intance, which had been
till now invisible.

But the more he was inclined to depreciate all other men, the
more he felt there was one to whom he had been grossly unjust.
And, as he recalled all that had passed, he began to do justice
to the man who had not flinched from warning him and braving him,
who he felt had been watching over him, and trying to guide him
straight, when he had lost all power or will to keep straight
himself.

From this time the dread increased on him lest any of the other
men should find out his quarrel with Hardy. Their utter ignorance
of it encouraged him in the hope that it might all pass off like
a bad dream. While it remained a matter between them alone, he
felt that all might come straight, though he could not think how.
He began to loiter by the entrance of the passage which led to
Hardy's rooms; sometimes he would find something to say to his
scout or bed-maker which took him into the back outside Hardy's
window, glancing at it sideways as he stood giving his orders.
There it was, wide open, generally--he hardly knew whether he
hoped to catch a glimpse of the owner, but he did hope that Hardy
might hear his voice. He watched him in chapel and hall
furtively, but constantly, and was always fancying what he was
doing and thinking about. Was it as painful an effort to Hardy,
he wondered, as to him to go on speaking, as if nothing had
happened, when they met at the boats, as they did now again
almost daily (for Diogenes was bent on training some of the
torpids for next year), and yet never to look one another in the
face; to live together as usual during part of every day, and yet
to feel all the time that a great wall had risen between them,
more hopelessly dividing them for the time than thousands of
miles of ocean or continent?

Amongst other distractions which Tom tried at this crisis of his
life, was reading. For three or four days running, he really
worked hard--very hard, if we were to reckon by the number of
hours he spent in his own rooms over his books with his oak
sported--hard, even though we should only reckon by results. For,
though scarcely an hour passed that he was not balancing on the
hind legs of his chair with a vacant look in his eyes, and
thinking of anything but Greek roots or Latin constructions, yet
on the whole he managed to get through a good deal, and one
evening, for the first time since his quarrel with Hardy, felt a
sensation of real comfort--it hardly amo