Reluctantly, and without looking at her, he took it. The touch of it roused a tempest in him. He crushed it and threw it away from him. "Oh! if you'd never seen that man!" he groaned. She got up without a word, and presently they were walking through the "backs," and she was gradually taming and appeasing him. By the time they reached the street gate of King's he was again in the full tide of musical talk and boasting, quite aware besides that his good looks and his magnificent physique drew the attention of the passers-by. "Why, they're a poor lot--these 'Varsity men!" he said once contemptuously, as they passed a group of rather weedy undergraduates--"I could throw ten of em at one go!" And perpetually he talked of money, the cost of his lodgings, of his railway fare, the swindling ways of the south. After all, the painful habits of generations had not run to waste; the mother began to show in the son. In the street they parted. As he was saying good-bye to her, his look suddenly changed. "I say!--that's the girl I travelled down with yesterday! And, by Jove! she knew me!" And with a last nod to Laura, he darted after a tall woman who had thrown him a glance from the further pavement. Laura recognised the smart and buxom daughter of a Cambridge tradesman, a young lady whose hair, shoulders, millinery, and repartees were all equally pronounced. * * * * * Miss Fountain smiled, and turned away. But in the act of doing so, she came to a sudden stop. A face had arrested her--she stood bewildered. A man walking in the road came towards her. "I see that you recognise me, Miss Fountain!" The ambiguous voice--the dark, delicate face--the clumsy gait--she knew them all. But--she stared in utter astonishment. The man who addressed her wore a short round coat and soft hat; a new beard covered his chin; his flannel shirt was loosely tied at the throat by a silk handkerchief. And over all the same air of personal slovenliness and ill-breeding. "You didn't expect to see me in this dress, Miss Fountain? Let me walk a few steps with you, if I may. You perhaps hadn't heard that I had left the Jesuits--and ceased indeed to be a Catholic." Her mind whirled, as she recognised the scholastic. She saw the study at Bannisdale--and Helbeck bending over her. "No, indeed--I had not heard," she stammered, as they walked on. "Was it long ago?" "Only a couple of months. The crisis came in January----" And he broke out into a flood of autobiography. Already at Bannisdale he had been in confusion of mind--the voices of art and liberty calling to him each hour more loudly--his loyalty to Helbeck, to his boyish ideals, to his Jesuit training, holding him back. "I believe, Miss Fountain"--the colour rushed into his womanish cheek--"you overheard us that evening--you know what I owe to that admirable, that extraordinary man. May I be frank? We have both been through deep waters!"