His voice was so loud that many of the congregation were turning in his direction. By this time the minister had come up from the water and was speaking to the newly baptized persons who were standing about him. Catherine and the three women waited afar off in the yard of the inn. Charles controlled himself and his voice dropped. He went off to the house, skirting the limits of the crowd. "I must be going home now," said the girl nervously, as he joined her. He made no reply, merely starting off down the road and bidding her come quickly. The people beside the pool had begun to talk and laugh, now that the business that had brought them together was over, and the sound of their loosened tongues made him hurry out of earshot. When they had gone a little way he turned upon Catherine. The fact that she had made no mention of his broken promise showed her to be entirely conscious of his mood. "You're angry with me," she said as he was about to speak. "Why did you come out i' the face of all the people without your stockings and without your gown? What took you that you couldn't be decent and modest like the other women? There were you in your smock for all these gaping fellows to see--good-for-nothing rascals like that Black Heber sneaking there among the trees--damn him! I have no mind for my wife to be a sight for the like of him!" Catherine looked up at him with an agonised face. "I was ashamed of you--that's what I was," continued he, "and I'll have no more of it! I tell you to be done with all these common folk that can't get baptized without making a parade and a show of themselves. I wonder that an honest old grandmother like the woman beside you should let you go out of the house like that." "But my shawl came off," protested Catherine, who was now crying bitterly; "the water pulled it away from me." "And where was your gown that should have kept you decent?" "I've only got one," sobbed the girl, "an' I was afraid to spoil it; I've been pinching an' saving to buy my wedding dress, and there's only this one to my back. Mrs. Job lent me her shawl that I mightn't spoil what I've got." Charles hardly knew what to say. In his heart he really acquitted Catherine of the immodest behaviour with which he had charged her, but his humour demanded an outlet. What really wrung his withers was his smarting sense of the gulf between himself and the community from which he was taking a wife. His origin was no higher than that of the people whose voices he could still hear as they chatted round the precincts of Bethesda, but his uncle's business had led him into a more sophisticated class, and he had identified himself passionately with it. In this access of contempt and wrath he had been stung into positive fury by the meeting with Heber Moorhouse; for he was a jealous man, and the thought that the girl he loved had been the promised wife of such an one as Black Heber was more than he could bear. It had almost made him hate Catherine.