he had left on the fist of the man who had taken his mare, of her
increasing infirmities and her crimes of crabbing; and all the while he
held her left hand in both of his, and fitted her fingers between his,
and kissed them again when he had no more to say on any one point; and
wondered why he could not speak of the matter on which he had come, and
how he should tell her. And then at last she drew it from him.

"And now, my Robin," she said, "tell me what you have in your mind. You
have talked of this and that and Agnes and Jock, and Padley chase, and
you have not once looked me in the eyes since you first came in."

Now it was not shame that had held him from telling her, but rather a
kind of bewilderment. The affair might hold shame, indeed, or anger, or
sorrow, or complacence, but he did not know; and he wished, as young men
of decent birth should wish, to present the proper emotion on its right
occasion. He had pondered on the matter continually since his father had
spoken to him on Saint Stephen's night; and at one time it seemed that
his father was acting the part of a traitor and at another of a
philosopher. If it were indeed true, after all, that all men were
turning Protestant, and that there was not so much difference between
the two religions, then it would be the act of a wise man to turn
Protestant too, if only for a while. And on the other hand his pride of
birth and his education by his mother and his practice ever since drew
him hard the other way. He was in a strait between the two. He did not
know what to think, and he feared what Marjorie might think.

It was this, then, that had held him silent. He feared what Marjorie
might think, for that was the very thing that he thought that he thought
too, and he foresaw a hundred inconveniences and troubles if it were so.