“My dearest Eric—­I have got bad news to tell you, at least, I feel it to be bad news for me, and I flatter myself that you will feel it to be bad news for you.  In short, I am going to leave Roslyn, and probably we shall never meet there again.  The reason is, I have had a cadetship given me, and I am to sail for India in September.  I have already written to the school to tell them to pack up and send me all my books and clothes.

“I feel leaving very much; it has made me quite miserable.  I wanted to stay at school another year at least; and I will honestly tell you, Eric, one reason:  I’m very much afraid that I’ve done you, and Graham, and other fellows, no good; and I wanted, if I possibly could, to undo the harm I had done.  Poor Edwin’s death opened my eyes to a good many things, and now I’d give all I have never to have taught or encouraged you in wrong things.  Unluckily it’s too late;—­only, I hope that you already see, as I do, that the things I mean lead to evil far greater than we ever used to dream of.

“Good-bye now, old fellow!  Do write to me soon, and forgive me, and believe me ever—­Your most affectionate, HORACE UPTON.”

“P.S.—­Is that jolly little Vernon going back to school with you this time?  I remember seeing him running about the shore with my poor cousin, when you were a home-boarder, and thinking what a nice little chap he looked.  I hope you’ll look after him as a brother should, and keep him out of mischief.”

Eric folded the letter sadly, and put it into his pocket; he didn’t often show them his school letters, because, like this one, they often contained allusions to things which he did not like his aunt to know.  The thought of Upton’s leaving him made him quite unhappy, and he wrote him a long letter by that post, indignantly denying the supposition that his friendship had ever done him anything but good.

The postscript about Vernon suggested a thought that had often been in his mind.  He could not but shudder in himself, when he thought of that bright little brother of his being initiated in the mysteries of evil which he himself had learnt, and sinking like himself into slow degeneracy of heart and life.  It puzzled and perplexed him, and at last he determined to open his heart, partially at least, in a letter to Mr. Rose.  The master fully understood his doubts, and wrote him the following reply:—­

“My dear Eric—­I have just received your letter about your brother Vernon, and I think that it does you honor.  I will briefly give you my own opinion.

“You mean, no doubt, that, from your own experience, you fear that Vernon will hear at school many things which will shock his modesty, and much language which is evil and blasphemous; you fear that he will meet with many bad examples, and learn to look on God and godliness in a way far different from that to which he has been accustomed at home.  You fear, in short, that he must pass through the same painful temptations to which you have yourself been subjected; to which, perhaps, you have even succumbed.