"Yes, yes, Dimock," answered many voices; and before they streamed out of the ball, they gave "three cheers for the monitors," which were so heartily responded to, that the hissing of Harpour, Kenrick, and others, only raised a laugh, which filled to the very brim the bitter cup of hate and indignation which Kenrick had been forced that day to drink. To be addressed like that before the whole school--snubbed, reproved, threatened--it was intolerable; that he, Kenrick, high in the school, brilliant, promising, successful, accustomed only to flattery and praise, should be publicly set down among a rabble of lower boys--it made him mad to think of it. "A nice tell-tale mess you've made of this business, Power," he said savagely, the red spot still lingering on his cheek, as he confronted his former friend; "I hope you're ashamed of yourself." "I, Ken? no." "Then you ought to be." "Honestly, Ken, who ought to be most ashamed--you, the advocate of Harpour and his set, or I, who merely defended my best friend for behaving most honourably--as he always does?" "_Always_?" sneered Kenrick. Power turned on him his clear bright eye, and said nothing for a moment; but then he laid his arm across his shoulder in the old familiar manner, and said, "You are not happy now, Ken, as you used to be." "Why the devil not?" Power shook his head. "Because your heart is nobler than your acts; your nature truer than your conduct; and _that_ is and will be your punishment. Why do you nurse this bad feeling till it has so mastered you?" Kenrick stood still, his cheeks flushed, his eyes downcast; and Power, as he turned away, sadly repeated, half to himself the wonderful verse-- "Virtutem _videant, intabescantque relicta_." Kenrick understood it; it came to his heart like an arrow, and rankled there; it made a wound, the faithful wound of a friend, better than the kisses of an enemy--but the time of healing was far-off yet. CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. FALLING AWAY. Oh deeper dole! That so august a spirit, sphered so fair, Should from the starry sessions of his peers, Decline to quench so bright a brilliancy In hell's sick spume. Ay me, the deeper dole! Tannhauser. It was generally on Sundays that boys walked in the croft with those who were, and whom they wished to be considered as, their most intimate and confidential friends. To one who knew anything of the boys' characters, it was most curious and suggestive to observe the groups into which they spontaneously formed themselves. The sets at Saint Winifred's were not very exclusive or very accurately defined; and one boy might, by virtue of different sympathies or accomplishments, belong to two or three sets at once. Still there were some sets whose outermost circles barely touched each other; and hitherto the friends among whom Kenrick had chiefly moved would never have associated intimately with the fellows among whom Harpour was considered as the leading spirit.