, admired his beautiful light hair, his
crisply-curling beard, his delicate complexion, his clear blue eyes,
and his finely shaped hands and feet. Even the inveterate reserve in his
manner, and the downcast, almost sullen, look which had prejudiced
_me_ against him, aroused a common feeling of romantic enthusiasm in my
servants' hall. It was decided, on the high authority of the housekeeper
herself, that "the new gentleman" was in love--and, more interesting
still, that he was the victim of an unhappy attachment which had driven
him away from his friends and his home.

For myself, I tried hard, and tried vainly, to get over my first dislike
to the senior pupil.

I could find no fault with him. All his habits were quiet and regular;
and he devoted himself conscientiously to his reading. But, little by
little, I became satisfied that his heart was not in his studies.
More than this, I had my reasons for suspecting that he was concealing
something from me, and that he felt painfully the reserve on his own
part which he could not, or dared not, break through. There were moments
when I almost doubted whether he had not chosen my remote country
rectory as a safe place of refuge from some person or persons of whom he
stood in dread.

For example, his ordinary course of proceeding, in the matter of his
correspondence, was, to say the least of it, strange.

He received no letters at my house. They waited for him at the village
post office. He invariably called for them himself, and invariably
forbore to trust any of my servants with his own letters for the post.
Again, when we were out walking together, I more than once caught him
looking furtively over his shoulder, as if he suspected some person of
following him, for some evil purpose. Being constitutionally a hater of
mysteries, I determined, at an early stage of our intercourse, on
making an effort to clear matters up. There might be just a chance of my
winning the senior pupil's confidence, if I spoke to him while the last
days of the summer vacation still left us alone together in the house.

"Excuse me for noticing it," I said to him one morning, while we were
engaged over our books--"I cannot help observing that you appear to have
some trouble on your mind. Is it indiscreet, on my part, to ask if I can
be of any use to you?"

He changed color--looked up at me quickly--looked down again at his
book--struggled hard with some secret fear or secret reluctance that
was