“I feel guilty every time he looks at me,” said Charley, “yet I know he doesn’t imagine that I was in it. Why, he’d as soon think I’d hang a man as haze him. That’s what’s hurting me, you see. I can’t get over it. Fred, I’d give up every college prize and honor I ever hope to get, and do it gladly, if I could blot out my part of that miserable night’s business.” Parmenter threw back his head impatiently. He felt, whether justly or not, that he was responsible for Lee’s participation in the hazing, and the young man’s passionate words of regret cut him deeply. “Well,” he said finally, “I don’t know that there was any law obliging you to take part in it. You joined us voluntarily, didn’t you?” “Yes, of course. But after I’d helped start the thing, and after what you said about my backing out, you see I couldn’t very well--Fred, forgive me! I didn’t know how that was going to sound. I don’t mean to blame you, because you’re not to blame, but--” “Oh, go right on!” interrupted Parmenter, coolly, his face a little pale and his lips drawn; “go right on! I’m the only one who’s in danger, anyway, and I might as well shoulder the whole burden and have done with it. I’m perfectly willing that all blame of any kind connected with the affair shall be laid on me.” Lee protested earnestly that he had no feeling against Parmenter in the matter, and could not have any. A truce was patched up between them, but their relations afterward were not quite the same. Each felt a certain restraint while in the other’s presence,--a restraint that might have worn away in time, but which now had only the effect of pushing them farther and farther apart. Parmenter applied himself with renewed energy to the work of the term, and especially to the task of perfecting himself in his Sophomore oration. He was passionately fond of oratory. Often, sitting or walking alone, he imagined himself on the prize stage in the midst of his triumph. Before him in these visions stretched the long aisles of the crowded church, the pews bright with the evening costumes of the ladies, the air heavy with the fragrance of many flowers. All eyes were upon him. Every ear was attentive to catch the sounding sentences that fell from his lips. The rustle and stir that passed through the audience at some telling point in his oration swept up pleasantly to his senses; the involuntary burst of applause at some brilliant climax rolled like a wave of delight into his soul; and when, finally, he bowed and retired, there were the marked and ribboned bouquets falling in sweet showers on the stage to attest his popularity; there was the long roll of applause rising and dying and rising again, only to be drowned at last in the music of the orchestra. Oh, it was a splendid scene, a knightly test, a thrilling triumph! To anticipate it, to see it all in imagination as he did, left Parmenter in an exalted state for hours.