Since the day when Harry Venniker and Gerald Eversley left St. Anselm’s, the streams of their lives, like torrents descending from the same mountain height, had been parted farther and farther. They saw comparatively little of each other. The experiences of the university were as alien to the one as the experiences of the army to the other. If the one never shouldered a rifle, it must be admitted that the other seldom opened a book. They exchanged letters, not perhaps every week, as Harry had promised on the last days of their life at St. Anselm’s, but at frequent intervals, and their letters were marked by the same open-hearted, affectionate frankness as before; it was not any fault of the letters which made the difference, it was that they were only letters, and a manuscript, however legible, is a sorry substitute for a grasp of the hand or the smile of loving eyes. Gerald’s solitude was intensified by the loss of the daily intercourse, which had been his one human treasure. While Harry Venniker was making new friends every week, his one friendship was slipping from his grasp. Love in absence is so rare and so inconstant. Reader, have you a friend whose face you have not seen for years; and if you should meet him again to-day, would you be quite the same--and he? Is there no lover who has come home in joy of heart and found despair? Has not a son returned after long wanderings to his father’s fireside, expecting to occupy the old familiar chair that was his in youth, and lo! it is another who occupies it, or the chair itself is gone? Harry Venniker and Gerald Eversley were living separate lives; was it possible that they could remain the same to the end? The parade, the mess-room, drills, balls, horses, dogs, on one side; spiritual conflicts on the other--what agreement can there be between these? But if the friendship should languish, this at least was certain, that the loser would be Gerald Eversley. The rich man, with his flocks and herds, can afford to give up many a head of cattle without missing it; but the poor man misses his solitary ewe-lamb. Still the visits to Helmsbury continued. They were as dear to Gerald as ever, nay, if the truth must be told, they were dearer. As he became a frequent visitor to the Hall, and especially since Harry’s illness, it was natural to treat him there with less constraint or ceremony. Lady Venniker admitted him more freely to her confidence. Even Miss Venniker seemed to regard him as one of the family.