e any notice of his summons, for he did not
return. What a pity! Had he done so, Mr. Sawyer, who understood him too
well to feel the indignation a more superficial person would have done
at his passionate outburst, had it in his heart to take the hasty,
impulsive, generous-spirited lad into his confidence and what might not
have been the result? What a different future for the poor under-master,
had he then and there and for ever won from the boy the respect and
sympathy he so well deserved!

"Jack returned to his companions gloomy but taciturn. He gave them to
understand that his mission had failed, and that henceforth he would have
nothing to say to Sawyer that he could help, and that was all. He entered
into no particulars, but there are occasions on which silence says more
than words, and from this time no voice was ever raised in the junior
master's defence--throughout the school he was never referred to except
as 'the cad,' or 'that cad Sawyer.'

"And alone in his own room, Mr. Sawyer, sorrowful but unresentful still,
was making up his mind that his efforts had been all in vain. 'I must
give it up,' he said. 'And both for myself and the boys the sooner the
better, before there is any overt disrespect which would _have_ to be
noticed. It is no use fighting on, I have not the knack of it. The boys
will never like me, and I may do harm where I would wish to do good. I
must try something else.'

"Two or three weeks later--a month perhaps--the boys were one day
surprised by the appearance of a strange face at what had been Mr.
Sawyer's desk. And on inquiry the new comer proved to be a young curate
accidentally in the neighbourhood, who had undertaken to fill for a few
weeks the under-master's vacant place. The occurrence made some
sensation--it was unusual for any change of the kind to take place during
a term. 'Was Sawyer ill?' one or two of the boys asked, as there came
before them the recollection of the young man's pale and careworn face,
and they recalled with some compunction the Pariah-like life that for
some time past had been his.

"No, he was not ill, they were informed, but he had requested the
head-master to supply his place and let him leave, for private reasons,
as soon as possible.

"What were the private reasons? The head-master and his colleagues had
tried in vain to arrive at them. Not one syllable of complaint had fallen
from the junior master's lips. He had simply repeated that, though sorry
t