"Well, perhaps I am mistaken," mused Trace. "It's a long while since I saw the other."
But, nevertheless, in spite of this conclusion, Trace could not keep his eyes off the face, and his studies suffered. The boy went up to Dr. Brabazon for examination, as it was usual for a new scholar to do; and Trace's ears were bent to catch the sound of the voice, if haply it might hear recognition for his memory. The head master found the boy thoroughly well advanced in his studies, and a suspicion arose in the school that he would be placed at the first desk. Loftus heard somebody say it, and elevated his eyebrows in displeasure. When the school rose, Trace went up to Mr. Baker.
"I beg your pardon, sir; would you allow me to look for one minute at the roll?"
"At the roll?—what for?" returned Mr. Baker, who was a little man with a bald head.
"I think I know one of the new boys, sir. I want to see his name."
There was no rule against showing the roll, and Mr. Baker took it out of his desk. Trace ran his finger down the new names—which were entered at the end until their places should be allotted—and it halted at one.
"George Paradyne!" he mentally read. "Thank you, sir," he said aloud, with the quiet civility characteristic of him: and Mr. Baker locked up the roll again.
For once in his college life, a burning spot of emotion might have been seen on Raymond Trace's cheek. A foul injury, as he regarded it, had been done to his family and fortune by the father of George Paradyne; and he deemed that the son had no more right to be receiving his education with honest men's sons, as their equal and associate, than darkness has to be made hail-fellow-well-met with light. He went in search of Loftus. Loftus was leaning over the open wall, his legs in the cloisters, his head in the quadrangle, and his arm round a huge pillar, ruminating bitterly on the wrongs dealt out to himself, on Dick's wickedness, and the ignominy of possessing pistols that one can't get at.
"I thought I was not mistaken in the fellow," began Trace. "It is George Paradyne."
"Who?" cried Loftus, starting round, aroused by the name.