The two men dragged their helpless burden up the steps of Professor Lee’s residence, but before they could ring the bell the professor himself was at the door. The next moment they were all in the hall, the street-door was closed, the limp and insensible form of the young man was laid carefully on the settee, and Delavan had hurried off to find the college physician. Professor Lee pushed the hair back tenderly from his boy’s eyes and forehead, then he turned sharply to Parmenter. “Did you lead him into this also?” he asked, huskily. The tone, the implication, roused the tiger again in Parmenter’s breast. “I did not,” was the swift reply. “I never drank with him in my life, nor ever suggested such a thing. I do not wonder, though, that you lay this crowning disgrace of your son’s at my door, since you have been pleased, without cause, to charge to my account every fault and folly of which he has been guilty for the last six months.” Professor Lee’s face was white with emotion. “Look here, Parmenter!” he said, “this is no time nor place for quarrels or explanations. Let me say to you simply that I do not need your presence here. You may go!” Parmenter backed slowly down the hall, awed and subdued by the man’s quiet anger. He did not speak again. He cast one glance at the poor, unconscious figure on the hall settee; then he turned and left the house. He went to his room and picked up a book, but could not read. He went down to his supper, but could not eat. He tossed about in his bed all night, but he could not sleep. He had unburdened his mind to Professor Lee, indeed--a thing he had been longing to do for weeks. But it brought him no relief. On the contrary, deeply angered as he was at the professor, a flush of shame crept into his face whenever he thought of the time and place he had chosen for his protest. His mind became gloomier and his thoughts more desperate every day. He scarcely opened a book to study from it. His brain was dull and unsteady, and he could think of little else than his own miserable condition and his unhappy relations with the Lees. He felt that Professor Lee had wronged him beyond forbearance, beyond endurance, beyond any hope of reconciliation. As for Charley, his case was different. He was weak, boyish, impulsive, influenced by his father; but it might well be that time would heal the differences between him and Charley. This was Parmenter’s daily, his hourly thought and hope; it was sweeter in his mind than had ever been his visions of oratorical success. For he had not been able, in all the stormy days that had passed, to drive from his heart the last spark of affection for the dearest friend his young manhood had known. And now, when that friend’s disgrace and humiliation were deepest, the spark began to take on new life, to kindle, to glow, to send light and heat through his whole mental and moral system.