He could not resist crossing the Boundaries to the little iron gate admitting to the cloisters. It would not admit him tonight: the cloister porter, successor to Mr. John Ketch of cantankerous memory, had locked it hours ago, and had the key safely hung up by his bed-side in his lodge. This was the gate through which poor Charley Channing had gone, innocently confiding, to be frightened all but to death, that memorable night in the annals of the college school. Charley, who was now a flourishing young clerk in India (at the present moment supposed to be enjoying Paris), and likely to rise to fame and fortune, health permitting. Many a time and oft, had Roland himself dashed through the gate, surplice on arm, in a white heat of fear lest he should be marked "late." How the shouts of the boys used to echo along the vaulted roof of the cloisters! How they seemed to echo in the heart of Roland now! Times had changed. Things had changed. He had changed. A new set of boys filled the school: some of the clergy were fresh in the cathedral. The bishop, gone to his account, had been replaced by a better: a once great and good preacher, who was wont in times long gone by to fill the cathedral with his hearers of jostling crowds, had followed him. In Mr. Roland's own family, and in that of one with whom they had been very intimately associated, there were changes. George Yorke was no more; Gerald had risen to be a great man; he, Roland, had fallen, and was of no account in the world. Mr. Channing had died; Hamish was dying---- How came that last thought to steal into the mind of Roland Yorke. _He did not know_. It had never occurred to him before: why should it have done so now? Ah, he might ask himself the question, but he could not answer it. Buried in reflections of the past and present, one leading on to another, it had followed in as if consecutively, arising Roland knew not whence, and startling him to terror. He shook himself in a sort of fright; his pulse grew quick, his face hot. "I do think I must have been in a dream," debated Roland, "or else moonstruck. Sunny Hamish! as if the world could afford to lose him! Nobody but a donkey whose brains had been knocked out of him at Port Natal, would get such wicked fancies." He went back at full gallop, turned the corner, and looked out for the windows of his mother's house. They were not difficult to be seen, for in every one of them shone a blaze of light. The sweet white radiance of the moon, with its beauteous softness, never to be matched by earthly invention, was quite eclipsed in the garish red of the flaming windows. Lady Augusta Yorke had an assembly--as was plain enough by the signs. "Was ever the like bother known!" spoke Roland aloud, momentarily halting in the quiet spot. "She's got all the world and his wife there. And I didn't want a soul to know that I was at Helstonleigh!"