een one of the
severest trials, not to himself only, but to those whom he most dearly
loved; it was the thing--the _one_ thing--of which he had thought, and
for which he had prayed. "And now it was wrenched from him," so he
thought, "by this mean and dastardly villain."

He had determined to horse-whip Brogten, at all hazards, though he knew
that Brogten was far stronger than himself. De Vayne's manoeuvre had
disconcerted his intention, for he could not carry it out in cold blood;
but even now he felt by no means sure that he was right to take
passively an insult which, if unresented, might, he thought, be
repeated, some other time, and which, if frequently repeated would
render college life wholly intolerable. All this was floating through
his mind, when there came a loud--he took it for an insolent--knock at
the door, and his enemy stood before him.

His enemy stood before him, humbled and remorseful, with the words of
apology on his lips, and his heart full of such emotions as might have
enabled Julian to convert him from an enemy into a lasting and grateful
friend. But when he saw him, in one instant furious, unreasoning,
headlong anger had again seized Julian's mind--the more easily because
he had already yielded to it once. Without stopping to hear a word--
without catching the gentler tone of Brogten's rough voice--without
noticing his downcast expression of countenance--Julian sprang up,
assumed that Brogten had come to ridicule or even insult him, glared at
him, clenched his teeth, and then seizing De Vayne's riding-whip, laid
it without mercy about Brogten's shoulders.

During the first few blows, Brogten was disarmed by intense surprise.
Of all receptions, this was the only one which it had never occurred to
him to contemplate. He had imagined Julian bitter, sarcastic, cold; he
had prepared himself for a torrent of passionate and overwhelming
invective; he had thought how to behave if Julian remained silent, or
rejected with simple contempt his stammered apology; but to be
horse-whipped by one so much weaker than himself--by one whom he
remembered to have pitied and patronised when he came to Harton, a
delicate rosy-cheeked boy--this he had certainly never thought of.
Julian had almost expended his rage in half a dozen wild blows before
Brogten was startled from his surprise into a consciousness of his
position.

But when he did realise it all the demon took possession of his heart.
He seized Julia