have to spend the best part of their lives in getting money enough to give them a start. I shall be the Leader of the House. Mind, to anyone but you this ambition would seem presumptuous. It is my secret which I trust with you, Nell." He caught her hands, drew her gently, and kissed her on the forehead. "Dear Nell," he said, "long before my ambition is realized, you will be by my side, encouraging, and advising, and consoling."
He spoke as a young man should; and tenderly, as a lover should; but there was something not right—a secret thorn—something jarred. In the brave words—in the tender tones—there was a touch, a tone, a look, out of harmony. Will Challice could not tell his mistress that all day long there was a voice within him crying: "Work, work! Get up and work! All this is folly! Work! Nothing can be done without work—work—work!"
III.
It was about the beginning of the Michaelmas term that the very remarkable occurrences or series of occurrences began which are the cause and origin of this history. Many men have failed and many have succeeded. Will Challice is, perhaps, the only man who has ever done both, and in the same line and at the same time. The thing came upon him quite suddenly and unexpectedly. It was at two in the morning; he had spent the evening quietly in the society of three other men and two packs of cards. His own rooms, he observed as he crossed the court, were lit up—he wondered how his "gyp" could have been so careless. He opened his door and entered his room. Heavens! At the table, on which the lamp was burning, sat before a pile of books—himself! Challice rubbed his eyes; he was not frightened; there is nothing to alarm a man in the sight of himself, though sometimes a good deal to disgust; but if you saw, in a looking-glass, your own face and figure doing something else, you would be astonished: you might even be alarmed. Challice had heard of men seeing rats, circles, triangles, even—he thought of his misspent evenings which were by no means innocent of whisky and potash: he concluded that this must be an Appearance, to be referred, like the rats and circles, to strong drink. He thought that it would vanish as he gazed.
"What does this mean?"
It did not: on the contrary, it became, if anything, clearer. There was a reading lamp on the table which threw a strong circle of light upon the bent head of the reader. Then Will Challice began to tremble and his knees gave way. The clock ticked on the mantelshelf: else there was no sound: the College was wrapped and lapped in the silence of sleep.
He nerved himself: he stepped forwards. "Speak," he cried, and the sound of his own voice terrified him. Who ever heard of a man questioning himself in the dead of night? "Speak—What does this mean?"
Then the reader lifted his head, placed a book-mark to keep his place, and turned slowly in his chair one of those wooden chairs the seat of which turns round. Yes—it was himself—his own face that met the face of the returned reveller. But there was no
