“How is he!” said Falloden, as he took it, glancing up at a still curtained window.

The man hesitated.

“Well, I don’t know, sir, I’m sure.  He saw the doctor this morning, and told me afterwards not to disturb him till three o’clock.  But he rang just now, and said I was to tell you that two ladies were coming to tea.”

“Did he mention their names?”

“Not as I’m aware of, sir.”

Falloden pondered a moment.

“Tell Mr. Radowitz, when he rings again, that I have gone down to the college ground for some football, and I shan’t be back till after six.  You’re sure he doesn’t want to see me?”

“No, sir, I think not.  He told me to leave the blind down, and not to come in again till he rang.”

Falloden put on flannels, and ran down the field paths towards Oxford and the Marmion ground, which lay on the hither side of the river.  Here he took hard exercise for a couple of hours, walking on afterwards to his club in the High Street, where he kept a change of clothes.  He found some old Marmion friends there, including Robertson and Meyrick, who asked him eagerly after Radowitz.

“Better come and see,” said Falloden.  “Give you a bread and cheese luncheon any day.”

They got no more out of him.  But his reticence made them visibly uneasy, and they both declared their intention of coming up the following day.  In both men there was a certain indefinable change which Falloden soon perceived.  Both seemed, at times, to be dragging a weight too heavy for their youth.  At other times, they were just like other men of their age; but Falloden, who knew them well, realised that they were both hag-ridden by remorse for what had happened in the summer.  And indeed the attitude of a large part of the college towards them, and towards Falloden, when at rare intervals he showed himself there, could hardly have been colder or more hostile.  The “bloods” were broken up; the dons had set their faces steadily against any form of ragging; and the story of the maimed hand, of the wrecking of Radowitz’s career, together with sinister rumours as to his general health, had spread through Oxford, magnifying as they went.  Falloden met it all with a haughty silence; and was but seldom seen in his old haunts.

And presently it had become known, to the stupefaction of those who were aware of the earlier facts, that victim and tormentor, the injured and the offender, were living together in the Boar’s Hill cottage where Radowitz was finishing the composition required for his second musical examination, and Falloden—­having lost his father, his money and his prospects—­was reading for a prize fellowship to be given by Merton in December.

* * * * *

It was already moonlight when Falloden began to climb the long hill again, which leads up from Folly Bridge to the height on which stood the cottage.  But the autumn sunset was not long over, and in the mingled light all the rich colours of the fading woodland seemed to be suspended in, or fused with, the evening air.  Forms and distances, hedges, trees, moving figures, and distant buildings were marvellously though dimly glorified; and above the golds and reds and purples of the misty earth, shone broad and large—­an Achilles shield in heaven—­the autumn moon, with one bright star beside it.