ust for a little longer," implored Ferrers, "to save me from a
lasting disgrace."

Louis turned his head away--it was a hard, hard struggle: "I will
try to bear it if God will help me," he said; "I will not mention
it at present."

"Oh! how can I thank you! how can I! how shall I ever be able!"
cried Ferrers: "but will Alfred tell?"

"He does not know," replied Louis, in a low tone.

"But will he not mention what has passed?"

"I will warn him then," said Louis.

Ferrers then in broken sentences renewed his thanks, and Louis, after
hearing a few in silence, as if he heard nothing, turned his full moist
eyes on him with a sorrowful beseeching look,

"You have done a very wicked thing, Ferrers. Oh do pray to God to
forgive you."

"I will try to do any thing you wish," replied Ferrers.

"A prayer because _I_ wished, could do you no good. You must feel you
have sinned against God. Do try to think of this. If it should make
you do so, I _think_ I could cheerfully bear this disgrace a little
longer for you, though what it is to bear I cannot tell you."

"You are almost an angel, Louis!" exclaimed Ferrers.

"Oh don't say such things to me, Ferrers," said Louis, "pray don't.
I am not more so than I was before this--I am but a sinful creature
like yourself, and it is the remembrance of this that makes me pity
you. Now do leave me alone; I cannot bear to hear you flatter me now."

Ferrers lingered yet, though Louis moved from him with a shuddering
abhorrence of the fawning, creeping manner of his school-fellow. Seeing
that Ferrers still loitered near him, he asked if there were any thing
more to say.

"Will your brother know this?"

"Reginald?" replied Louis. "Of course--no--_I_ shall not tell him."

"A thousand thousand times I thank you,--oh Louis, Louis, you are
too good!"

"Will you be kind enough to let me alone," said Louis gently,
but very decidedly.

This time the request was complied with, and Louis resumed his former
seat, and fixing his eyes vacantly on the sweet prospect before him,
ruminated with a full heart on the recent discovery; and, strange to
say, though he had voluntarily promised to screen Ferrers a little
longer from his justly merited disgrace, he felt as if it had been
only a compulsory sense of duty and not benevolence which had led him
to do so, and was inclined to murmur at his hard lot. For some time he
sat in a kind of sullen apathy, without being able to send up a prayer,
even