"I don't mind your sneers, Brown," said Hardy as he tramped up and down with his arms locked behind him; "I have taken on myself to speak to you about this; I should be no true friend if I shirked it. I'm four years older than you, and have seen more of the world and of this place than you. You sha'n't go on with this folly, this sin, for want of warning." "So it seems," said Tom doggedly. "Now I think I've had warning enough; suppose we drop the subject." Hardy stopped his walk, and turned on Tom with a look of anger. "Not yet," he said, firmly; "you know best how and why you have done it, but you know that somehow or other you have made that girl like you." "Suppose I have, what then; whose business is that but mine and hers?" "It's the business of everyone who won't stand by and see the devil's game played under his nose if he can hinder it." "What right have you to talk about the devil's game to me?" said Tom. "I'll tell you what; if you and I are to keep friends we had better drop this subject." "If we are to keep friends we must go to the bottom of it. There are only two endings to this sort of business and you know it as well as I." "A right and wrong one, eh? and because you call me your friend you assume that my end will be the wrong one." "I do call you my friend, and I say the end must be the wrong one here. There's no right end. Think of your family. You don't mean to say--you dare not tell me, that you will marry her?" "I _dare_ not tell you!" said Tom, starting up in his turn; "I dare tell you or any man anything I please. But I won't tell you or any man anything on compulsion." "I repeat," went on Hardy, "you _dare_ not say you mean to marry her. You don't mean it--and, as you don't, to kiss her as you did to-night--" "So you were sneaking behind to watch me!" burst out Tom, chafing with rage, and glad to find any handle for a quarrel. The two men stood fronting one another, the younger writhing with the sense of shame and outraged pride, and longing for a fierce answer--a blow--anything, to give vent to the furies which were tearing him. But at the end of a few seconds the elder answered, calmly and slowly,-- "I will not take those words from any man; you had better leave my rooms." "If I do, I shall not come back till you have altered your opinions." "You need not come back till you have altered yours." The next moment Tom was in the passage; the next, striding up and down the side of the inner quadrangle in the pale moonlight.