Then he remembered the promise by which he was bound to let Robert tell his own story.  Confused, he seemed to know nothing but that he must finish his sentence to satisfy the interrogation in her eyes.

“You think I am a gentleman like Robert.  I am only a—­”

“What?” she asked, looking upon him good-humouredly, as she would have looked upon a blundering boy.

“I am only a—­a—­cad, you know.”

His face had an uncomfortable look, hot and red.  She was puzzled, but the meaning that was in his thought did not enter hers.  In a moment that romantic didacticism which was one of the strongest elements in her character had struck his strange words into its own music.

“Oh, Mr. Trenholme!” she cried; “do not so far outdo us all in the grace of confession.  We are all willing to own ourselves sinners; but to confess to vulgarity, to be willing to admit that in us personally there is a vein of something vulgar, that, to our shame, we sometimes strike upon!  Ah, people must be far nobler than they are before that clause can be added to the General Confession!”

He looked at her, and hardly heard her words; but went on his way with eyes dazzled and heart tumultuous.

When at home he turned into the study, where his brother was still a prisoner.  The autumn breeze and sunshine entered even into this domain of books and papers.  The little garden was so brimful of bloom that it overflowed within the window-sill.

When he had loitered long enough to make believe that he had not come in for the sake of this speech, Alec said, “I’m going to the West—­at least, when Bates is gone, I’ll go; and, look here, I don’t know that I’d say anything to these people if I were in your case.  Don’t feel any obligation to say anything on my account.”

Principal Trenholme was at his writing-table.  “Ah?” said he, prolonging the interrogation with benign inflection.

“Have you come to doubt the righteousness of your own conclusions?” But he did not discuss the subject further.

He was busy, for the students and masters of the college were to assemble in a few days; yet he found time in a minute or two to ask idly, “Where have you been?”

“For one thing, I walked out from the village with Miss Rexford.”

“And”—­with eyes bent upon his writing—­“what do you think of Miss Rexford?”

Never was question put with less suspicion; it was interesting to Robert only for the pleasure it gave him to pronounce her name, not at all for any weight that he attached to the answer.  And Alec answered him indifferently.

“She has a pretty face,” said he, nearing the door.

“Yes,” the other answered musingly, “yes; ’her face is one of God Almighty’s wonders in a little compass.’”

But Alec had gone out, and did not hear the words nor see the dream of love that they brought into the other’s eyes.  There was still hope in that dream, the sort of hope that springs up again unawares from the ground where it has been slain.