away from
him.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS

The results of the University examinations filled three sheets of the
Winnipeg morning papers. With eager eyes and anxious hearts hundreds
of the youth of Manitoba and the other western provinces scanned these
lists. It was a veritable Day of Judgment, a day of glad surprises for
the faithful in duty and the humble in heart, a day of Nemesis for
the vainly self-confident slackers who had grounded their hopes upon
eleventh hour cramming and lucky shots in exam papers. There were
triumphs which won universal approval, others which received grudging
praise.

Of the former, none of those, in the Junior year at least, gave more
general satisfaction than did Jane Brown's in the winning of the German
prize over Heinrich Kellerman, and for a number of reasons. In the first
place Jane beat the German in his own language, at his own game, so to
speak. Then, too, Jane, while a hard student, took her full share
in college activities, and carried through these such a spirit of
generosity and fidelity as made her liked and admired by the whole body
of the students. Kellerman, on the other hand, was of that species of
student known as a pot-hunter, who took no interest in college life, but
devoted himself solely to the business of getting for himself everything
that the college had to offer.

Perhaps Jane alone, of his fellow students, gave a single thought to
the disappointment of the little Jew. She alone knew how keenly he had
striven for the prize, and how surely he had counted upon winning it.
She had the feeling, too, that somehow the class lists did not represent
the relative scholarship of the Jew and herself. He knew more German
than she. It was this feeling that prompted her to write him a note
which brought an answer in formal and stilted English.

"Dear Miss Brown," the answer ran, "I thank you for your beautiful
note, which is so much like yourself that in reading it I could see
your smile, which so constantly characterises you to all your friends.
I confess to disappointment, but the disappointment is largely mitigated
by the knowledge that the prize which I failed to acquire went to one
who is so worthy of it, and for whom I cherish the emotions of profound
esteem and good will. Your devoted and disappointed rival, Heinrich
Kellerman."

"Rather sporting of him, isn't it?" said Jane to her friend Ethel
Murray, who had come to dinner.

"Sportin