me."

"No, no!" said Paul firmly. "It is very kind of you, but I would rather
not. If Stanley Moncrief and I are ever to be friends again, he will
have to find out for himself that I'm not the cur he thinks me. I've
tried to explain, but he would not hear. I shall never try again, unless
he comes round and asks me."

"I think you are right," said Wyndham, after a pause. "None the less,
I'm sorry--deeply sorry--that you should have lost your friend through
me."

"Oh, things will work round presently," said Paul lightly. "I suppose,
after that affair at the sand-pit, you were quite the hero of your
school?"

"I don't know about hero. They made a lot of fuss over me, because, as
you know well enough, there's no love lost between us and Garside. But
if anybody deserves to be the hero of a school, it is you."

"Nonsense!"

"It is easy enough to flow with the tide, but awfully hard to struggle
against it. That's what you're doing just now, Percival."

He walked with Percival for some distance on the road to Garside, and
when they separated they shook hands, unaware of the fact that they had
been seen by one of the Third Form. After Wyndham's explanation, how was
it possible for Paul to refuse the hand held out to him?

Now, Stanley Moncrief was at this time in his dormitory, very miserable.
He had been so, in fact, ever since he had broken with Paul. He had a
real affection for him. He had loved him as he might have loved a
brother; then, after his defeat at the sand-pit, he felt that there was
only one thing to be done, and that was to--hate him. So he had broken
off the friendship, and rushed into the arms of the two whom he
disliked--Newall and Parfitt.

But when Stanley began to reflect a little more deeply, he began to see
that he could not altogether shake off the old link that bound him to
Paul. He had always been comfortable and at ease with him--could sit
with him, as it were, in his shirt-sleeves and slippers. He had felt at
home with him from the first day they met. He could not feel the same
with Newall or Parfitt, try as he might. He seemed to be ever acting a
part when he was with them, and they seemed to be doing the same when
they were with him. For instance, he would have liked to have read the
letter Paul sent him by Waterman; but the eyes of Newall were upon him,
so he tore it up in bravado, and scattered the fragments in the way
already described. It was not Stanley's real self did that--he was