r the rail of the gallery, just as she had lately leaned over the
barge's rail, staring down and along. But there was no spark of triumph
now in her eyes; only a deep melancholy; and in her mouth a taste as of
dust and ashes. She thought of last night, and of all the buoyant life
that this Hall had held. Of the Duke she thought, and of the whole vivid
and eager throng of his fellows in love. Her will, their will, had been
done. But, there rose to her lips the old, old question that withers
victory--"To what end?" Her eyes ranged along the tables, and an
appalling sense of loneliness swept over her. She turned away, wrapping
the folds of her cloak closer across her breast. Not in this College
only, but through and through Oxford, there was no heart that beat for
her--no, not one, she told herself, with that instinct for self-torture
which comes to souls in torment. She was utterly alone to-night in the
midst of a vast indifference. She! She! Was it possible? Were the gods
so merciless? Ah no, surely...

Down at the high table the feast drew to its close, and very different
was the mood of the feasters from that of the young woman whose glance
had for a moment rested on their unromantic heads. Generations of
undergraduates had said that Oxford would be all very well but for the
dons. Do you suppose that the dons had had no answering sentiment? Youth
is a very good thing to possess, no doubt; but it is a tiresome setting
for maturity. Youth all around prancing, vociferating, mocking; callow
and alien youth, having to be looked after and studied and taught,
as though nothing but it mattered, term after term--and now, all of a
sudden, in mid-term, peace, ataraxy, a profound and leisured stillness.
No lectures to deliver to-morrow; no "essays" to hear and criticise;
time for the unvexed pursuit of pure learning...

As the Fellows passed out on their way to Common Room, there to tackle
with a fresh appetite Pedby's grace, they paused, as was their wont, on
the steps of the Hall, looking up at the sky, envisaging the weather.
The wind had dropped. There was even a glimpse of the moon riding behind
the clouds. And now, a solemn and plangent token of Oxford's perpetuity,
the first stroke of Great Tom sounded.

XXII

Stroke by stroke, the great familiar monody of that incomparable curfew
rose and fell in the stillness.

Nothing of Oxford lingers more surely than it in the memory of Oxford
men; and to one revisiting thes