The confinement to grounds told horribly upon his spirits. Three miserable cricket fields--as a matter of fact they were remarkably open and spacious--to be the sole outlet of his energies during all these weeks! He hated every stick and stone of them, every twig and leaf. He saw others coming and going at will, but he himself was a prisoner. Not even to the swimming pool might he go. In sheer desperation he had followed Laughton's advice, and gone in for cricket, but had proved so half-hearted over the game, then bad-tempered and almost quarrelsome, that no one was sorry when he declared his intention of giving it up. More and more he became given over to brooding--seeking a quiet corner apart, and looking out on to the open country from which he was debarred. While thus occupied one day, a hand dropped on his shoulder. Turning angrily--thinking some other fellow was playing the fool, and trying to startle him--he confronted Mr Sefton. "What were you thinking about, Haviland?" said the latter in his quick, sharp, quizzical way. "Oh, I don't know, sir. Nothing very particular, I suppose," forcing a laugh, for he was not going to whine to Sefton. The latter looked at him with straight, penetrating gaze. "They tell me you've given up cricket again. Why?" "I don't care for it, sir, never did. Everybody seems to have a notion that nothing can be of any use, or even right, but that confounded--I beg your pardon, sir--cricket and football. A fellow is never to be allowed to take his own line." "Yes, but it's a good wholesome rule that if a fellow can't take his own line he'd better adapt himself to the lines of others. Eh?" Haviland did not reply. He merely smiled, cynically, disdainfully. Mr Sefton, watching his face, was interested, and more sorry for him than his official position allowed him to say. He went on:-- "Don't mope. There's nothing to be gained by it. Throw yourself into something. If one has lost a position, it is always possible to regain it. I know, and some others know, your influence has always been used in the right direction. Do you think that counts for nothing? Eh?" "It hasn't counted for much, sir, in a certain quarter," was the bitter reply. "It isn't the position I mind--I don't care a hang about it, sir!" he burst forth passionately, "but to be stuck down in these three beastly fields, in the middle of a crowd all day and every day--I'd rather have been expelled at once." "Don't be an ass, Haviland," said the master, stopping short--for they had been walking up and down--and peering at him in his quaint way. "Do you hear? Don't be an ass." This commentary, uttered as it was, left no room for reply, wherefore Haviland said nothing. "Why don't you go to the Doctor and ask him to remove your `gates'?" went on Mr Sefton. "I wouldn't ask _him_ anything, sir."