ng, 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.

CHAPTER XX

HOLM OAKS

Holm Oaks stood back but little from the road--an old manor-house, not
set upon display, but dwelling close to its barns, stables, and walled
gardens, like a good mother; long, flat-roofed, red, it had Queen Anne
windows, on whose white-framed d