He tried to persuade himself that this was against his principles, but at the bottom of his heart he knew that he would not object to telling such a lie if only guaranteed immune from consequences; it appeared to him, indeed, but obvious humanity.

“But why should I suffer?” he thought; “I’ve done nothing.  It’s neither reasonable nor just.”

He hated the unhappy woman who was causing him these horrors of uncertainty.  Whenever he decided one way or other, the policeman’s face, with its tyrannical and muddy eyes, rose before him like a nightmare, and forced him to an opposite conviction.  He fell asleep at last with the full determination to go and see what happened.

He woke with a sense of odd disturbance.  “I can do no good by going,” he thought, remembering, aid lying very still; “they ’re certain to believe the policeman; I shall only blacken myself for nothing;” and the combat began again within him, but with far less fury.  It was not what other people thought, not even the risk of perjury that mattered (all this he made quite clear)—­it was Antonia.  It was not fair to her to put himself in such a false position; in fact, not decent.

He breakfasted.  In the room were some Americans, and the face of one young girl reminded him a little of Antonia.  Fainter and fainter grew the incident; it seemed to have its right proportions.

Two hours later, looking at the clock, he found that it was lunch-time.  He had not gone, had not committed perjury; but he wrote to a daily paper, pointing out the danger run by the community from the power which a belief in their infallibility places in the hands of the police—­how, since they are the sworn abettors of right and justice, their word is almost necessarily taken to be gospel; how one and all they hang together, from mingled interest and esprit de corps.  Was it not, he said, reasonable to suppose that amongst thousands of human beings invested with such opportunities there would be found bullies who would take advantage of them, and rise to distinction in the service upon the helplessness of the unfortunate and the cowardice of people with anything to lose?  Those who had in their hands the sacred duties of selecting a practically irresponsible body of men were bound, for the sake of freedom and humanity, to exercise those duties with the utmost care and thoroughness . . . .

However true, none of this helped him to think any better of himself at heart, and he was haunted by the feeling that a stout and honest bit of perjury was worth more than a letter to a daily paper.

He never saw his letter printed, containing, as it did, the germs of an unpalatable truth.

In the afternoon he hired a horse, and galloped on Port Meadow.  The strain of his indecision over, he felt like a man recovering from an illness, and he carefully abstained from looking at the local papers.  There was that within him, however, which resented the worsting of his chivalry.