"You may answer that question better than myself," he said: "for some strange reason, you always avoid me when I approach you." "Avoid you!" "Yes, Charles." "Why, my dear follow," said Hoffland, with a free-and-easy air, "come as near as you choose; here, let us lock arms! Does that look like avoiding you?" Mowbray smiled. "It is very different here in the street," he said; "but let us dismiss this idle subject. It is an odd way of throwing away time to debate whether you would make a good wife." "I don't think it is," said Hoffland, and he laughed. "If I would make a good wife, I would make a good husband; and as I have natural doubts upon the latter point, I wish to have them solved. But I weary you--let us part. _Good-bye_," added Hoffland, with a strange expression of face and tone of voice; "here is my lodging, and you go on to the college." "No, I think I will go up and sit down a moment." Hoffland stood still. "It is strange, but true, that I have never paid you visit," continued Mowbray, "and now I will go and see your quarters." "Really, my dear Ernest--the fact is--I assure you on my honor--there is nothing to attract----" Mowbray smiled. "Never mind," he said, "I will go up, if from nothing else, from simple curiosity." The singular young man looked exceedingly vexed at this, and did not move. Mowbray was about to pass with a smile up the steps leading to the door, when an acquaintance came by and stopped a moment to speak to him. Mowbray seemed interested in what he said, and half turned from Hoffland. No sooner had he done so than the boy placed one cautious foot upon the stone step, looked quickly around, saw that he was unobserved; and entering the house with a bound, ran lightly up the steps, opened the door of his apartment, entered it, closed the door, and disappeared. The sound of the bolt in moving proved that he had locked himself in. In two minutes Mowbray turned round to speak to his companion: he was no where to be seen. The friend with whom he had been conversing had observed nothing, and suggested that Mr. Hoffland must have gone on. No; he had, however, gone to his room probably. And ascending the stairs, Mowbray knocked at the door. No voice replied. "Strange boy!" he murmured; "he cannot be here, however--and yet that singular objection he seemed to have to my visiting him--singular!" And Mowbray, finding himself no nearer a conclusion than at first, descended, and slowly passed on toward the college. No sooner had he disappeared within its walls than a slight noise at Hoffland's window proved that he had been watching Mowbray. All then became silent. In an hour, however, the door was cautiously opened, and the boy issued forth. He carefully closed the door, re-locked it, put the key in his pocket, descended, and commenced walking rapidly toward the southern portion of the town, depositing as he went by a letter in the post.