The Warden nodded assent.
“I must go now,” said Gaveston. “I am a busy man.”
The rifest of rumours ran through Oxford that afternoon when the bruit was abroad that the Editor of The Mongoose had interviewed the Vice-Chancellor. The great political clubs were abuzz with conflicting accounts of what had taken place. Even in the deserted halls of the Liberal Club the solitary waiter paced to and fro murmuring rumours to himself. A monster demonstration of local Jacobites with a white flag was held outside the county gaol, where it was believed that Gaveston had that morning been secretly immured. But all dubieties were laid low when, according to antique custom, the tolling bell of the Radcliffe Camera announced that the Vice-Chancellor had resigned office.
The stupefied silence in the city was broken only by the sombre reverberations of that passing bell.
A hurriedly convoked meeting of the Hebdomadal Council issued formal notice before nightfall that the Warden of Rutland had resigned for reasons of ill-health. And profound was the impression when it was announced a little later that the vacant post would be filled by Archibald Arundel, M.A., Dean of Wallace College.
“We have won, David,” said Gav calmly when the news reached him in his quiet inner sitting-room.
But David could make no reply. His eyes glistened in the twilight as he looked out over the darkling quadrangle.…