But, putting a bold face on the matter, and assuming a fraternal air, he took her to the torture-chamber, in which candidates sat dolefully on a row of chairs against the wall, waiting their turn to come before the three grand inquisitors at the table.  Fortunately, Winifred and he were the only spectators; but unfortunately they blundered in at the very moment when the poor owner of the punt was on the rack.  The central inquisitor was trying to extract from him information about Becket, almost prompting him with the very words, but without penetrating through the duncical denseness.  John Lefolle breathed more freely when the Crusades were broached; but, alas, it very soon became evident that the dunce had by no means ‘got hold of the thing’.  As the dunce passed out sadly, obviously ploughed, John Lefolle suffered more than he.  So conscience-stricken was he that, when he had accompanied Winifred as far as her hotel, he refused her invitation to come in, pleading the compulsoriness of duty and dinner in Hall.  But he could not get away without promising to call in during the evening.

The prospect of this visit was with him all through dinner, at once tempting and terrifying.  Assuredly there was a skeleton at his feast, as he sat at the high table, facing the Master.  The venerable portraits round the Hall seemed to rebuke his romantic waywardness.  In the common-room, he sipped his port uneasily, listening as in a daze to the discussion on Free Will, which an eminent stranger had stirred up.  How academic it seemed, compared with the passionate realities of life.  But somehow he found himself lingering on at the academic discussion, postponing the realities of life.  Every now and again, he was impelled to glance at his watch; but suddenly murmuring, ‘It is very late,’ he pulled himself together, and took leave of his learned brethren.  But in the street the sight of a telegraph office drew his steps to it, and almost mechanically he wrote out the message:  ’Regret detained.  Will call early in morning.’

When he did call in the morning, he was told she had gone back to London the night before on receipt of a telegram.  He turned away with a bitter pang of disappointment and regret.

IV

Their subsequent correspondence was only the more amorous.  The reason she had fled from the hotel, she explained, was that she could not endure the night in those stuffy quarters.  He consoled himself with the hope of seeing much of her during the Long Vacation.  He did see her once at her own reception, but this time her husband wandered about the two rooms.  The cosy corner was impossible, and they could only manage to gasp out a few mutual endearments amid the buzz and movement, and to arrange a rendezvous for the end of July.  When the day came, he received a heart-broken letter, stating that her husband had borne her away to Goodwood.  In a postscript she