from lecture to ask what had kept Kennedy away. He was surprised to see
the pale and weary look on his face, and catching sight of Bruce seated
in the armchair by the fire, he merely made some commonplace remarks and
left the room. But he met Julian in the court, and told him that
Kennedy didn't seem to be well.

"I'm not surprised," said Julian; "he supped with Brogten, and then went
to play cards with Bruce, and I hear that Bruce's card parties are not
very steady proceedings."

"Can't we manage to keep him out of that set, Julian? It will be the
ruin of his reading."

"Ay, and worse, Hugh. But what can one say? It will hardly do to read
homilies to one's fellow undergraduates."

"You might at least give him a hint."

"I will. I suppose he'll come and do some Euripides to-night."

He did come, and when they had read some three hundred lines, and the
rest were separating, he proposed to Julian a turn in the great court.

The stars were crowding in their bright myriads, and the clear silvery
moonlight bathed the court, except where the hall and chapel flung
fantastic and mysterious shadows across the green smooth-mown lawns of
the quadrangle. The soft light, the cool exhilarating night air were
provocative of thought, and they walked up and down for a time in
silence.

Many thoughts were evidently working in Kennedy's mind, and they did not
all seem to be bright or beautiful as the thoughts of youth should be.
Julian's brain was busy, too; and as they paced up and down, arm in arm,
the many-coloured images of hope and fancy were flitting thick and fast
across his vision. He was thinking of his own future and of Kennedy's,
whom he was beginning to love as a brother, and for whose moral weakness
he sometimes feared.

"Julian," said Kennedy, suddenly breaking the silence; "were you ever
seized by an uncontrollable, unaccountable, irresistible presentiment of
coming evil,--a feeling as if a sudden gulf of blackness and horror
yawned before you--a dreadful _something_ haunting you, you knew not
what, but only knew that it was there?"

"I have had presentiments, certainly; though hardly of the kind you
describe."

"Well, Julian, I have such a presentiment now, overshadowing me with the
sense of guilt, of which I was never guilty; as though it were the
shadow of some crime committed in a previous state of existence,
forgotten yet unforgotten, incurred yet unavenged."

"Probably the mere result of a head