Whether Rose would ever, under any
circumstances, got over the shock of this morning--I have not the
remotest idea. But--' and he hesitated, 'it seems the feeling