But it _was_ dark; dark in many ways, and Constance was soon to be reminded again of it forcibly. She had taken her seat at the tea-table, when Tom came in. He looked flushed--stern; and he flung his Gradus, and one or two other books in a heap, on the side table, with more force than was necessary; and himself into a chair, ditto. “Constance, I shall leave the school!” Constance, in her dismay, dropped the sugar-tongs into the sugar. “What, Tom?” “I shall leave the school!” he repeated, his tone as fiery as his face. “I wouldn’t stop in it another month, if I were bribed with gold. Things are getting too bad there.” “Oh, Tom, Tom! Is this your endurance?” “Endurance!” he exclaimed. “That’s a nice word in theory, Constance; but just you try it in practice! Who has endured, if I have not? I thought I’d go on and endure it, as you say; at any rate, until papa came home. But I can’t--I can’t!” “What has happened more than usual?” inquired Hamish. “It gets worse and worse,” said Tom, turning his blazing face upon his brother. “I wouldn’t wish a dog to live the life that I live in the college school. They call me a felon, and treat me as one; they send me to Coventry; they won’t acknowledge me as one of their seniors. My position is unbearable.” “Live it down, Tom,” said Hamish quietly. “Haven’t I been trying to live it down?” returned the boy, suppressing his emotion. “It has lasted now these two months, and I have borne it daily. At the time of Charley’s loss I was treated better for a day or two, but that has worn away. It is of no use your looking at me reproachfully, Constance; I must complain. What other boy in the world has ever been put down as I? I was head of the school, next to Gaunt; looking forward to be the head; and what am I now? The seniorship taken from me in shame; Huntley exalted to my place; my chance of the exhibition gone--” “Huntley does not take the exhibition,” interrupted Constance. “But Yorke will. _I_ shan’t be allowed to take it. Now I know it, Constance, and the school knows it. Let a fellow once go down, and he’s kept down: every dog has a fling at him. The seniorship’s gone, the exhibition is going. I might bear that tamely, you may say; and of course I might, for they are negative evils; but what I can’t and won’t bear, are the insults of every-day life. Only this afternoon they--” Tom stopped, for his feelings were choking him; and the complaint he was about to narrate was never spoken. Before he had recovered breath and calmness, Arthur entered and took his seat at the tea-table. Poor Tom, allowing one of his unfortunate explosions of temper to get the better of him, sprang from his chair and burst forth with a passionate reproach to Arthur, whom he regarded as the author of all the ill. “Why did you do it? Why did you bring this disgrace upon us? But for you, I should not have lost caste in the school.” “Tom!” interposed Hamish, in a severe tone.