experience, as if he were marked at birth to be the perpetrator of some
signal action, to set back fallen Mercy, to overthrow the usurping devil
that sat, horned and hoofed, on her throne. Seductive Jacobin figments,
which he had often refuted at the Speculative, swam up in his mind and
startled him as with voices: and he seemed to himself to walk
accompanied by an almost tangible presence of new beliefs and duties.

On the named morning he was at the place of execution. He saw the
fleering rabble, the flinching wretch produced. He looked on for a
while at a certain parody of devotion, which seemed to strip the wretch
of his last claim to manhood. Then followed the brutal instant of
extinction, and the paltry dangling of the remains like a broken
jumping-jack. He had been prepared for something terrible, not for this
tragic meanness. He stood a moment silent, and then - "I denounce this
God-defying murder," he shouted; and his father, if he must have
disclaimed the sentiment, might have owned the stentorian voice with
which it was uttered.

Frank Innes dragged him from the spot. The two handsome lads followed
the same course of study and recreation, and felt a certain mutual
attraction, founded mainly on good looks. It had never gone deep; Frank
was by nature a thin, jeering creature, not truly susceptible whether of
feeling or inspiring friendship; and the relation between the pair was
altogether on the outside, a thing of common knowledge and the
pleasantries that spring from a common acquaintance. The more credit to
Frank that he was appalled by Archie's outburst, and at least conceived
the design of keeping him in sight, and, if possible, in hand, for the
day. But Archie, who had just defied - was it God or Satan? - would not
listen to the word of a college companion.