The tone in which Lady Dashwood made her last remark and her manner in leading Gwendolen out of the library, was that of a person who has "closed" a correspondence, terminated an interview. The affair of the scream and fright was over. It was a perfectly unnecessary incident to have occurred in a sane working day, so she had apologised for its intrusion. Why Gwendolen was in the library at all was a question that was of no consequence. It certainly was not in search of a book on which to spend the midnight oil. She _was_ there--that was all. When they had gone, the Warden stood for some moments in the library pondering. He had shut the door. The curtains he had forgotten to pull back, and now he discovered his omission and went to the farther end of the room. The opposite wall, the wall of the court, was just tipped with silver. Distant spires and gables were silver grey. The clouds were drifting over the city westwards, and as the moon rode higher and higher in the southern sky, so the clouds sped faster before it, and behind it lay clear unfathomable spaces in the east. The Warden pulled the heavy curtain across the window again, and walked to the fireplace. Outside was the infinite universe--its immensity awful to contemplate! Inside was the narrow security of the lighted room in which he worked and thought and would work and think--for a few years! For a few years? How did he know that he should have even a few years in which to think and work for his College? The Warden went to the fire and stood looking down into it, his hands clasped behind his back. The girl he was pledged to marry, if she wished to marry him, might wreck his life! She had only just a few moments ago showed signs of being weakly hysterical. "Helpful to the College!" His sister's question had filled him with a sudden new ominous thought. What about the College? He had forgotten his duty to the College! "My marriage is my own concern," he was blurting out to himself miserably, as he looked at the fire. But the inevitable answer was already drumming in his ears--his own answer: "A man's action is not his own concern, and so deeply is every man involved in the life of the community in which he lives, that even his thoughts are not his own concern." The Warden paced up and down. There were letters lying on his desk unopened, unread. He would not attempt to answer any of them to-night. He could not attend to them, while these words were beating in his brain: "Do you think she will be helpful to the College?" His College! More to him than anything else, more than his duty; his hope, his pride! And the College meant also the sacred memory of those who had fallen in the war, all the glorious hopeful youth that had sacrificed itself! And he had forgotten the College!