Yes; he had failed: and he acknowledged to himself, with bitter
reproaches, that he had failed, now and for ever. He told himself
that he had obtruded upon her in her sorrow with an unmannerly love,
and rebuked himself as having been not only foolish but ungenerous.
His friend the earl had been wont, in his waggish way, to call him
the conquering hero, and had so talked him out of his common sense
as to have made him almost think that he would be successful in his
suit. Now, as he told himself that any such success must have been
impossible, he almost hated the earl for having brought him to this
condition. A conquering hero, indeed! How should he manage to sneak
back among them all at the Manor House, crestfallen and abject in his
misery? Everybody knew the errand on which he had gone, and everybody
must know of his failure. How could he have been such a fool as to
undertake such a task under the eyes of so many lookers-on? Was it
not the case that he had so fondly expected success, as to think only
of his triumph in returning, and not of his more probable disgrace?
He had allowed others to make a fool of him, and had so made a fool
of himself that now all hope and happiness were over for him. How
could he escape at once out of the country, back to London? How could
he get away without saying a word further to any one? That was the
thought that at first occupied his mind.

He crossed the road at the end of the squire's property, where the
parish of Allington divides itself from that of Abbot's Guest in
which the earl's house stands, and made his way back along the copse
which skirted the field in which they had encountered the bull, into
the high woods which were at the back of the park. Ah, yes; it had
been well for him that he had not come out on horseback. That ride
home along the high road and up to the Manor House stables would,
under his present circumstances, have been almost impossible to him.
As it was, he did not think it possible that he should return to
his place in the earl's house. How could he pretend to maintain his
ordinary demeanour under the eyes of those two old men? It would be
better for him to get home to his mother,--to send a message from
thence to the Manor, and then to escape back to London. So thinking,
but with no resolution made, he went on through the woods, and down
from the hill back towards the town till he again came to the little
bridge over the brook. There he stopped and stood a w