So Farrant is really to be expelled? Tell me all about it, for I've heard next to nothing these last few days up in the infirmary. The speaker was a boy of about seventeen, who was walking arm-in-arm with a companion of his own age in the quietest part of a large playground. "Well, on the whole, I think you were well out of it. There was no end of a row on Saturday evening when it all came to light. Little Harrison turned rusty, and told the Doctor that some of the sixth had taken to gambling, and then there was a solemn convention, and we were all called upon to reveal anything we knew, and, before I could have thanked my stars for ten seconds that I knew nothing, up sprang Donovan Farrant, looking like a second Curtius, only with a bad cause, poor fellow, to confess that he had been the first to introduce card-playing. I fancy the Doctor thought him rather too brazen-faced about it, for he was awfully severe; but Farrant, you know, is one of those fellows who look like marble when they feel most, and, instead of being the picture of shame, he stood there, with his head thrown back, looking as if he'd knock all our heads off for sixpence." "I can just fancy him. He's certainly a touch of the Roman in him; but what in the blessed world did he do it for?" "Don't know. He's a queer fellow. Such crazy ideas of honour too! Enough to make him spring up in that way to answer to a general accusation, and yet so little that he could go on for weeks as the ringleader in this affair." "But what's on the wire now? They're never going to make him run the gauntlet?" "They are, though. The lower school's up in arms because Harrison—who's his fag, you know—says Farrant forced him against his will to give his pocket-money for the gaming, whereupon you can fancy the Doctor was furious, exaggerated things, and told Farrant he was found guilty of disobedience, stealing, and bullying, though everyone knows he's no more a bully than you are." "Bully! I should think not! Why, the little weakly chaps make a regular hero of him, and he was always hanging about after poor little Somerton, who died last term. That Harrison is a rascally young cub. I don't believe Farrant took his money." "Asked him to lend it, I daresay, and gave the young beggar a look from those extraordinary eyes of his. Anyhow, the lower school have taken up the Doctor's words, and Farrant will feel their scorn on his shoulders before he's an hour older." "Poor fellow, there he is!" said the first speaker. "Why didn't they send him off by the early train? He must have had enough of this sort of thing yesterday." "Yes, in all conscience! He won't soon forget that Sunday. By Jove! it was a slashing sermon the Doctor gave us, preached straight at Farrant—hurled at his head. But there must be some reason for keeping him here. I wish you'd go and speak to him, Reynolds." After some little discussion, Reynolds gave a reluctant consent, and, crossing the playground in the direction of the school-house, made his way to the place where the culprit was standing. Donovan Farrant looked somewhat unapproachable, it must be confessed. He was a tall slight fellow of nearly eighteen, with dark hair and complexion, a curiously-formed forehead bespeaking rare mathematical talent, a faultless profile, a firm but bitter-looking mouth, and strange eyes—black in some lights, hazel in others, but always curiously contradictory to the hard resoluteness that characterised the rest of the face, for they were hungry-looking and unsatisfied. He was leaning against the wall, but there was no rest in his attitude. With an expression of cold scorn, he was watching the gradually increasing group of boys in the centre of the playground. His face softened a little as a friendly greeting attracted his notice.
