Roath started, and turned completely round, giving a view of a square-featured, somewhat moody, but still handsome, face. "Out!" he repeated, looking both amazed and startled. "So it would seem. The door is locked, and I rapped and rattled loud enough to wake the dead." "Oh," said Roath, with a prolonged falling inflection. And after a moment's consideration, he turned back to his books, as if there were no more to be said. Trubie lingered. Not, evidently, from any special liking for Roath's society, but because he was undecided what to do next. "I don't understand it, Roath," he said slowly. "You know Arling was to have kept his room to-day, by way of gaining strength, and guarding against a relapse. And we were to have gone over 'Barnes' together this morning, so as to be all primed for Professor Beers to-morrow. What _can_ he have done with himself?" "Perhaps," said Roath, absently, with his eyes on his book, "some of the others may have seen him." Trubie took the hint--if such it was meant to be--and withdrew. He spent the next half hour in knocking at sundry doors, and repeating, with slight variation, the questions and remarks wherewith he had favored Roath. No one had seen Arling; no one knew anything about him. All seemed surprised to learn that he had gone out; but all were laboriously cramming for the examinations in progress, and the surprise made but a faint and transient ripple on the surface of their troubled minds. Trubie's persistency impressed them much more strongly; they wondered that he had leisure to bestow upon any anxiety not connected with those dreaded examinations, any fear save that of failing to secure the right to sign himself, "Frank Trubie, M.D." Nor--to represent him fairly--was the young man himself wholly insensible of his absurdity. "Well!" said he, at last, "I can't afford to spend my morning in this way. I must go back to my room, and set to work. When Arling comes in, tell him I've been here." And away he went through the dancing elm-shadows, more quickly than he had come. Two hours passed. Then Roath closed his books, gathered up his papers, and took his way to the examination room, amid the groups of assembling students. Many eyes followed him, some with admiration, some with envy,--few or none, it was plain to see, with affection. "No question but that he'll pass!" said one. "He's all brain,--I'd be content with half as much." "And his memory!" exclaimed another. "It appears to be constructed on the principle of a rat-trap; ingress is easy, egress--not provided for!" "No one can keep step with him but Arling," remarked a third; "if _he_ gets well enough, there will be a close race between them." "I bet on Arling," said a fourth,--a somewhat slender young man, with an easy, almost careless air, but a thoughtful face,--Mark Tracey by name. "Eh! why?" asked the first speaker.