likely to lead to at least one more; and somehow it makes us feel
rather shy of one another; and to say the truth, that is one reason
why there are so few of us present to-night."

"Tell us the story, Walter," said Dick; "perhaps telling it will help
you to shake off your sadness."

Said Walter: "Well, I will; and I will make it short enough, though
I daresay it might be spun out into a long one, as used to be done
with such subjects in the old novels. There is a very charming girl
here whom we all like, and whom some of us do more than like; and she
very naturally liked one of us better than anybody else. And another
of us (I won't name him) got fairly bitten with love-madness, and
used to go about making himself as unpleasant as he could--not of
malice prepense, of course; so that the girl, who liked him well
enough at first, though she didn't love him, began fairly to dislike
him. Of course, those of us who knew him best--myself amongst
others--advised him to go away, as he was making matters worse and
worse for himself every day. Well, he wouldn't take our advice (that
also, I suppose, was a matter of course), so we had to tell him that
he MUST go, or the inevitable sending to Coventry would follow; for
his individual trouble had so overmastered him that we felt that WE
must go if he did not.

"He took that better than we expected, when something or other--an
interview with the girl, I think, and some hot words with the
successful lover following close upon it, threw him quite off his
balance; and he got hold of an axe and fell upon his rival when there
was no one by; and in the struggle that followed the man attacked,
hit him an unlucky blow and killed him. And now the slayer in his