Produced by Clarity, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S BY ALAN St. AUBYN AUTHOR OF 'A FELLOW OF TRINITY,' 'THE JUNIOR DEAN,' 'THE OLD MAID'S SWEETHEART,' 'MODEST LITTLE SARA,' ETC. [Illustration] IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. London CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1893 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. CHAPTER PAGE XV. IN THE LANE 1 XVI. THE OLD, OLD STORY 18 XVII. IN THE PICTURE-GALLERY 29 XVIII. CAPABILITY STUBBS 43 XIX. A STRONG TOWER 59 XX. NO FOLLOWERS ALLOWED 75 XXI. A BLOW TO NEWNHAM 93 XXII. READING THE LISTS 108 XXIII. 'GOING DOWN' 123 XXIV. THE VICARAGE GATE 139 XXV. THE STALL IN THE BUTTER-MARKET 153 XXVI. COUSIN MARY 171 XXVII. OCTOBER TERM 186 XXVIII. A COLLEGE 'PERPENDICULAR' 206 THE MASTER OF ST. BENEDICT'S CHAPTER XV. IN THE LANE. 'The rain was raining cheerfully, As if it had been May.' Lucy was five minutes late the next morning in keeping her appointment--at least, her understood appointment--in the lane. There was a reasonable excuse for it. It was not a morning fit for a dog to go out in. It was a shivering, blowy, rainy morning. There are not many trees at Newnham, and what few there are tossed their arms wildly in the air, and sighed and moaned as the wind whistled through the leaves. They had not shed many tears as yet; they were fresh young leaves with the tender green of the year upon them, but they were shedding a great many to-day. After this night of weeping they would never be the same leaves again; they would have grown darker and sadder; they would have begun to shiver by night and whisper by day. They were whispering overhead as Lucy stood beneath them, with her umbrella turning inside out, looking up and down the lane. The man she was looking for was not there. His bed-maker, who was certainly a seer or a sibyl, had found him an hour before under the table of his room, with his lamp still burning, and the liqueur-case in his cellaret--at least, it was on the table--empty, quite empty. She had fetched Eric, who was up betimes reading for his 'special,' and between them they had put him to bed, and Eric had come out in the wind and the rain to keep his appointment. Lucy wasn't looking for Eric. She took no notice of the little fellow in a covert-coat who was sheltering behind the hedge. She was looking for a splendid manly form, clad in a big Inverness coat, perhaps, and indifferent to the wind and the rain. Eric joined her directly she got outside the gate.