too, Julian felt to be his duty; and distasteful as it was, he would not
shrink from performing it. Hazlet received him with a ludicrous air of
offended dignity, and was barely overcome into a tone of magnanimous
forgiveness by Julian's frank apology. On the whole, Julian decided
that it would be best not to call on Brogten, lest, by so doing, he
should seem to be reminding him of the consequences of his enmity under
the appearance of expressing a regret. It only remained therefore to
see Lillyston, and to this visit Julian looked with unmitigated joy.

"Forgive me, Hugh," he said, as he entered the room; "from this time
forward I shall owe you a new debt of gratitude; you have saved me from
I know not what disgrace."

Lillyston was delighted to see him look like his old self once more.
The thunder-cloud which had been hanging on his brow was dissipated, and
the sullen expression had wholly passed.

"Don't talk of debt, Julian," he said; "between friends, you know, there
are no obligations--they are merged in the friendship itself."

"I am amazed at my own intolerable folly, Hugh. I hope this is the last
time that I shall yield to such storms of passion. I have much to be
ashamed of."

"Well, Julian," said Lillyston, changing the subject, "you mustn't think
any more of this Clerkland, for potentially you got it, as everybody
acknowledges; _dynamei_ you were successful, if not _ezgo_."

"I don't _mean_ to let it discourage me," said Julian, "though the
potential is mightily different from the actual." Nor _did_ he suffer
it to discourage him, or weaken his endeavours. His life soon began to
flow once more in its usual, even, and quiet course. It did not take
him long to discover that it was possible to live happily without the
Clerkland, and he wondered in himself at the intensity of the desire to
obtain it, which he had suffered to overpower him. He felt no touch of
envy towards Owen, whose friendship he began to value more and more, and
who voluntarily told him, from information that he had derived from the
examiners themselves, that the decision had long hung in a doubtful
scale. In fact, the scholarship would have been divided between both of
them but for one of the examiners, who hardly appreciated Julian's
merits. It was so well understood that Julian must have been the
successful candidate but for the one fatal paper on Monday morning, that
he rather gained than lost in reputation from the result