boy within reach of Laurel
Grove. But Arnold was the favourite, and he told Keith that he and
Gurlie had agreed to wait for each other and to marry as soon as they
were of age.

It was like a fairy tale to Keith--a wonderful tale like no one he had
ever read. And the most wonderful thing about it was that it was real,
and that he was permitted to play a sort of part in it. His thoughts
went back to Oscar and what he had told Keith about the love between
Oscar's father and mother. Here was love again, mystically beautiful, so
that it brought a new light into the faces of those it touched. And
Keith's heart grew lonely and wistful within him. But strangely enough,
he never thought of connecting Arnold's love for Gurlie with what he had
read in the book found in his father's book case. That was quite a
different thing, he felt.

XII

The presiding genius of the examinations was Lector Booklund, teacher of
Latin in Lower and Upper Sixth. He was short and stocky and gnarled by
gout. Instead of speaking, he emitted a series of verbal explosives, and
the boy whose answers didn't come quick enough became the object of
withering scorn. Most of his life seemed concentrated in his eyes where
twinkling merriment and blazing anger alternated with bewildering
rapidity. He posed as a tyrant, but the boys who knew him well said that
at heart he was as kind as he was just, and that his nervous impatience
and bursts of rage were merely the results of severe physical
sufferings.

The moment he caught sight of Keith among the boys up for examination,
most of whom hailed from other schools, he became interested and began
to draw him out. And Keith was able to respond with some of his old-time
quickwittedness. His ambition had been stirred into a semblance of life
through the shock of his failure, while the summer's rest and peace had
brought back some of his natural vivacity. The inner conflict was still
a source of trouble, but it did not seem quite so much a matter of life
and death. He had not yet passed the crisis, but he had reached a point
where a little tactful nursing might put him on the right path again
for good. What he needed above all was encouragement, and that was what
he got for a while from the new class principal.

He passed the examinations with ease. Then the sense of being a favoured
pupil once more made him throw himself into the studies with
considerable zest. Little by little, however, his zest slacked off.