No bells were rung, no terrace songs were sung; the quiet of a peaceful Sunday reigned for days between South College and the gate.
On Commencement Day the announcement was made from the stage that the danger line in Charley’s case had been passed, and only the unexpected would now prevent his recovery.
A great cheer went up from the vast audience; for Lee, in spite of his last few months of ill behavior, was still the best-loved fellow on the hill.
This was on Wednesday. On Thursday Parmenter started for his home, three hundred miles away. He had seen neither Charley nor Professor Lee; it was not possible to do so. But he was content now to bide his time for explanation, for confession, for reconciliation.
Mr. Delavan had told him on the day of his departure of some things that gave him a clearer insight into Van Loan’s perfidy, and into Professor Lee’s simple honesty of character; and in the days of sober thought that followed he felt more and more how unworthy had been his self-made charges and suspicions, how unjustifiable and unmanly had been his treatment of Professor Lee.
In August a rumor reached Parmenter that the Lees were going to Europe for a long vacation. Both Charley’s health and his father’s demanded the change, and Mrs. Lee was to go with them. Parmenter was aroused by the news into sudden activity.
He had looked forward to the opening of the term in September as the time when he should go to the man whom he had wronged, arraign himself, plead guilty, and ask to be forgiven. He could not postpone that duty for a year, perhaps for two years longer; he felt that he could not bear the burden of his shame for all that time, nor rest in the uncertainty of only a possible reconciliation.
He must see Professor Lee and Charley before they sailed.
He threw a few things into a satchel, and took the next train for the East. He traveled a night and a day, and the next afternoon he found himself hurrying up Concord Street to College Hill.