Hall-mark of the University upon those who had passed its tests and proved themselves to be worthy metal. Over the end of the bed hung the brand-new bachelor's gown and s

e when, if the Fates were very kind to him, he would have taken his degree and would be able to wa

the great audience-the undergraduates in the upper galleries; graduates, tutors and fellows, proud fathers and mothers, delighted sisters and other feminine relatives, including cousins and others, together with desperately envious younger brothers making the most earnest resolves to hencefor

ts which would burst out from the throats of his fellow-students, and, indeed, from the whole audience, when he came on to doff his cap and kne

in his triumph, all glorying in his success, in this splendid fruition of the labours

nd single-heartedly for the prizes of his academic career, he had also worked for them as an athlete might have striven for his laurel

sacrifice as well; a trial which, as he knew even now, would strain his moral fibre very nearly to the breaking point. It was a struggle for which he had be

oth time enough to think-to remain faithful, or to think better of it, as the case might be-and, most important of all for Vane, to determine by the help of more deliberate thought and added experience, and by converse wi

to be the darkest. The golden gates of the Eden of Love lay open before him, but, instead of entering them, he must pass by with eyes averted, and enter

y-reasoned conversations with Ernshaw, and the one of the night before had decided him-or it might be more correct to

curse which forbade him to mix with his kind as other men did. He must stand aloof, crying "unclean" in his soul if not with his voice. Henceforth he must be in the world and not of it-and this, as he thought, he had already prov

d have been filled with brightest dreams of the morrow, had left him, not only mentally worn out, but even physically sick. He felt as though the scene which would m

offee and left the food untouched. As he stood in front of the glass, putting on his collar, his face looked to him more like that of a man going to exe

also a rigid teetotaler, had sat with them and seen them drink. He had smelt the fumes of it in the atmosphere of the room, first with temptation which he had fought against and overcome in the strength of the memory

ctimoniously, but just as a man who had had the same weakness and had overcome it because he thought it necessary to do so, and they h

two years, during which not a drop of alcohol had passed his lips-must have worked the poison out of his blood. Hencefor

t, cried out for some support, some new life, new energy, if even for an hour or so, so

hands and fingers were trembling as though he wer

ink-I haven't had for over a year now-I only want it as medicine, as a patient has it from a doctor. I can't go on without it, I must have something or I shall faint in the Theatre or do s

stopper out of the decanter and deliberately raised it to his nostrils. No, it was powerless. The aroma had no more effect upon him than the scent of, say, eau de Cologne would have had. That night in Warwick Gardens, it had been like the touch of some evil magician's wa

sful into his coffee, stirred it, lifted the cup, and, after one sing

run like lightning through his veins. "Hallo, who's that? Confound it, I hope

-room, and replaced the decanter in the stand

Is that yo

and Reginald Ga

the first place I want to be the first to congratulate you, and in the second place I want you to give me a brandy and soda. I got here rather late last night with one or t

ept mine for what you've done in the Tripos, and as for the brandy and soda, w

e spirit case again, and put th

ave said this. "The fact is, I suppose, I've been overdoing it a bit lately, and that, and the anxiety of the thing, h

of brandy, "I suppose you've quite got over that-well, if you'll excuse me saying so-that foolishness about inherited alcoholism and that sort of stuff, and therefore you'll lay all your laurels at the feet of the fair Enid without a scruple? Of course, you remember that juvenile hiding you gave me on the "Orient"? Quite romantic, wasn't it? Well, I

h infinite labour during the past two years, seemed already to have been made by someone else-a someone else who was yet himself. He had made them and he was proud of them, and,

ver, there would be a little family gathering in his rooms, just their fathers and themselves, and he would tell them everything frankly, and they should help him to choose-for after all, it was only their right, and she, surely, h

thoughts, as they flashed through his mind while Garthorne was speaking. They seemed perfectly reason

ow. At any rate, for the last two years I haven't touched a drop of anything stronger than coffee, and I've sat here and in other men's rooms with fellows drinking in an atmosphere, as one might say, full of d

yours. You got screwed one night for the first time in your life, and it gave you a fright. But the fact that you've been able to swear off absolutely for two years, is perfectly clear proof tha

his glass with Garthorne's, something seemed to drag upon his arm, and something in his soul rose i

man. Here's t

o him, now they sounded like an ordinary commonplace. He put