have to teach you what you learn. At
any rate, it's my request."

This terminated the colloquy upon that topic. Robert looked forward to a
penitential Sabbath-day.

"She is a widow still," thought Major Waring, as he stood alone in his
bed-room, and, drawing aside the curtains of his window, looked up at the
white moon.

CHAPTER XXIV

When the sun takes to shining in winter, and the Southwest to blowing,
the corners of the earth cannot hide from him--the mornings are like
halls full of light. Robert had spent his hopes upon a wet day that would
have kept the congregation sparse and the guests at Fairly absent from
public devotions.

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 culpr