He was very cold when he reached his room, and as he pushed back the door he saw Traill. Traill was standing in the middle of the room, looking very shy. Perrin was not glad or sorry to see him. He had no feeling about him at all. “Good evening.” “Good evening.” “Won't you sit down?” “No, thank you. I only came in for a moment.” “Oh, all right. What is it?” “Oh! Only I wanted to tell you—that—well—oh, that I thought you were awfully plucky this afternoon.” “Oh! Thank you. It wasn't plucky really—it was a very foolish thing to do.” “No—really—the other fellows did n't understand—” “Oh, yes! They understood very well.” Traill paused. He obviously hated the whole affair but was determined to go through with it. “Well, I say, I'm leaving to-morrow, you know—not coming back—and I thought that it would be a pity if we parted—well, sick with each other. What do you say? We've had one or two turn-ups, but we 're friends, are n't we?” “Of course.” “Shake hands, will you?” They shook hands. “Right you are. Look Isabel and me up in town one day, won't you? Always awfully pleased. Well, I must be going.” And, with a sigh of relief, Traill moved away. But what did the boy know, what could the boy know, of the man's utter despair as he sat there through the night? Traill went out to his life. “He had made it up with the chap,” but Perrin, in the dark, was looking, with staring eyes, at Himself. At last, that gray figure that had haunted him so closely during these weeks was with him face to face. And, with the coming dawn, he knew what it was that he would do. CHAPTER XV—THE GOLDEN VIEW I. WITH the coming dawn he knew what it was that he would do. He waited, sitting in his chair without moving and watching, with unseeing eyes, the gray cold pane of his window and the last faint glow of the sinking coals that lingered in the grate. He did not know what he could have said to Moy-Thompson, what he ought to have said. He thought that he might have faced it out better had the interview been in some other place. There were so many things that hung about that room and made it impossible for him to speak. He had not known that it would be so hard. But he did not care, he really did not care. He saw vaguely that all these many years the growing suspicion that he was really no good had been coming upon him but he had never confessed it—now it stared him in the face. If he had been any good he would have defied Moy-Thompson. He knew that he had not the courage, at his time in life, to go out and face the world again and get some other work to do. Also he had not the courage to come back another term and go on with the work here. He had not even had the pluck to hate Traill properly, as any other man would do.