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After chapel, on the Sunday morning, De Vayne invited himself to breakfast with Julian, and continued in his company the greater part of the day, going with him to the University sermon.
"What is the matter, De Vayne?" said Kennedy tenderly, as he knelt down and supported the young man in his arms. But there was no answer. "Here D'Acres, or somebody, for heaven's sake fetch a doctor; he must have been seized with a fit." "What have you been doing, Bruce?" thundered Brogten. "Bruce doing!" said Kennedy wildly, as he sprang to his feet.
But time had been lost already, and he was the less able to set to work at first from his complete ignorance of what had happened. He sat up all night with his patient, but was more than doubtful whether it was not too late to save his life. The news that De Vayne had been seized with a fit at Kennedy's rooms soon changed into a darker rumour.
It was on about the fourth evening that De Vayne awoke to complete consciousness. He became aware that some one besides his mother was seated in the room, and without asking he seemed slowly to recognise that it was Kennedy. "Is that Kennedy?" he asked, in a weak voice. "It is I," said Kennedy, but the patient did not answer, and seemed restless and uneasy and complained of cold.
He fancied that the secret had oozed out; he fancied that men eyed him sometimes with strange glances; he pictured to himself the degradation he should feel if Julian, or De Vayne, or Lillyston ever knew of what weakness he was capable. This one error rode like a night-mare on his breast. But none of his gloomy presentiments on the score of detection were fulfilled.
Brogten went straight from hall to Kennedy's rooms. He found the door sported, but knew as well as possible that Kennedy was in. He hammered and thumped at the door a long time with sundry imprecations, but Kennedy, moodily resolute, heard all the noise inside, and would not stir. Then Brogten took out a card and wrote on the back, "I think you'll ask De Vayne," and dropped it into the letter-box.
Ten minutes' run brought them to a green bend of the Iscam, where a bathing-shed had been built, and after enjoying the bathe as only the first bathe in a season can be enjoyed, they struck off over the fields towards some neighbouring villages, which De Vayne had often wanted to visit, because their old churches contained some quaint specimens of early architecture.
"`De Vayne! how that name haunts me; how full it is of horror De Vayne and Hazlet; and yet I hear that both have contributed to my help. It gives me new life to know that human hearts can be so full of forgiveness and of love.
As there was plenty of time, he took a stroll or two across the court before going in. While doing so, he met De Vayne, and in his company suddenly found himself vis-a-vis with his old enemy Brogten. "Hm!" whispered Brogten to his companion; "the sizars are getting on. A sizar and a viscount arm-in-arm!"
They had a beautiful walk; De Vayne made little sketches of the windows and gargoyles of the village churches, and they all returned in the evening to a dinner which Lillyston had ordered in his own rooms, and which gave the rest an agreeable surprise when they got in.
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