nstituted the sense of sin, but young as he was, and high as
his character had stood hitherto in man's estimation, he prayed for any
chastisement rather than that of detection, any stroke in preference to
open shame. This was the one thing which he felt he could not bear.

Even now, as conscience strongly suggested, he might make, by private
confession to his tutor, or at any rate by not using the knowledge he
had thus acquired, the only reparation which was still in his power.
But it was a hard thing for conscience to ask--too hard for poor
Kennedy's weakness. Much of the paper, as he saw at once, he could very
easily have answered from his previous general knowledge and
scholarship; so easily, that he now felt convinced that he might have
done quite enough of it to secure his first class. His sin then had
been useless, quite useless, worse than useless to him. Was he obliged
also to make it positively injurious? was he to put himself in a _worse_
position than if he had never committed it? After all the punishment
which the sin had brought with it, was he also to lose, in consequence
of it, the very advantage, the very enjoyment, for the sake of which he
had harboured the temptation? It was too much--too much to expect.

The night before the Aeschylus examination he began to read up the
general information on the subject, and he intended to do it quite as if
he were unaware of what the actual questions were to be. But it was the
merest self-deception. Each question was branded in fiery letters on
his recollection, and he found that, as he read, he was skipping
involuntarily every topic which he knew had not been touched on in Mr
Grayson's paper.

Oh, the sense of hypocrisy with which he eagerly seized the paper next
morning, and read it over as though unaware of its contents.

Julian could not help observing that, during the last few days,
Kennedy's spirits had suffered a change. His old mirth came only in
fitful bursts, and he was often moody and silent; but Julian attributed
it to anxiety for the result of the examination, and doubt whether he
should be allowed by his father to make one of the long-anticipated
party in the foreign tour.

Kennedy dared not admit any one into his confidence, but the last
evening, before they went down, he turned the conversation, as he sat at
tea in Owen's room, to the topic of character, and the faults of great
men, and the aberrations of the good.

"Tell me, Owen," he