He was up early next morning, and, opening his window, leaned out with his hands among the green vine-leaves which encircled it. The garden looked beautiful as ever, and he promised himself an early enjoyment of those currants which hung in ruby clusters over the walls. Everything was bathed in the dewy balm of summer morning, and he felt very happy as, with his little spaniel frisking round him, he visited the great Newfoundland in his kennel, and his old pet the pony in the stable. He had barely finished his rounds when breakfast was ready, and he once more met the home circle from which he had been separated for a year. And yet over all his happiness hung a sense of change and half melancholy; they were not changed, but _he_ was changed. Mrs Trevor, and Fanny, and Vernon were the same as ever, but over _him_ had come an alteration of feeling and circumstance; an unknown or half-known _something_ which cast a shadow between them and him, and sometimes made him half shrink and start as he met their loving looks. Can no schoolboy, who reads his history, understand and explain the feeling which I mean? By that mail he wrote to his father and mother an account of Russell's death, and he felt that they would guess why the letter was so blurred. "But," he wrote, "I have some friends still; especially Mr Rose among the masters, and Monty and Upton among the boys. Monty you know; he is more like Edwin than any other boy, and I like him very much. You didn't know Upton, but I am a great deal with him, though he is much older than I am. He is a fine handsome fellow, and one of the most popular in the school. I hope you will know him some day." The very next morning Eric received a letter which he at once recognised to be in Upton's handwriting. He eagerly tore off the envelope, and read-- "My Dearest Eric--I have got bad news to tell you, at least I feel it to be bad news for me, and I flatter myself that you will feel it to be bad news for you. In short, I am going to leave Roslyn, and probably we shall never meet there again. The reason is, I have had a cadetship given me, and I am to sail for India in September. I have already written to the school to tell them to pack up and send me all my books and clothes. "I feel leaving very much; it has made me quite miserable. I wanted to stay at school another year at least; and I will honestly tell you, Eric, one reason; I'm very much afraid that I've done you, and Graham, and other fellows no good; and I wanted, if I possibly could, to undo the harm I had done. Poor Edwin's death opened my eyes to a good many things, and now I'd give all I have never to have taught or encouraged you in wrong things. Unluckily it's too late;--only, I hope that you already see, as I do, that the things I mean lead to evil far greater than we ever used to dream of.