hardened
little boy rose from his knees too overcome to speak.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

THE RECONCILIATION AND THE LOSS.

The few remain, the many change and pass,
Heaven's light alone remains, earth's shadows flee;
Life, like a dome of many coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity,
Until death shiver it to atoms.

Shelley's _Adonais_.

The termination of Wilton's sojourn at Saint Winifred's soon arrived.
As yet none but the two head boys in the house knew of his detection.
The thefts indeed had ceased; but the name of the offender was still a
matter of constant surmise, and it was no easy task for Wilton--
conscious how soon they would be informed--to listen to the strong terms
of disgust which were applied to the yet unknown delinquent. The
barriers of his conceit, his coolness, his audacity, were all broken
down; he was a changed boy; his manner was grave and silent, and he
almost hid himself during those days in Kenrick's study, where Kenrick,
with true kindness, still permitted him to sit.

Meanwhile it became generally known that he was going to leave almost
immediately; and as boys often left in this way at the division of the
quarter, his departure, though rather sudden, created no astonishment,
nor had any one as yet the most distant conjecture as to the reasons
which led to it. It is not too much to say, that Wilton was one of the
last boys whom the rest would have suspected; they knew indeed that he
never professed to be guided by any strong moral principles; but they
thought him an unlikely fellow to be guilty of acts which sinned so
completely against the schoolboy's artificial code, and which branded
him who committed them with the charge of acknowledged meanness.

On the very evening of his departure, the house was again summoned by a
notice from Whalley and Kenrick to meet in the classroom after
Preparation. They came, not knowing for what they were summoned.
Whalley opened the proceedings by requesting that any boy who had of
late had money stolen from him would stand up. Four or five of them
rose, and on stating the sums, mostly small, which they had lost,
immediately received the amount from Whalley, much to their surprise,
and no less to their content.

The duty which still remained was far less pleasing and more delicate,
and it was by Wilton's express and earnest request that it was
undertaken by Kenrick and not by Whalley. It was a painful moment for
b