The moment he was out of the room, Mr Cupples got out of bed, and crawled to the cupboard. To his mortification, however, he found that what his landlady had said was in the main true; for the rascals had not left a spoonful either in the bottle which he used as a decanter, or in the store-bottle called the _tappit (crested) hen_ by way of pre-eminence. He drained the few drops which had gathered from the sides of the latter, for it was not in two halves as she had represented, and crawled back to bed. A fresh access of fever was the consequence of the exertion. It was many days before he was able to rise. After the morning-classes were over, Alec went to tell Mr Fraser, the only professor whom he had not already seen, about his adventure, and the consequences of the librarian's generous interference. "I was uneasy about you, Mr Forbes," said the professor, "for I heard from your friend Beauchamp that you had got into a row with the blackguards, but he did not know how you had come off." His friend Beauchamp! How did he know about it? And when could he have told Mr Fraser?--But Kate entered, and Alec forgot Beauchamp. She hesitated, but advanced and held out her hand. Alec took it, but felt it tremble in his with a backward motion as of reluctance, and he knew that another thickness of the parting veil had fallen between her and him. "Will you stay and take tea with us?" asked the professor. "You never come to see us now." Alec stammered out an unintelligible excuse. "Your friend Beauchamp will be here," continued Mr Fraser. "I fear Mr Beauchamp is no friend of mine," said Alec. "Why do you think that? He speaks very kindly of you--always." Alec made no reply. Ugly things were vaguely showing themselves through a fog. Kate left the room. "You had better stay," said the old man kindly. "I was up all night with Mr Cupples," answered Alec, longing to be alone that he might think things out, "and I am anxious about him. I should be quite uneasy if I did stay--thank you, Mr Fraser." "Ah! well; your excuse is a good one," answered the old man. And they parted. Alec went home with such a raging jealousy in his heart, that he almost forgot Mr Cupples, and scarcely cared how he might find him. For this was the first time he had heard of any acquaintance between the professor and Beauchamp. And why should Kate hesitate to shake hands with him? He recalled how her hand had trembled and fluttered on his arm when he spoke of the red stain on the water; and how she had declined to shake hands with him when he told her that he had come from the dissecting-room. And the conviction seized him that Beauchamp had been working on her morbid sensitiveness to his disadvantage--taking his revenge on him, by making the girl whom he worshipped shrink from him with irrepressible loathing.