Constance Channing sat, her forehead buried in her hands. How God was trying them! The sentence, wrung from her in the bitterness of her heart, but expressed the echo of surrounding things. Her own future blighted; Arthur’s character gone; Tom lost the seniorship; Charley not heard of, dead or alive! There were moments, and this was one of them, when Constance felt almost beyond the pale of hope. The college school, meanwhile existed in a state of constant suspense, the sword of terror ever hanging over its head. Punishment for the present was reserved; and what the precise punishment would be when it came, none could tell. Talkative Bywater was fond of saying that it did not matter whether Miss Charley turned up or not, so far as their backs were concerned: they would be made to tingle, either way.

Arthur, after communicating to Constance the strange fact of the return of the money to Mr. Galloway, shut himself up in the study to pursue his copying. Tea-time arrived, and Sarah brought in the tea-things. But neither Hamish nor Tom had come in, and Constance sat alone, deep in unpleasant thoughts.

That it was Hamish who had now returned the money to Mr. Galloway, Constance could not entertain the slightest doubt. It had a very depressing effect upon her. It could not render worse what had previously happened, indeed, it rather mended it, insomuch as that it served to show some repentance, some good feeling; but it made the suspicion against Hamish a certainty; and there had been times when Constance had been beguiled into thinking it only a suspicion. And now came this new fear of Mr. Butterby again!

Hamish’s own footstep in the hall. Constance roused herself. He came in, books under his arm, as usual, and his ever-gay face smiling. There were times when Constance almost despised him for his perpetual sunshine. The seriousness which had overspread Hamish at the time of Charley’s disappearance had nearly worn away. In his sanguine temperament, he argued that not finding the body was a proof that Charley was yet alive, and would come forth in a mysterious manner one of these days.

“Have I kept you waiting tea, Constance?” began he. “I came home by way of Close Street, and was called into Galloway’s by Roland Yorke, and then got detained further by Mr. Galloway. Where’s Arthur?”

“He has undertaken some copying for Mr. Galloway, and is busy with it,” replied Constance in a low tone. “Hamish!” raising her eyes to his face, as she gathered resolution to speak of the affair: “have you heard what has happened?”

“That some good fairy has forwarded a bank-note to Galloway on the wings of the telegraph? Roland Yorke would not allow me to remain in ignorance of that. Mr. Galloway did me the honour to ask whether I had sent it.”

“You!” uttered Constance, regarding the avowal only from her own point of view. “He asked whether you had sent it?”

“He did.”

She gazed at Hamish as if she would read his very soul. “And what did—what did you answer?”

“Told him I wished a few others would suspect me of the same, and count imaginary payments for real ones.”

“Hamish!” she exclaimed, the complaint wrung from her: “how can you be so light, so cruel, when our hearts are breaking?”

Hamish, in turn, was surprised at this. “I, cruel! In what manner, Constance? My dear, I repeat to you that we shall have Charley back again. I feel sure of it; and it has done away with my fear. Some inward conviction, or presentiment—call it which you like—tells me that we shall; and I implicitly trust to it. We need not mourn for him.”

“It is not for Charley: I do not speak of Charley now,” she sadly reiterated. “You are straying from the point. Hamish, have you no love left for Arthur?”

“I have plenty of love for every one,” said Mr. Hamish.

“Then how can you behave like this? Arthur is not guilty; you know he is not. And look what he has to bear! I believe you would laugh at the greatest calamity! Sending back this money to Mr. Galloway has—has—sadly distressed me.”

Hamish turned his smiling eyes upon her, but his tone was grave. “Wait until some great calamity occurs, Constance, and then see whether I laugh. Did I laugh that dreadful night and day that succeeded to Charley’s loss? Sending back the money to Mr. Galloway is not a cause for sadness. It most certainly exonerates Arthur.”

“And you are gay over it!” She would have given anything to speak more plainly.

“I am particularly gay this afternoon,” acknowledged Hamish, who could not be put out of temper by any amount of reproach whatever. “I have had great news by the post, Constance.”

“From Germany?” she quickly cried.

“Yes, from Germany,” he answered, taking a letter from his pocket, and spreading it open before Constance.

It contained the bravest news: great news, as Hamish expressed it. It was from Mr. Channing himself, and it told them of his being so far restored that there was no doubt now of his ability to resume his own place at his office. They intended to be home the first week in November. The weather at Borcette continued warm and charming, and they would prolong their stay there to the full time contemplated. It had been a fine autumn everywhere. There was a postscript added to the letter, as if an afterthought had occurred to Mr. Channing. “When you see Mr. Huntley, tell him how well I am progressing. I remember, by the way, that he hinted at being able to introduce you to something, should I no longer require you in Guild Street.”

In the delight that the news brought, Constance partially lost sight of her sadness. “It is not all gloom,” she whispered to herself. “If we could only dwell on God’s mercies as we do on His chastisement; if we could only feel more trust, we should see the bright side of the cloud oftener than we do.”

But it was dark; dark in many ways, and Constance was soon to be reminded again of it forcibly. She had taken her seat at the tea-table, when Tom came in. He looked flushed—stern; and he flung his Gradus, and one or two other books in a heap, on the side table, with more force than was necessary; and himself into a chair, ditto.

“Constance, I shall leave the school!”

Constance, in her dismay, dropped the sugar-tongs into the sugar. “What, Tom?”

“I shall leave the school!” he repeated, his tone as fiery as his face. “I wouldn’t stop in it another month, if I were bribed with gold. Things are getting too bad there.”

“Oh, Tom, Tom! Is this your endurance?”

“Endurance!” he exclaimed. “That’s a nice word in theory, Constance; but just you try it in practice! Who has endured, if I have not? I thought I’d go on and endure it, as you say; at any rate, until papa came home. But I can’t—I can’t!”

“What has happened more than usual?” inquired Hamish.

“It gets worse and worse,” said Tom, turning his blazing face upon his brother. “I wouldn’t wish a dog to live the life that I live in the college school. They call me a felon, and treat me as one; they send me to Coventry; they won’t acknowledge me as one of their seniors. My position is unbearable.”

“Live it down, Tom,” said Hamish quietly.

“Haven’t I been trying to live it down?” returned the boy, suppressing his emotion. “It has lasted now these two months, and I have borne it daily. At the time of Charley’s loss I was treated better for a day or two, but that has worn away. It is of no use your looking at me reproachfully, Constance; I must complain. What other boy in the world has ever been put down as I? I was head of the school, next to Gaunt; looking forward to be the head; and what am I now? The seniorship taken from me in shame; Huntley exalted to my place; my chance of the exhibition gone—”

“Huntley does not take the exhibition,” interrupted Constance.

“But Yorke will. I shan’t be allowed to take it. Now I know it, Constance, and the school knows it. Let a fellow once go down, and he’s kept down: every dog has a fling at him. The seniorship’s gone, the exhibition is going. I might bear that tamely, you may say; and of course I might, for they are negative evils; but what I can’t and won’t bear, are the insults of every-day life. Only this afternoon they—”

Tom stopped, for his feelings were choking him; and the complaint he was about to narrate was never spoken. Before he had recovered breath and calmness, Arthur entered and took his seat at the tea-table. Poor Tom, allowing one of his unfortunate explosions of temper to get the better of him, sprang from his chair and burst forth with a passionate reproach to Arthur, whom he regarded as the author of all the ill.

“Why did you do it? Why did you bring this disgrace upon us? But for you, I should not have lost caste in the school.”

“Tom!” interposed Hamish, in a severe tone.

Mr. Tom, brave college boy that he was—manly as he coveted to be thought—actually burst into tears. Tears called forth, not by contrition, I fear; but by remembered humiliation, by vexation, by the moment’s passion. Never had Tom cast a reproach openly to Arthur; whatever he may have felt he buried it within himself; but that his opinion vacillated upon the point of Arthur’s guilt, was certain. Constance went up to him and laid her hand gently and soothingly upon his shoulder.

“Tom, dear boy, your troubles are making you forget yourself. Do not be unjust to Arthur. He is innocent as you.”

“Then if he is innocent, why does he not speak out like a man, and proclaim his innocence?” retorted Tom, sensibly enough, but with rather too much heat. “That’s what the school cast in my teeth, more than anything again. ‘Don’t preach up your brother’s innocence to us!’ they cry; ‘if he did not take it, wouldn’t he say so?’ Look at Arthur now”—and Tom pointed his finger at him—“he does not, even here, to me, assert that he is innocent!”

Arthur’s face burnt under the reproach. He turned it upon Hamish, with a gesture almost as fiery, quite as hasty, as any that had been vouchsafed them by Tom. Plainly as look could speak, it said, “Will you suffer this injustice to be heaped upon me?” Constance saw the look, and she left Tom with a faint cry, and bent over Arthur, afraid of what truth he might give utterance to.

“Patience yet, Arthur!” she whispered. “Do not let a moment’s anger undo the work of weeks. Remember how bravely you have borne.”

“Ay! Heaven forgive my pride, Tom!” Arthur added, turning to him calmly. “I would clear you—or rather clear myself—in the eyes of the school, if I could: but it is impossible. However, you have less to blame me for than you may think.”

Hamish advanced. He caught Tom’s arm and drew him to a distant window. “Now, lad,” he said, “let me hear all about this bugbear. I’ll see if it can be in any way lightened for you.”

Hamish’s tone was kindly, his manner frank and persuasive, and Tom was won over to speak of his troubles. Hamish listened with an attentive ear. “Will you abide by my advice?” he asked him, when the catalogue of grievances had come to an end.

“Perhaps I will,” replied Tom, who was growing cool after his heat.

“Then, as I said to you before, so I say now—Live it down. It is the best advice I can give you.”

“Hamish, you don’t know what it is!”

“Yes, I do. I can enter into your trials and annoyances as keenly as if I had to encounter them. I do not affect to disparage them to you: I know that they are real trials, real insults; but if you will only make up your mind to bear them, they will lose half their sharpness. Your interest lies in remaining in the college school; more than that, your duty lies in it. Tom, don’t let it be said that a Channing shrunk from his duty because it brought him difficulties to battle with.”

“I don’t think I can stop in it, Hamish. I’d rather stand in a pillory, and have rotten eggs shied at me.”

“Yes, you can. In fact, my boy, for the present you must. Disobedience has never been a fault amongst us, and I am sure you will not be the one to inaugurate it. Your father left me ............