Have you ever observed a large lake on the approach of a sudden storm?—its unnatural stillness, death-like and ominous; its undercurrent of anger not yet apparent on the surface; and then the breaking forth of fury when the storm has come?

Not inaptly might the cloisters of Helstonleigh be compared to this, that day, when the college boys were let out of school at one o’clock. A strange rumour had been passed about amongst the desks—not reaching that at which sat the seniors—a rumour which shook the equanimity of the school to its centre; and, when one o’clock struck, the boys, instead of clattering out with all the noise of which their legs and lungs were capable, stole down the stairs quietly, and formed into groups of whisperers in the cloisters. It was the calm that precedes a storm.

So unusual a state of affairs was noticed by the senior boy.

“What’s up now?” he asked them, in the phraseology in vogue there and elsewhere. “Are you all going to a funeral? I hope it’s your sins that you are about to bury!”

A heavy silence answered him. Gaunt could not make it out. The other three seniors, attracted by the scene, came back, and waited with Gaunt. By that time the calm was being ruffled by low murmurings, and certain distinct words came from more than one of the groups.

“What do you say?” burst forth Tom Channing, darting forward as the words caught his ear. “You, Jackson! speak up; what is it?”

Not Jackson’s voice especially, but several other voices arose then; a word from one, a word from another, half sentences, disjointed hints, forming together an unmistakable whole. “The theft of old Galloway’s bank-note has been traced to Arthur Channing.”

“Who says it? Who dares to say it?” flashed Tom, his face flaming, and his hand clenched.

“The police say it. Butterby says it.”

“I don’t care for the police; I don’t care for Butterby,” cried Tom, stamping his foot in his terrible indignation. “I ask, who dares to say it here?”

“I do, then! Come, Mr. Channing, though you are a senior, and can put me up to Pye for punishment upon any false plea that you choose,” answered a tall fellow, Pierce senior, who was chiefly remarkable for getting into fights, and was just now unusually friendly with Mark Galloway, at whose desk he sat.

Quick as lightning, Tom Channing turned and faced him. “Speak out what you have to say,” cried he; “no hints.”

“Whew!” retorted Pierce senior, “do you think I am afraid? I say that Arthur Channing stole the note lost by old Galloway.”

Tom, in uncontrollable temper, raised his hand and struck him. One half-minute’s struggle, nothing more, and Pierce senior was sprawling on the ground, while Tom Channing’s cheek and nose were bleeding. Gaunt had stepped in between them.

“I stop this,” he said. “Pierce, get up! Don’t lie there like a floundering donkey. Channing, what possessed you to forget yourself?”

“You would have done the same, Gaunt, had the insult been offered to you. Let the fellow retract his words, or prove them.”

“Very good. That is how you ought to have met it at first,” said Gaunt. “Now, Mr. Pierce, can you make good your assertion?”

Pierce had floundered up, and was rubbing one of his long legs, which had doubled under him in the fall, while his brother, Pierce junior, was collecting an armful of scattered books, and whispering prognostications of parental vengeance in prospective; for, so surely as Pierce senior fell into a fight at school, to the damage of face or clothes, so surely was it followed up by punishment at home.

“If you want proof, go to Butterby at the police station, and get it from him,” sullenly replied Pierce, who owned a sulky temper as well as a pugnacious one.

“Look here,” interrupted Mark Galloway, springing to the front: “Pierce was a fool to bring it out in that way, but I’ll speak up now it has come to this. I went into my uncle’s, this morning, at nine o’clock, and there was he, shut in with Butterby. Butterby was saying that there was no doubt the theft had been committed by Arthur Channing. Mind, Channing,” Mark added, turning to Tom, “I am not seconding the accusation on my own score; but, that Butterby said it I’ll declare.”

“Pshaw! is that all?” cried Tom Channing, lifting his head with a haughty gesture, and not condescending to notice the blood which trickled from his cheek. “You must have misunderstood him, boy.”

“No, I did not,” replied Mark Galloway. “I heard him as plainly as I hear you now.”

“It is hardly likely that Butterby would say that before you, Galloway,” observed Gaunt.

“Ah, but he didn’t see I was there, or my uncle either,” said Mark. “When he is reading his newspaper of a morning, he can’t bear a noise, and I always go into the room as quiet as mischief. He turned me out again pretty quick, I can tell you; but not till I had heard Butterby say that.”

“You must have misunderstood him,” returned Gaunt, carelessly taking up Tom Channing’s notion; “and you had no right to blurt out such a thing to the school. Arthur Channing is better known and trusted than you, Mr. Mark.”

“I didn’t accuse Arthur Channing to the school. I only repeated to my desk what Butterby said.”

“It is that ‘only repeating’ which does three parts of the mischief in this world,” said Gaunt, giving the boys a little touch of morality gratis, to their intense edification. “As to you, Pierce senior, you’ll get more than you bargain for, some of these days, if you poke your ill-conditioned nose so often into other people’s business.”

Tom Channing had marched away towards his home, head erect, his step ringing firmly and proudly on the cloister flags. Charley ran by his side. But Charley’s face was white, and Tom caught sight of it.

“What are you looking like that for?”

“Tom! you don’t think it’s true, do you?”

Tom turned his scorn upon the boy. “You little idiot! True! A Channing turn thief! You may, perhaps—it’s best known to yourself—but never Arthur.”

“I don’t mean that. I mean, can it be true that the police suspect him?”

“Oh! that’s what your face becomes milky for? You ought to have been born a girl, Miss Charley. If the police do suspect him, what of that?—they’ll only have the tables turned upon themselves, Butterby might come out and say he suspects me of murder! Should I care? No; I’d prove my innocence, and make him eat his words.”

They were drawing near home. Charley looked up at his brother. “You must wipe your face, Tom.”

Tom took out his handkerchief, and gave his face a rub. In his indignation, his carelessness, he would have done nothing of the sort, had he not been reminded by the boy. “Is it off?”

“Yes, it’s off. I am not sure but it will break out again. You must take care.”

“Oh, bother! let it. I should like to have polished off that Pierce senior as he deserves. A little coin of the same sort would do Galloway no harm. Were I senior of the school, and Arthur not my brother, Mr. Mark should hear a little home truth about sneaks. I’ll tell it him in private, as it is; but I can’t put him up for punishment, or act in it as Gaunt could.”

“Arthur is our brother, therefore we feel it more pointedly than Gaunt,” sensibly remarked Charley.

“I’d advise you not to spell forth that sentimental rubbish, though you are a young lady,” retorted Tom. “A senior boy, if he does his duty, should make every boy’s cause his own, and ‘feel’ for him.”

“Tom,” said the younger and more thoughtful of the two, “don’t let us say anything of this at home.”

“Why not?” asked Tom, hotly. He would have run in open-mouthed.

“It would pain mamma to hear it.”

“Boy! do you suppose she would fear Arthur?”

“You seem to misconstrue all I say, Tom. Of course she would not fear him—you did not fear him; but it stung you, I know, as was proved by your knocking down Pierce.”

“Well, I won’t speak of it before her,” conciliated Tom, somewhat won over, “or before my father, either; but catch me keeping it from the rest.”

As Charles had partially foretold, they had barely entered, when Tom’s face again became ornamented with crimson. Annabel shrieked out, startling Mr. Channing on his sofa. Mrs. Channing, as it happened, was not present; Constance was: Lady Augusta Yorke and her daughters were spending part of the day in the country, therefore Constance had come home at twelve.

“Look at Tom’s face!” cried the child. “What has he been doing?”

“Hold your tongue, little stupid,” returned Tom, hastily bringing his handkerchief into use again; which, being a white one, made the worse exhibition of the two, with its bright red stains. “It’s nothing but a scratch.”

But Annabel’s eyes were sharp, and she had taken in full view of the hurt. “Tom, you have been fighting! I am sure of it!”

“Come to me, Tom,” said Mr. Channing. “Have you been fighting?” he demanded, as Tom crossed the room in obedience, and stood close to him. “Take your handkerchief away, that I may see your face.”

“It could not be called a fight, papa,” said Tom, holding his cheek so that the light from the window fell full upon the hurt. “One of the boys............