He perceived at once that he was doomed to be under everybody’s eyes when he walked down the aisle, for everybody would attend the service on such a morning as this.

Already he had met his conscience, in so far as that he shunned asking Percy again what was the reason for their going to church, and he had not the courage to petition to go in the afternoon instead of the morning.

The question, “Are you ashamed of yourself, then?” sang in his ears as a retort ready made.

There was no help for it; so he set about assisting his ingenuity to make the best appearance possible—­brushing his hat and coat with extraordinary care.

Percy got him to point out the spot designated for the meeting, and telling him to wait in the Warbeach churchyard, or within sight of it, strolled off in the direction of the river.  His simple neatness and quiet gentlemanly air abashed Robert, and lured him from his intense conception of abstract right and wrong, which had hitherto encouraged and incited him, so that he became more than ever crestfallen at the prospect of meeting the eyes of the church people, and with the trembling sensitiveness of a woman who weighs the merits of a lover when passion is having one of its fatal pauses, he looked at himself, and compared himself with the class of persons he had outraged, and tried to think better of himself, and to justify himself, and sturdily reject comparisons.  They would not be beaten back.  His enemies had never suggested them, but they were forced on him by the aspect of his friend.

Any man who takes the law into his own hands, and chooses to stand against what is conventionally deemed fitting:—­against the world, as we say, is open to these moods of degrading humility.  Robert waited for the sound of the bells with the emotions of a common culprit.  Could he have been driven to the church and deposited suddenly in his pew, his mind would have been easier.

It was the walking there, the walking down the aisle, the sense of his being the fellow who had matched himself against those well-attired gentlemen, which entirely confused him.  And not exactly for his own sake—­for Percy’s partly.  He sickened at the thought of being seen by Major Waring’s side.  His best suit and his hat were good enough, as far as they went, only he did not feel that he wore them—­he could not divine how it was—­with a proper air, an air of signal comfort.  In fact, the graceful negligence of an English gentleman’s manner had been unexpectedly revealed to him; and it was strange, he reflected, that Percy never appeared to observe how deficient he was, and could still treat him as an equal, call him by his Christian name, and not object to be seen with him in public.

Robert did not think at the same time that illness had impoverished his blood.  Your sensational beings must keep a strong and a good flow of blood in their veins to be always on a level with the occasion which they provoke.  He remembered wonderingly that he had used to be easy in gait and ready of wit when walking from Queen Anne’s Farm to Wrexby village church.  Why was he a different creature now?  He could not answer the question.