aw who it was and came gradually to himself, but with
many sighs and tears. She stood, looking down on him with contempt. "Has
some one been beating you?" she asked, and searched with hard eyes--he
had been no friend to her--for signs of ill-treatment.

He shook his head. "Worse," he sobbed. "Far worse! Oh, what will become
of me? What will become of me? Lord, have mercy upon me! Lord, have
mercy upon me!"

Her lip curled. Perhaps she was comparing him with another youth who had
spoken to her that morning in a different strain.

"I don't think it matters much," she said scornfully, "what becomes of
you."

"Matters?" he exclaimed.

"If you are such a coward as this! Tell me what it is. What has
happened? If it is not that some one has beaten you, I don't know what
it is--unless you have been doing something wrong, and they have put you
out of the University? Is it that?"

"No!" he cried fretfully. "Worse, worse! And do you leave me! You can do
nothing! No one can do anything!"

She had her own troubles, and to-day was almost sinking under them. But
this was not her way of bearing them. She shrugged her shoulders
contemptuously. "Very well," she said, "I will go if I can do nothing."

"Do?" he cried vehemently. "What can you do?" And then, in the act of
turning from him, she stood; so startling was the change, so marvellous
the transformation which she saw come over his face. "Do," he repeated,
trembling violently, and speaking in a tone as much altered as his
expression. He rose to his feet. "Do? Perhaps you--you can do
something--still. Wait. Please wait a minute! I--I was not quite
myself." He passed his hand across his brow. She did not know that
behind his face of frightened stupor his mind was working cunningly,
following up the idea that had occurred to him.

She began to think him mad. But though she held him in distaste, she had
no fear of him; and even when he closed the door with a cringing air,
and a look that implored indulgence, she held her ground. "Only, you
need not close the door," she said coldly. "There is no one in the house
except my mother."

"Messer Basterga?"

"He has gone out. Is it of him," in sudden enlightenment, "that you are
afraid?"

He nodded sullenly. "Yes," he said; and then he paused, eyeing her in
doubt if he could trust her. At last, "It is, but, if you dared do it, I
know how I could draw his teeth! How I could"--with the cruel grin of
the coward--"squeeze him! squeez