He was not a favourite in the school, except with a few. By the majority he was intensely disliked. The dislike arose from envy, and his own gifts excited it. His unusual beauty, his sensitive temperament, his refinement of manner, his ever-pervading sense of religion, his honourable nature, as seen in even the smallest action,--all and each of them were objectionable to the rough schoolboys. Most of these qualities he had inherited from his mother, and for any one of them, the school, as a whole, would have ridiculed and despised him. They would have been quite enough without his superior advancement; which put _them_ to the shame, and called forth now and again some stinging comparison from the lips of the head master. When he first entered the school, he had unintentionally excited the ill-will of the two sons of Mrs. Lewis, and of their chosen companions, the two Aultanes. These boys longed above everything to thrash him every day of their lives; but he had been taken under the protection of Mr. St. John and Travice Arkell, and they dared not, and it did not increase their love for him. But there was to arise a worse cause of enmity than any of these, as Henry grew older, and _that_ was the favour shown him by the dean's daughter. To see him under the especial favour of the dean was aggravation enough; but that was as nothing compared to the intimacy accorded him by the dean's daughter. You know what these things are with schoolboys. Half the school believed themselves in love with this attractive girl, who condescended to freedom with them; the other half _were_ in love with her. After their fashion, you know. It was not that serious love that makes or mars the heart for all time, though the boys might think it so. Lewis senior--his name was Roland, and he was one of the four senior boys--was especially envious of this favour of Miss Beauclerc's. He was very fond of her, and would have given all he possessed in the world for it to be accorded to him. _He_ could only love and admire her at a distance; while Arkell might tell it to her face if he pleased--and Lewis felt sure he _did_. He hated Henry with a passionate hatred. He saw, with that intuition natural to these things, that Henry loved Georgina Beauclerc, and with no passing school-boy's love. He wished that the earth contained only their three selves, that he might set upon the fragile boy and kill him, and keep the young lady to himself ever afterwards--Adam and Eve in a second Paradise. Indeed, Mr. Lewis had got into a habit of indulging this train of thought rather more than was wholesome for him, and would have shot Henry Arkell in a duel with all the non-compunction in the world.