from what I know of him, to forget his little debts. But hallo, old
chap, what have you got in your noddle?"

"Nothing," Smith answered curtly.

He had started in his chair, and the look had flashed over his face
which comes upon a man who is struck suddenly by some unpleasant idea.

"You looked as if something I had said had taken you on the raw.
By-the-way, you have made the acquaintance of Master B. since I looked
in last, have you not? Young Monkhouse Lee told me something to that
effect."

"Yes; I know him slightly. He has been up here once or twice."

"Well, you're big enough and ugly enough to take care of yourself.
He's not what I should call exactly a healthy sort of Johnny, though,
no doubt, he's very clever, and all that. But you'll soon find out for
yourself. Lee is all right; he's a very decent little fellow. Well,
so long, old chap! I row Mullins for the Vice-Chancellor's pot on
Wednesday week, so mind you come down, in case I don't see you before."

Bovine Smith laid down his pipe and turned stolidly to his books once
more. But with all the will in the world, he found it very hard to
keep his mind upon his work. It would slip away to brood upon the man
beneath him, and upon the little mystery which hung round his chambers.
Then his thoughts turned to this singular attack of which Hastie had
spoken, and to the grudge which Bellingham was said to owe the object
of it. The two ideas would persist in rising together in his mind, as
though there were some close and intimate connection between them. And
yet the suspicion was so dim and vague that it could not be put down in
words.

"Confound the chap!" cried Smith, as he shied his book on pathology
across the room. "He has spoiled my night's reading, and that's reason
enough, if there were no other, why I should steer clear of him in the
future."

For ten days the medical student confined himself so closely to his
studies that he neither saw nor heard anything of either of the men
beneath him. At the hours when Bellingham had been accustomed to visit
him, he took care to sport his oak, and though he more than once heard
a knocking at his outer door, he resolutely refused to answer it. One
afternoon, however, he was descending the stairs when, just as he was
passing it, Bellingham's door flew open, and young Monkhouse Lee came
out with his eyes sparkling and a dark flush of anger upon his olive
cheeks. Close at his heels followed Bellin