escape by the window; but looking out for the
purpose, he found that, when he had jumped on the sloping roof below
him, he was still thirty feet above the ground, which, in that place,
was not the turf of the bowling-green, but a hard gravel road. Giving
up the attempt in despair he sat down, and covered his face with his
hands; but instantly the picture of the senate-house, with the sixty
candidates who were trying for the scholarship, all writing at some new
paper--while he was thus cut off, (as he thought), from the long-desired
accomplishment of all his hopes--rose before his eyes, and springing up
once more he seized the poker, and raising it over his shoulder like a
hammer, brought down the heavy iron knob with a crash on the oaken
panels. He struck again and again, but, by a shower of fierce blows,
could only succeed in covering the door with deep round dents. Finally
he seized the heaviest chair in the room, and dashed it savagely with
one heavy drive against the unyielding oak; a second blow shivered the
chair to splinters, and Julian, a compulsory prisoner at that excited
moment, flung himself on the sofa, furious and weary, with something
that sounded like a fierce imprecation.

Full twenty minutes had been occupied by his futile and frantic efforts,
and for a few moments longer he sat still in a stupor of grief and rage.
Meanwhile, several of the other competitors for the Clerkland had
noticed his absence in the senate-house, and Owen and Kennedy kept
directing anxious glances to the door, and dreading that he was ill. At
last half an hour had elapsed, and Kennedy, unable any longer to endure
the suspense, went up to the examiner and said--

"One of the candidates is absent, sir. Would you allow me to go and
inquire the reason?"

"Who is it?" asked the examiner.

"Home, sir."

"Indeed. But I am afraid I cannot allow you to leave the senate-house;
the rules, you know, on this subject are necessarily very strict."

"Then, sir, I will merely show up what I have written, for I am sure
there must be some unusual reason for Home's absence."

"Oh, no, Mr Kennedy, pray don't do so," said the examiner, who knew how
well Kennedy had been doing; "I will send the University marshal to
inquire for Mr Home; it is a very unusual compliment to pay him, but I
think it may be as well to do so."

It so happened that, as the marshal crossed the court to Julian's rooms,
Lillyston and De Vayne, who were strolling t