infinitely rewarding, unutterably dear.

Arthur left Winchester. A correspondence ensued between the two
friends. I have three letters of Arthur's, so passionate in
expression, that for fear of even causing uneasiness, not to speak
of suspicion, I will not quote them. I have seen, though I have
destroyed, at request, the letters of the other.

This friend, a weak, but singularly attractive boy, got into a bad
set at Winchester, and came to grief in more than one way; he came
to Cambridge in three years, and fell in with a thoroughly bad set
there. Arthur seems not to have suspected it at first, and to have
delighted in his friend's society; but such things as habits betray
themselves, and my belief is that disclosures were made on November
8, which revealed to Arthur the state of the case. What passed I
can not say. I can hardly picture to myself the agony, disgust,
and rage (his words and feelings about sensuality of any kind were
strangely keen and bitter), loyalty fighting with the sense of
repulsion, pity struggling with honour, which must have convulsed
him when he discovered that his friend was not only yielding, but
deliberately impure.

The other's was an unworthy and brutal nature, utterly corrupted at
bottom. He used to speak jestingly of the occurrence. "Oh yes!" I
have heard him say; "we were great friends once, but he cuts me now;
he had to give me up, you see, because he didn't approve of me.
Justice, mercy, and truth, and all the rest of it."

It was certainly true; their friendship ended. I find it hard to
realize that Arthur would voluntarily have abandoned him; and yet I