forgot his troubles, and was ready to talk with more freedom and in a kindlier mood.

"You surely won't want the whip now," said De Vayne, in some dismay, as Julian picked it up on saying good night.

"Yes, I shall," answered Julian. "Good night!"

CHAPTER XII.

A GUST OF THE SOUL.

"Once more will the wronger, at this last of all,
Dare to say, 'I did wrong,' rising in his fall?”

BROWNING.

THE story of Brogten's practical joke, and the circumstances which made it so unusually disgraceful, spread with lightning-like rapidity through St. Werner's College; and when he swaggered into hall with his usual self-confident air, he was surprised to find himself met with cold and even with frowning looks. Snatches of conversation which went on around him soon showed him the reason of the general disapprobation; and when he learnt how violently the current of popular opinion was beginning to set against him, and how unfavorable a view was taken of his conduct, he began seriously to regret that he had given the reins to his malice.

"I shouldn't wonder now if Home were to lose the Clerkland; he was sure of it before this morning," said one.

"What a cursed shame!" echoed another. "I never in my life heard a more blackguard trick. That fellow Brogten has lost the Hartonians the scholarship; lucky if he hasn't lost it to St. Werner's too. Perhaps that Benedict man will get it."

"I say, Kennedy," said a third, "if I were you or Lillyston, or any other of Home's particular friends, I'd duck Brogten."

"Let's wait till we see whether Home does lose the scholarship first," said Lillyston. "If he does, Brogten deserves anything; but I have strong hopes yet."

"I know Home," said Kennedy, "and he would never forgive such an interference, or I declare I should be inclined to do it."

"I should like to see you do it," thundered Brogten, from a farther end of the table.

"I have just given my reasons for not seeing fit to do it," said Kennedy, with a curl of the lip. "By-theby, Mr. Brogten," he continued, sarcastically, "I hope that you don't, after this, expect to be paid any of the bets you have made against Home's getting the Clerkland ?"

"There's my betting-book," replied Brogten, flinging it at Kennedy, whom it struck in the face, and who took no further notice of the insult than to pick up the book, and throw it into the great brazier, full of glowing charcoal, which stands in the center of St. Werner's hall.

"Don't do that, confound you!" cried Brogten, springing up. "Do you think there are no bets in it but those about the Clerkland ?"

"Keep your missiles to yourself, then," said Kennedy, while Brogten burnt his fingers in the vain attempt to rescue his book.

"I hope you've at least hedged, or behaved as judiciously in the case of your other bets as in those

142

A WINGED ARROW.

about the Clerkland," suggested one of his sporting friends.

This last sneer and insinuation were too much, and it galled the proud man to the quick to hear the laugh of scorn which followed. He turned round, seized his cap, and flinging at Kennedy a look of intense and concentrated hatred, left the hall, and rushed up to his

rooms.

To do Brogten justice, he had never intended for a moment to affect Julian's chance of ultimate success, when he enjoyed the mean satisfaction of screwing up his door. He had indeed regarded him with a dislike, which received a tinge of deeper intensity from the envy, and even admiration, with which it was largely mingled. But although he had calculated that his trick might be more telling and offensive if done at this particular opportunity, and although he had quite sufficient grudge against his former school-fellow to wish him a deep annoyance, yet he would never have dreamed of willfully thwarting his most cherished aims, or materially affecting his prospects and position. So vile a malice would have been intolerable to any one, and the thought of it was thoroughly intolerable to Brogten, in whom all gleams of honorable feeling were by no means extinguished, however dormant they might seem. had never entered into his thoughts to anticipate the violent consequences which his act had produced; and when told of Julian's passion and suffering, he had felt such real remorse that he had even half intended to wait for him as he went to hall, and there-in a quasipublic manner, since men were sure to be standing about on the hall steps-to endure the mortification of

It

expressing his regret to the man whom he had chosen to treat as his enemy. But when he found himself cut and jeered at-when he was even met by the suggestion that he had intended basely to serve his own pecuniary interests at Julian's expense-a method of swindling which he had never for one instant contemplated-all his softer and better feelings vanished at once, and created a brutal hardness in his heart, which now once more he was striving in solitude to mollify or

remove.

And he succeeded so far that, while brooding savagely over the venomous shafts of sarcasm and ridicule with which Kennedy had wounded him, he gradually softened his feelings toward Julian, by transferring them in tenfold virulence against Julian's nearest friend. Home and he had been school-fellows, after all, and Julian had never done him any wrong; on the contrary, he liked the boy; he remembered, distinctly, how the first seeds of ill-will against him had been sown, by the reserve with which Julian, as a school-fellow, had received his advances. Without being rude and uncivil, he had managed to hold aloof from him, and, as Brogten was in some repute at Harton when Home came, and was, moreover, an Hartonian of much longer standing, his sensitive pride had been stung by the fact that the "new fellow" whose pleasant face and manners had attracted his notice, did not at once and gratefully embrace his proffered friendship. Circumstances had tended to widen the breach between them; but secretly he liked Home still, and would have gladly been his friend. "And, after all," he thought, "Home has never once retaliated any injury which I have un