He soon found, however, that he had greatly underestimated the moral force of an abhorrence deeply rooted in immitigable distrust. Though largely given to psychological studies, and profoundly learned, for his years, in the intricacies and tendencies of the human mind, he was astonished to find how soon the atmosphere grew heavy around him, how quickly Trubie's dogged dislike communicated itself, more or less strongly, to others; while the increased cordiality of a few, though kindly intended to offset it, only served to point him out more clearly as one set apart, for the time, from life's ordinary course and level, by the force of an unenviable, if undeserved, notoriety. Not that he ever appeared to be conscious of either of these manifestations, or of their ultimate effect. Nature had given him a moral and intellectual fibre so tough, and he had trained himself to a control so perfect, that the keenest observer could not detect the least variation from his usual composed, concentrated, somewhat moody demeanor. Whatever of suffering, or of sin, lay at the bottom of his heart, not a shadow thereof was seen in his face.
It might well be, however, that he was glad when the examination was over, his degree obtained, and himself left free to depart by any one of the many paths which life opened before him.
Yet he was in no suspicious haste to be gone. His departure was fixed for an early hour on the following morning. Meanwhile, at dusk, he went out for his habitual solitary stroll. Never had he invited companionship, and was it thrust upon him. He had no intimate friend. Though he had been not only admired, but respected, by many, for his intellectual gifts, and for a certain firm, even texture of character, and dispassionateness of judgment, that often looked like virtue, whether such in reality or not, he was beloved by none.
Where he went, what he thought, is not to the purpose of our narrative. His walk was long, however; he did not return until dusk had deepened into clear and starry, but moonless night. As he came up through the great, dim elm-arches, with their solemn resemblance to a vast cathedral nave, a strange tremor seized him. A complete sceptic in regard to all superstitions and forebodings, he yet felt his nerves shaking with an undefined fear; he could not rid himself of the impression that something unprecedented and sinister was at that moment taking place. Reaching the college, he ascended the steps with a strange mixture of eagerness and reluctance; and immediately became aware of a subdued but excited murmur of voices in the upper hall. At the same moment, Mark Tracey came rushing down the stairs, carpet-bag in hand.
"What's up?" asked Roath, in a voice that trembled in spite of himself.
"I don't rightly know," responded Tracey, hurriedly,—"I am so late for the train, that I couldn't stop to hear. Something about a diamond that Trubie has found in Arling's glass—the one from which the poor fellow drank his death-draught, I believe. Good-by!" And away he went.
Had he waited but for an instant, he would have been startled and spellbound by the deadly whiteness of Roath's face. Through all the glimmering indistinctness of the dimly-lighted hall, his features were clearly discernible, by reason of that marble pallor. For the moment, he seemed to lose sense and consciousness; he would have fallen, except for the friendly support of the wall against which he leaned.
But it was only for a moment. The man's hard energy of character, his iron will, his rigid self-control, though they had gone down before the suddenness and severity of the shock, quickly rose again. With a mighty effort, he rallied his broken forces; back into his face came the look of purpose, the sense of power, the sternness of immitigable resolve; and this with so rapid and almost imperceptible a change, that it seemed as if the granite man must have stood there from the first, and the weak man not at all. While Tracey's receding footsteps still echoed faintly from without, going swiftly in the direction of the city's principal thoroughfare,—while the murmur of voices from above was still at its eager, wondering height,—he had turned, noiselessly descended the steps, and was gliding down through the sombre elm-arches, swift and stealthy as a phantom. The street was shadowy at best, but he chose the darker side; it was wellnigh deserted, at that hour, but he soon turned into a still less frequented one, and then struck into a more assured and less noiseless, as well as swifter, pace.
As he went, he drew a ring from his finger, and glancing hastily round, to make sure that he was unobserved, he flung it far into the dusky shadow of a garden thicket. Only the day before, a friend had said to him,—"Roath, do you know that the stone is gone from your ring?" and he had answered,—"Yes; and I am sorry to have lost it, for it was my father's." And he had proceeded to point out the antique setting, and to describe the peculiar shape and tint of the gem which it had inclosed. He gnashed his teeth as he recalled the short, but momentous conversation. But for that, he would not have fled.
The garden into which he had flung the ring adjoined a small cottage; and, at one of the open windows, a gray-haired dame sat in a high-backed chair, listening to the clear, musical voice of an invisible reader. This fragment of a sentence floated out to him on the dim night air,—"He shall be holden with the cords of—"