Then with a stifled cry of alarm, Willie shrank back, clapping his hand to his brow.
“My God!” he exclaimed, “it is poor Herbert Grant!”
“You know him, then?”
“Oh, well, and all his history. He was a poor Highland student who came down to compete, but failed.”
“Do you know the address of his parents? It is evidently a case of suicide. Here is a letter we found on him addressed to his mother and father, but not directed. In the agony of his mind the poor boy must have forgotten that.”
“I do know their address.”
Then Willie took the letter, which was somewhat blotted from immersion and subsequent drying, and read as follows:—
“Dear Father and Mother,—Only a line in my agony can I write at all at all. But to be sure it is perhaps just as well. I have failed to take a bursary. When your eyes shall fall on these lines I shall be dead evermore. Don’t sorrow for me whatever. I shall be quieter and better in the cold, cold grave.
“I never could face you after failure, and I never could face the taunts of my brothers and my cousins. Forgive me! forgive me! Good-bye for evermore whatever.—Your dead boy,
Herbert.”