How did that chivalrous gentleman justify himself for condescending to
such an extreme as the use of personal violence? Was there a possibility
of his justifying it to Nevil? She was most wretched in her reiteration
of these inquiries, for, with a heart subdued, she had still a mind
whose habit of independent judgement was not to be constrained, and
while she felt that it was only by siding with Nevil submissively and
blindly in this lamentable case that she could hope for happiness, she
foresaw the likelihood of her not being able to do so as much as he
would desire and demand. This she took for the protest of her pure
reason. In reality, grieved though she was on account of that Dr.
Shrapnel, her captive heart resented the anticipated challenge to her to
espouse his cause or languish.

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE FIRST ENCOUNTER AT STEYNHAM

The judge pronouncing sentence of condemnation on the criminal is
proverbially a sorrowfully-minded man; and still more would he be so had
he to undertake the part of executioner as well. This is equivalent to
saying that the simple pleasures are no longer with us; it must be
a personal enemy now to give us any satisfaction in chastising and
slaying. Perhaps by-and-by that will be savourless: we degenerate.
There is, nevertheless, ever (and let nature be praised for it) a strong
sustainment in the dutiful exertion of our physical energies, and Mr.
Everard Romfrey experienced it after he had fulfilled his double office
on the person of Dr. Shrapnel by carrying out his own decree. His
conscience approved him cheerlessly, as it is the habit of that secret
monitor to do when we have no particular advantage coming of the act
we have performed; but the righteous labour of his arm gave him high
breathing and an appetite.

He foresaw that he and Nevil would soon be having a wrestle over the
matter, hand and thigh; but a gentleman in the right engaged with
a fellow in the wrong has nothing to apprehend; is, in fact, in the
position of a game-preserver with a poacher. The nearest approach to
gratification in that day's work which Mr. Romfrey knew was offered
by the picture of Nevil's lamentable attitude above his dirty idol. He
conceived it in the mock-mediaeval style of our caricaturists:--Shrapnel
stretched at his length, half a league, in slashed yellows and blacks,
with his bauble beside him, and prodigious pointed toes; Nevil in
parti-coloured tights, on one leg, raising his fists in