In all this her voice was finely self-possessed, she spoke as of a property in land, a fortune; and as she did so, discovered an unexpected exactitude and dignity of demeanour. She seemed—perhaps from affectation—unmoved by his sudden gesture and his assurance that he would not return. The letters were still her theme, and their nature, or at least her interpretation of them, were the last words he heard from her lips as, much more clearly than he wished, she still called after him across the twilight. He would not turn his head. He left her and pushed homeward, taxing his strength unwittingly, and attempting a desperate hope that she would indeed so cherish his writing that he should hear neither of it nor of her again. He reached college in utter weariness. June was not yet ended; the weather was still cold; he lit a fire for company, and stared at it for an hour or more, in that terror of the future which will oppress men of his temperament upon any considerable accident. His large, fair, Viking body seemed to grow weak and to sink upon itself, as he sat there tortured by thought. His face, though heavy, was too young for this care to alter it; but all energy had disappeared from his eyes: and his brain, in a kind of lethargy, sought no solution. The letters and his debts, his debts and the letters, mixed in a confused nightmare. He sat up as though determined to shake off a mere obsession, and to seek refuge in reality. He took a sheet of paper on which he had written the heading “Saxon Origins.” He wasted perhaps thirty seconds gazing at this, then he put his pen through it, and began to draw up an alphabetical list. He could remember no creditor in A——. There was Barlton, the tobacconist; ... he could think of no other “Ba,” except Bazeley, and “Baz” comes after “Bar.” So he wrote “Barlton” down at the top of the paper. Now how much did he owe Barlton? He had a vague idea in his head that it was something over thirty-three pounds; indeed, he seemed to remember the figure quite clearly. He wrote down “33.” Then, to satisfy himself more fully, he went to a drawer, and by good luck hit upon the bill before he had looked ten minutes; there it was, “£33, 14s. 7d.; but it was nearly two years old. He pondered. There seemed to float before his mind another bill—more recent; he could not be at the pains of seeking it. He “averaged” his present debt to Mr Barlton at £55. He scratched out the 33 and wrote “55”—he was not so far wrong; Mr Barlton had his name on his books for exactly £58, 19s. 6d.