o make in the world, and now he has
lost me the one thing I longed for, the one thing which would have made
me happy," and as Julian kept brooding on this, on the loss of
reputation, of help, of hope, his eyes grew red and swollen, and his
temples throbbed with pain. He was far from strong, and the shock of
news that shattered all his hopes, and dashed rudely to the ground his
long, long cherished desires, came more heavily upon him, because his
constitution, naturally delicate, had suffered much during the last week
from study and over anxiety. The necessity of writing home haunted
him,--to his mother and sister, whose pride in him was so great, and who
hoped so much for the honours which they thought him so sure to win,--to
his brothers who had seen his diligence, and who would be deeply sorry
to know that it had been in vain; to them at least he would be forced to
announce the humiliating intelligence of defeat. He might leave his
other friends to learn it from accidental sources, but oh, the
bitterness of being obliged to announce it for himself, to those to
whose disappointment he was most painfully alive, and oh, the
intolerable plague of receiving letters of commiseration.

He could not do anything, he could not read, or write, or even think,
except of the one blow which had thus laid him prostrate. He leaned
over his window-sill, and stared stupidly at the great stone bears
carved on the portals of Saint Margaret's; his eyes wandered listlessly
over the smooth turf of the Fellows' bowling-green, and the trim
parterres full of crocus and anemone and violet which fringed it; he
watched the boats skim past him on the winding gleams of the Iscam, and
shoot among the water-lilies by the bridge and then he stared upwards at
the sun, trying to think of nothing until his eyes watered, and then the
sight of a don in the garden below made him shrink back, to avoid
observation, into his own room.

Some of the Saint Werner's men would be coming soon to condole with him.
What a nuisance it would be! He got up and sported the door. This
action recalled in all their intensity his bitterest and angriest
feelings, and he flung the door open again, and threw himself full
length on the sofa, until a sort of painful stupor came over him, and he
became unconscious of how the time went by.

At length a slight sound awoke him, and he saw De Vayne standing by him.
De Vayne was so gentle in heart and manner, so full of sympathy