Eric had been working at his Special--he took theology, about as stiff a Special as a man can take--all the week, and he had just come to the end of his exam. There would be Hebrew on the Monday, about which he knew very little; if he should make a stray shot it would count, but the real work of the exam. was over. He was looking limp, and used up, and dejected. His eyes were dull, and his cheeks were flabby, and his hair, which he wore long, hung down in a spiritless way. He was the greatest possible contrast to Edgell. 'Well, Wattles,' he said, looking up when Eric came into the room--'well, have you floored the examiners?' Eric didn't exactly turn green, but his flabby cheeks turned a shade paler. 'It's all over, dear fellow,' he said with a gulp--he hadn't got anything to swallow. He had just come in from Hall, but he gulped down something. 'The examiners have floored me. I'm ploughed, to a certainty.' He sat down as he spoke on the couch where Edgell had lain on that day, and tried to look cheerful. 'Nonsense, old man! it isn't so bad as that. You are through, for certain.' 'No; I don't think I am through.' 'Well, suppose the worst, if it gives you much pleasure to anticipate it; you can come up again in October.' 'No; I shall not come up again. I shall go down and try something else. Remember, I have already tried two professions. I shall take it, if I fail, that--that the Church is closed to me. I have an offer of something in the City, and I should have to go abroad for a time, and then settle down to work. Perhaps it's the right thing for me, after all.' 'Nonsense, Wattles! What would you do stuck on a high stool in the City? You'd be getting off it half a dozen times a day to go on your knees. It's no use your choosing a profession that isn't very near the ground, where you could be on your knees all day long. That's the only profession you've got any chance in, Wattles.' Eric smiled, and if Edgell hadn't been looking straight before him in that way he had of not seeing anything within a hundred miles he might have seen that his eyes were red, and that there was something very suspiciously like a tear in the corner of one of them. 'You are working in earnest,' he said presently, nodding towards the table where Edgell was seated, which was covered with books and papers. 'Ye--es,' said the other with a smile, still looking out of the window at the patch of sunset sky over the gray battlements of the college--'ye--es; I've got something to work for. I didn't do half well in the first part; I wasn't sure--quite sure--but it's all right now, and I shall go in and do my best. You have never seen me do my best, Wattles; you will see me do it now--for--for Lucy's sake.' His face was very noble and tender. It was an ideal man's face--strong, and self-reliant, and masterful, and inexpressibly tender. It moved Eric watching him from that couch, and knowing so much about him.