and, and
which he seemed to be reading with his whole soul. So absorbed was he
that he was not even disturbed by Wilton's entrance. Listlessly turning
over the pages of his Herodotus to divert his painful thoughts by
looking for the passage about the crocodiles, Kenrick had found an old
note directed to himself. Painful thoughts, it seems, were to give him
no respite that day; how well he knew that handwriting, altered a little
now, more firm and mature, but even then a good, though a boyish hand.
He tore it open; it was dated three years back, and signed Walter Evson.
It was the long lost note in which Walter, once or twice rebuffed, had
frankly and even earnestly asked pardon for any supposed fault, and
begged for an immediate reconciliation--the very note of which Walter of
course imagined that Kenrick had received, and from his not taking any
notice of it, inferred, that all hope of renewing their friendship was
finally at an end. Kenrick could not help thinking how very different a
great part of his school-life would have been, had that note but come to
hand!

He saw it all now as clearly as possible--his haste, his rash and false
inferences, his foolish jealousy, his impetuous pride, his quick
degeneracy, all the mischief he had caused, all the folly he had done,
all the time he had wasted. Disgraced, degraded, despised by the best
fellows in the school, censured unanimously by his colleagues, given up
by masters whom he respected, without a single true friend, grievously
and hopelessly in the wrong from the very commencement, he now felt
_bowed down and conquered_, and, to Wilton's amazement, he laid his head
upon his arms on the table before him without saying a word, and broke
into a heavy sob. If his conscience had not declared against him, he
could have borne everything else; but when conscience is our enemy,
there is no chance of a mind at ease. Kenrick sat there miserable and
self-condemned; he had injured his friend, injured his fellows, and
injured, most deeply of all, himself. For, as the poet sings--

"He that wrongs his friend,
Wrongs himself more; and ever bears about
A silent court of justice in his breast;
Himself the judge and jury, and himself
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned.
And that drags down his life."

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

IN THE DEPTHS.

How easy to keep free from sin,
How hard that freedom to recall!
For dreadful truth it is, that men
_Forge