it was to a certain remorse in the tutor's mind that Elsmere owed
an experience of great importance to his afterlife.

The name of a certain Mr. Grey had for some time before his entry
at Oxford been more or less familiar to Robert's ears as that of a
person of great influence and consideration at St. Anselm's. His
tutor at Harden had spoken of him in the boy's hearing as one of
the most remarkable men of the generation, and had several times
impressed upon his pupil that nothing could be so desirable for him
as to secure the friendship of such a man. It was on the occasion
of his first interview with the Provost, after the scholarship
examination, that Robert was first brought face to face with Mr.
Grey. He could remember a short dark man standing beside the
Provost, who had been introduced to him by that name, but the
nervousness of the moment had been so great that the boy had been
quite incapable of giving him any special attention.

During his first term and a half of residence, Robert occasionally
met Mr. Grey in the quadrangle or in the street, and the tutor,
remembering the thin, bright-faced youth, would return his salutations
kindly, and sometimes stop to speak to him, to ask him if he were
comfortably settled in his rooms, or make a remark about the boats.
But the acquaintance did not seem likely to progress, for Mr. Grey
was a Greats tutor, and Robert naturally had nothing to do with him
as far as work was concerned.

However, a day or two after the conversation we have described,
Robert, going to Langham's rooms late in the afternoon to return a
book which had been lent to him, perceived two figures standing
talking on the hearth-rug and by the western light beating in