from falsehood and equivocation, Armour preferred silence as the least evil of the three.  The question of Blanche was not, therefore, answered.  At the breakfast-table, his father and mother remarked upon his appearance.  To this, he merely replied that he was not well.  As soon as the meal was over, he went out, glad to escape the eye of Blanche, which, it seemed to him, rested searchingly upon him all the while.

A walk of half an hour in the fresh morning air dispelled the dull pain in his head, and restored his whole system to a more healthy tone.  This drove away, to some extent, the oppressive feeling of self-condemnation he had indulged.  The scenes of the previous evening, though silly enough for sensible young men to engage in, seemed less objectionable than they had appeared to him on his first review.  To laugh involuntarily at several remembered jests and stories, the points of which were not exactly the most chaste or reverential, marked the change that a short period had produced in his state of mind.  During that day, he did not fall in with any of his wild companions of the last evening, too many of whom had already fairly entered the road to ruin.  The evening was spent at home, in the society of Blanche.  He read while she sewed, or he turned for her the leaves of her music book, or accompanied her upon the flute while she played him a favourite air upon the piano.  Conversation upon books, music, society, and other topics of interest, filled up the time not occupied in these mental recreations, and added zest, variety, and unflagging interest to the gently-passing hours.  On the next evening they attended a concert, and on the next a party.  On that succeeding, Henry went out to see a friend of a different character from any of those with whom he had passed the hours a few nights previous—­a friend about his own age, of fixed habits and principles, who, like himself, was preparing for the bar.  With him he spent a more rational evening than with the others, and, what was better, no sting was left behind.

Still, young Armour could never think of the “club” without having his mind thrown into a tumult.  It awoke into activity opposing principles.  Good and evil came in contact, and battled for supremacy.  There was in his mind a clear conviction that to indulge in dissipation of that character, would be injurious both to moral and physical health.  And yet, having tasted of the delusive sweets, he was tempted to further indulgence.  Meeting with some two or three of the “members” during the week, and listening to their extravagant praise of the “club,” and the pleasure of uniting in unrestrained social intercourse, made warm by generous wine, tended to make more active the contest going on within—­for the good principles that had been stored up in his mind were not to be easily silenced.  Their hold upon his character was deep.  They had entered into its warp and woof, and were not to be eradicated or silenced in a moment.  As the time for the