"Not yet up," he muttered, "or that wren wouldn't be trotting up and down there so complacently! To be sure, he may have gone out, but it isn't likely."
Neither for the look nor the thought did he pause, but strode straight up two flights of stairs, his firm tread resounding loudly through the empty, uncarpeted halls, and knocked at the door of a front room. There was no response. He knocked again, with a somewhat impatient hand, tried the door and found it locked, waited a moment, beat a third emphatic rat-tat-too upon the panel, without eliciting other reply than a faint and dreary echo from the attic above; and, finally, turned on his heel, and walked down-stairs. At the head of the second flight, a thought seemed to strike him; after a moment of hesitation, he turned and knocked at a door close at hand. Scarcely waiting for the prompt "Come in!" he opened it, with the question,--"Have you seen Arling this morning?"
The occupant of the room was a broad-shouldered young man, sitting at a table covered with books and papers, and deeply absorbed in study. He only half turned his head, showing a regular, clear-cut profile, as he answered,--
"No. I left him so late last night that I overslept this morning, and have thought of nothing but making up lost time. And really, Trubie, a man might be excused for forgetting his best friend--if he had one--in examination week. But, is Arling any worse?"
"That's what I should like to know, Roath," returned Trubie, planting himself a little more firmly on the threshold, but taking no notice of the chair that the other had carelessly pushed toward him. "At any rate, he's out."
Roath started, and turned completely round, giving a view of a square-featured, somewhat moody, but still handsome, face. "Out!" he repeated, looking both amazed and startled.
"So it would seem. The door is locked, and I rapped and rattled loud enough to wake the dead."
"Oh," said Roath, with a prolonged falling inflection. And after a moment's consideration, he turned back to his books, as if there were no more to be said.
Trubie lingered. Not, evidently, from any special liking for Roath's society, but because he was undecided what to do next. "I don't understand it, Roath," he said slowly. "You know Arling was to have kept his room to-day, by way of gaining strength, and guarding against a relapse. And we were to have gone over 'Barnes' together this morning, so as to be all primed for Professor Beers to-morrow. What _can_ he have done with himself?"