"That is settled then. Oh, we won't say good-bye yet awhile."

"It is a strange thing," said Kavanagh, who, having finished his tea, had tilted his chair so that his back leaned against the wall, while his feet rested on another chair, less for the comfort of the position, than to afford him an opportunity of admiring his well-cut trousers, his striped socks, and his dandy shoes; "it is a strange thing that there should only be one career fit for a fellow to follow, and that it should be impossible for a fellow to get into it."

"It sounds rather like a sweeping a.s.sertion that, doesn't it?" observed Strachan, who was helping himself to marmalade.

"That is because you do not grasp the meaning which I attach to the word _fellow_. I do not allude to the ordinary mortal, who might be a lawyer, or a parson, or a painter, or fiddler, or anything, and who might get any number of marks in an examination. I mean by fellows, the higher order of beings, who are only worth consideration; I do not define them, because that is impossible; you must know, or you mustn't know, according to your belonging to them or not. Anyhow, there they are, and everything and everybody else is only of value so far as he, she, or it is conducive to their comfort and well-being. For them the army is the only fit profession, and only a few of them can get enough marks to enter it."

"Am I one of these extra superfines?" asked Strachan.

"You may be, perhaps, if you don't eat too much marmalade."

"Come, you are pretty fond of jam yourself, Kavanagh," cried Forsyth.

"Well, yes; we all have our little weaknesses."

"That reminds me," said Strachan, turning round and poking the fire.

"Our school career is drawing to a close, and I have never made my confession. I committed a crime last November which I have never owned, which no one suspects, but which weighs, whenever I think of it, on my conscience."

"Unburden," said Kavanagh.

"Well, then, you may remember that the weather was very mild up to the seventh of the month."

"Don't; but grant it. Go ahead."

"On the eighth of November it grew suddenly colder, and I got out my winter things, and in the afternoon I changed. Having done so, I put my pencil in the right-hand waistcoat pocket. There was something round and hard there--a lozenge? No, a shilling, which had remained there ever since I changed my winter clothes in the spring. Now at that time we were reduced to anchovy paste for breakfast, and our bare rations for tea. Money was spent, tick was scarce, stores were exhausted. Faithful to a friendship which has all things in common. I went out to Dell's and bought a pot of apricot jam for tea, the time for which had arrived.

As ill-luck would have it, both you fellows were detained at something or another--French, I rather think. I had to go to my tutor myself at seven, so I could not wait, and began my tea alone. Well, the jam was good, very good, hanged good; I never ate such jam! Had I had quite a third of it? Not quite, perhaps; I gave myself the benefit of the doubt. But, then, the gap looked awful. Happy thought! I would turn it out into a saucer, and you might take it for a sixpenny pot. After all, not expecting any, you would be pleased with that. But it looked rather more than a sixpenny pot, so I had a bit more to reduce. And then--you would not come, and you knew nothing about it. Why make two bites of a cherry? I finished it, threw the pot out of window, and held my tongue. But oh! Next day, when Kavanagh received his weekly allowance, and laid it out in treacle and sprats for the public good, I did indeed feel guilty."

"But you ate the sprats and treacle all the same, I expect."

"I did. I would not shirk my punishment, and flinch from the coals of fire which were heaped on my head. I even enjoyed them. But my conscience has been very sore, and feels better now than it has done for a long time."

"You have not got absolution yet," said Forsyth.

"Not by long chalks," cried Kavanagh. "Jam! And apricot of all jams.

If you really want to wipe out the crime you must make rest.i.tution."

"Gladly; but would not that be difficult?"

"Not at all; you can do it in kind. At compound interest three pots will clear you, I should say; or, if it don't run to that, say two."

"Two will do," echoed Forsyth. "Who's that at the door?"

"It's me," said a youth--dressed in a chocolate coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons--entering the room.

"Oh, happy Josiah!" exclaimed Kavanagh; "careless of rules, and allowing your nominative and accusative cases to wander about at their own sweet will; what pangs would be yours at mid-day to-morrow if you were a scholar instead of a page, and said '_Hominem sum_,' or uttered any other equivalent to your late remark! Shades of Valpy and Arnold--'It's me!'"

"Mr Wheeler wants to see you at once," said Josiah, not listening to the criticism on his grammar, and addressing Forsyth.

"My tutor wants to see me? What on earth about, I wonder?"

Obviously, the best way to satisfy his curiosity on this head was to go at once, and this he did.

Mr Wheeler sat at the paper-laden desk in his private study, under the brilliant light of a lamp with a green gla.s.s shade over it. There was no other light in the room, which was consequently in shadow, while the tutor was in a flood of illumination.

"Sit down, Forsyth," he said. "I am sorry to say I have bad news for you from home."

"My mother!"

"No, no, my boy; bad enough, but not so bad as that. There are money losses. Your father was connected with a bank, and it has been unfortunate. It seems that it was a great shock to him, and he was not in very good health. You may have known that?"

"Yes, sir, yes. I noticed that he looked ill when I went home at Christmas."

"To be sure--yes. Then you will not be surprised at this sudden blow having affected him very seriously?"

Harry could not take it all in at once; he had to sit silent awhile, and let the meaning of his tutor's words sink in. At length he asked--"Is he dead?" And the sound of his own voice uttering the word made him give a sob.

"No," said Mr Wheeler; "he is very ill, and insensible, but living, and while there is life there is hope, you know. People often recover from fits, and this seems to be an attack of that nature. But it is as well that you should go home at once. Put a few things together, and you will catch the 8:30 train. A fly and your travelling money shall be ready by the time you are."

"Thank you, sir," said Harry, and went back to his Dame's House in a dazed state. Strachan and Kavanagh heard him come upstairs, and as he went straight to his own room they followed him.

"Well, have you got the medal for alcaics?" asked Strachan, for they had concluded that that was the news his tutor had for him. But seeing his friend's face he stopped short.

"Something the matter, old fellow, I am afraid," he said. "Bad news from home?"

"Yes," said Harry, in a voice he just kept from faltering. "I must go home to-night; my father is ill."

"I am awfully sorry," said Strachan, uncomfortably, wanting to do something to aid or cheer his friend, and unable to think what.

Kavanagh made no remark, but, seeing at a glance how the land lay, took a candle to the box-room, caught up a travelling bag belonging to Forsyth, and brought it down to him just as he was going to call Josiah to find it for him.

It was not long before he got some things into it, and was ready to start. A grip of the hand from each of his friends and he was gone.

What a bad time he had during that short journey; feverishly impatient, and yet dreading to get to the end of it. It was an express train, and he got to London in an hour, and was just in time for another on the short line to his home. So he reached Holly Lodge by eleven. Before he could ring the door opened. Trix was listening for the wheels, and ran to let him in. She had been crying, but was very quiet.

"He is alive, but cannot see or hear," she said. "Come."

His mother was there, and two doctors, who looked very grave. One soon left, but the other, who was the regular medical attendant and a friend, remained, not, as he plainly said, that he could do anything for the sick man, who was dying. And in the course of the night he pa.s.sed away without regaining consciousness.

But there is no good in dwelling upon that, or on the gloom of the next few weeks. Poor Mr Forsyth had a heart disease, and when the Great Transit Bank came to final smash, the agitation killed him then and there.

For he was quite ruined. It was not only the money he had invested in the bank which was gone, but, as a large shareholder, he was responsible for the enormous sums due to those who had dealt with the bank.

Harry thought at first that they were penniless, and wondered almost in despair how he should be able to support his mother and sister. For he had learned no trade, he was not a skilled artisan, and mere manual labour and clerk-work are, he knew, very poorly paid.

But when Mrs Forsyth had recovered sufficiently from the first shock of her grief to grapple with the cares of every-day life, she showed him that it was not so bad as he had feared.

"There is my five thousand pounds," she said--"my very own, which I had before marriage, and which is secured to me. Two hundred and fifty pounds a year I get from it, and it has always been a little pocket- money which I had, without going to your dear father for every penny.

And now we must manage to live upon it."