University authority, but obnoxious to society at large, he had been
rusticated. Though the matter was kept as private as possible, its
details being known only to the master, dean and tutor, still it made a
nine-day's talk, not only in the college, but in the town--until the
remorseless wave of daily life, which so quickly closes over the head of
either ill-doer or well-doer, closed completely over that of Edwin
Uniacke.

Recovering from the shock of his turpitude, the college now reposed in
peace upon its slender list of well-conducted and harmless
undergraduates, its two or three tutors, and its dozen or so of gray old
fellows, who dozed away their evenings in combination-room. Even
such an event as the master's second marriage had scarcely power to
stir Saint Bede's from its sleepy equanimity.

It was, indeed, a peaceful place. It had no grand entrance, but in a
narrow back street you came suddenly upon its ancient gateway,
through which you passed into a mediaeval world. The clock tower
and clock, with an upright sundial affixed below it, marked the first
court, whence, through a passage which, as is usual in colleges, had the
hall on one hand and the buttery on the other, you entered the second
court, round three sides of which ran cloisters of very ugly, very plain,
but very ancient architecture. In a corner of these cloisters was the
door of the Lodge--the master's private dwelling.

Private it could hardly be called; for, like all these lodges of colleges,
it had an atmosphere most anti-home like, which at first struck you as
extremely painful. Its ancientness, both of rooms and furniture, added
to this feeling. When you passed through the small entrance hall, up
the stone staircase, and into a long, narrow, mysterious gallery, looking