He perspired a little, gently, towards the end:  so he took off his glasses and wiped them, looking, still with a smile, through kind, short-sighted eyes, at this young man who sat so still.  For Frank was so quiet that the Dean thought him already half persuaded.  Then once more he summed up, when his glasses were fixed again; he ran through his arguments lightly and efficiently, and ended by a quiet little assumption that Frank was going to be reasonable, to write to his father once more, and to wait at least a week.  He even called him “my dear boy!”

“Thanks very much,” said Frank.

“Then you’ll think it over quietly, my dear boy.  Come and talk to me again.  I’ve given you your exeat, but you needn’t use it.  Come in to-morrow evening after hall.”

Frank stood up.

“Thanks, very much, Mr. Mackintosh.  I’ll ...  I’ll certainly remember what you’ve said.”  He took up his exeat as if mechanically.

“Then you can leave that for the present,” smiled the Dean, pointing at it.  “I can write you another, you know.”

Frank put it down quickly.

“Oh, certainly!” he said.

“Well, good-night, Mr. Guiseley....  I ...  I can’t tell you how glad I am that you confided in me.  Young men are a little unwise and impetuous sometimes, you know.  Good-night ... good-night.  I shall expect you to-morrow.”

When Frank reached the court below he stood waiting a moment.  Then a large smile broke out on his face, and he hurried across to a passage opposite, found a friend’s door open, and rushed in.  The room was empty.  He flew across to the window and crouched down, peeping over the sill at the opening on the other side of the court leading to Mr. Mackintosh’s staircase.

He was rewarded almost instantly.  Even as he settled himself on the window seat a black figure, with gown ballooning behind, hurried out and whisked through the archway leading towards the street.  He gave him twenty seconds, and then ran out himself, and went in pursuit.  Half-way up the lane he sighted him once more, and, following cautiously on tiptoe, with a handkerchief up to his face, was in time to behold Mr. Mackintosh disappear into the little telegraph office on the left of Trinity Street.

“That settles it, then,” observed Frank, almost aloud.  “Poor Jack—­I’m afraid I shan’t be able to breakfast with him after all!”

(IV)

It was a little after four o’clock on the following morning that a policeman, pacing with slow, flat feet along the little lane that leads from Trinity Hall to Trinity College, yawning as he went, and entirely unconscious of the divine morning air, bright as wine and clear as water, beheld a remarkable spectacle.

There first appeared, suddenly tossed on to the spikes that top the gate that guards the hostel, a species of pad that hung over on both sides of the formidable array of points.  Upon this, more cautiously, was placed by invisible hands a very old saddle without any stirrups.