chtower of unapproachable altitude,
and hence to him the errors which he was sometimes obliged to punish
were not regarded as human failings, but as monstrous and inexplicable
phenomena. He could not in the least understand Kennedy; he only looked
at him as a wild, and objectionable, and irregular young man; while
Kennedy reciprocated his pity by a hardly-concealed contempt.

So, as Kennedy took cap and gown, and walked across the court to the
combination-room, he became pretty well aware that a very heavy sentence
was hanging over his head. He cared little for it; nothing that Saint
Werner's or its authorities could do, would wound him half so deeply as
what he was already suffering, or cause the iron to rankle more
painfully in his soul. He felt as a man who is in a dream.

He stood before them with a look of utter vacancy and listlessness, the
result partly of physical weariness, partly of complete indifference.
He was aware that the Dean, undisturbed this time, was haranguing him to
his heart's content, but he had very little notion of what he was
saying. At last his ear caught the question--

"Have you any explanation to offer of your conduct, Mr Kennedy?"

He betrayed how little he had been attending by the reply--

"What conduct, sir?"

The Dean ruffled his plumage, and said with asperity--

"Your conduct last night, sir."

"I was wandering in the fields, sir."

"Wandering in the fields!" In the Dean's formal and regular mind such a
proceeding was wholly unintelligible; fancy a sensible member of a
college wandering in the fields on a wet stormy night past twelve
o'clock! "Really, Mr Kennedy, you must excuse us, but we can hardy
accept so fantastic an explanation; we can hardly believe that you had
no ulterior designs."

Kennedy was bothered and fretful; he was not thinking of Deans or
Seniors just then; his thoughts were reverting to his father's
implacable anger, and to Julian's forbidding him to hope for the love of
Violet Home. Weary of the talking, and careless of explaining anything
to them, and with a short return of his old contempt, he wished to cut
short the discussion, and merely said--

"I can't help what you accept or what you believe."

The Seniors had a little discussion among themselves, in which the
opinion of Mr Norton appeared to be over-borne by the majority of
votes, and then the Senior Dean said shortly--

"Mr Kennedy, we have come to the decision that it is undesirable