The moment he was gone Eric got up.  He meant to go to his study, collect the few presents, which were his dearest mementos of Russell, Wildney, and his other friends—­above all, Vernon’s likeness—­and then make his escape from the building, using for the last time the broken pane and loosened bar in the corridor, with which past temptations had made him so familiar.

He turned the handle of the door and pushed, but it did not yield.  Half contemplating the possibility of such an intention on Eric’s part, Dr. Rowlands had locked it behind him when he went out.

“Ha!” thought the boy, “then he, too, knows and suspects.  Never mind.  I must give up my treasures—­yes, even poor Verny’s picture; perhaps it is best I should, for I’m only disgracing his noble memory.  But they shan’t prevent me from running away.”

Once more he deliberated.  Yes, there could be no doubt about the decision.  He could, not endure another public expulsion, or even another birching; he could not endure the cold faces of even his best friends.  No, no! he could not face the horrible phantom of detection, and exposure, and shame.  Escape he must.

After using all his strength in long-continued efforts, he succeeded in loosening the bar of his bed-room window.  He then took his two sheets, tied them together in a firm knot, wound one end tightly round the remaining bar, and let the other fall down the side of the building.  He took one more glance round his little room, and then let himself down by the sheet, hand under hand, until he could drop to the ground.  Once safe, he ran towards Starhaven as fast as he could, and felt as if he were flying for his life.  But when he got to the end of the playground he could not help stopping to take one more longing, lingering look at the scenes he was leaving for ever.  It was a chilly and overclouded night, and by the gleams of struggling moonlight, he saw the whole buildings standing out black in the night air.  The past lay behind him like a painting.  Many and many unhappy or guilty hours had he spent in that home, and yet those last four years had not gone by without their own wealth of life and joy.  He remembered how he had first walked across that playground, hand in hand with his father, a little boy of twelve.  He remembered his first troubles with Barker, and how his father had at last delivered him from the annoyances of his old enemy.  He remembered how often he and Russell had sat there, looking at the sea, in pleasant talk, especially the evening when he had got his first prize and head remove in the lower fourth; and how, in the night of Russell’s death, he had gazed over that playground from the sick-room window.  He remembered how often he had got cheered there for his feats at cricket and football, and how often he and Upton in old days, and he and Wildney afterwards, had walked there on Sundays, arm in arm.  Then the stroll to Port Island, and Barker’s plot against him, and the evening at