The passionate year

"Ah, um yes, Mr. Speed, is it not?... Welcome, sir! Welcome to Millstead!" Kenneth Speed gripped the other's hand and smiled. He was a tall passably good-looking fellow in his e...

In the morning he was awakened by Hartopp the School House porter ringing his noisy hand-bell through the dormitories. He looked at his watch; it was half-past six. There was no...

One afternoon he called at Harrington's, in the High Street, to buy a book. It was a tiny low-roofed shop, the only one of its kind in Millstead, and with the sale of books it c...

He began to blush, and to hold his breath in an endeavour to prevent his cheeks from reddening to an extent that, so he felt, would be observed by passers-by. "Oh!" he gasped, w...

He breakfasted with Helen upon the first morning of the winter term, inaptly named because winter does not begin until the term is over. They had returned the evening before fro...

One dark dusk in November that was full of wind and fine rain Speed stood up at his drawing-room window to pull down the blind. But before doing so he gazed out at the dreary tw...

Smallwood was one of a type more commonly found at a university than at a public school; in fact it was due to his decision not to go to the former that he had stayed so long at...

He was in bed for three days with a temperature (but nothing more serious); Howard, the School doctor, chaffed him unmercifully. "You're a lucky man. Speed, to be ill in bed wit...

"Well, you see, sir, the winter term--or, prop'ly speakin', sir, I should say the Michaelmas term--isn't so bad because there's the Christmas 'olidays to look forward to. But th...

Once again, the first few days were something of an ordeal. Constant anticipations had filled Speed's mind with apprehensions; he was full of carefully excogitated glooms. Would...

Why was it that whenever he had had any painful scene with Helen the yearning came over him to go and visit Clare, not to complain or to confess or to ask advice, but merely to...

The torture of his soul went on. He lost grip of his House; he was unpopular now, and he knew it. Smallwood and other influential members of the school openly cut him in the str...

All the way back to Millstead joy was raging in his heart, trampling down all his woes and defying him to be miserable. Nothing in the world--not his unhappiness with Helen, or...

In the morning there arrived a letter from Clare. He guessed it from the postmark, and was glad that she had the tact to type the address on the envelope. When he tore it open h...