She paused, and her voice faltered with the question on her lips. Eric's face was white and anxious, and he was not smiling. He was not the least like the man who was waving his cap under the window of the Senate House.
'You have not heard——' he said.
'Heard what?' she cried impatiently. 'Is the Master——'
'No—no,' he interrupted; 'it is not that—it is not the Master.'
'It is Mrs. Rae?' she said, with a chill feeling at her heart. She was sure something had happened.
'No, it is not Mrs. Rae. Oh, Miss Lucy! how can I tell you?'
'It is he!' she said in a stricken voice, and with that dreadful feeling at her heart. 'Oh! what has he done?'
She was standing wringing her hands in the middle of the cloisters, and the men were passing through, and everyone could see her.
'Hush!' Eric said almost harshly; 'he has not done anything—at least, he has only done what others do at this time. There was a bump supper last night, and—and Wyatt was there; and when Mr. Colville went in this morning to tell him of his great success, he was on the floor in one of his old attacks. It is all over the college, and everybody is dreadfully shocked—that is all!'
'All!' Lucy said bitterly. 'You speak as if the shame and exposure were nothing. Oh, I shall never be able to face it!' She only thought of herself.