Well, I didn’t do any such thing. I was just _going_ to run in,—and I didn’t. I was just going to rush to Bessy’s side to clasp her (I have no doubt) to my heart: to beard the whiskered champion who was before her, and perhaps say, “Cheer thee—cheer thee, my persecuted maiden, my beauteous love—my Rebecca! Come on, Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert, thou dastard Templar! It is I, Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe.” (By the way, though the fellow was not a _Templar_, he was a _Lincoln’s Inn man_, having passed twice through the Insolvent Court there with infinite discredit.) But I made no heroic speeches. There was no need for Rebecca to jump out of window and risk her lovely neck. How could she, in fact, the French window being flush with the ground floor? And I give you my honour, just as I was crying my war-cry, couching my lance, and rushing _à la recousse_ upon Sir Baker, a sudden thought made me drop my (figurative) point: a sudden idea made me rein in my galloping (metaphorical) steed, and spare Baker for that time. Suppose I had gone in? But for that sudden precaution, there might have been a Mrs. Batchelor. I might have been a bullied father of ten children. (Elizabeth has a fine high temper of her own.) What is four hundred and twenty a year, with a wife and perhaps half-a-dozen children? Should I have been a whit the happier? Would Elizabeth? Ah! no. And yet I feel a certain sort of shame, even now, when I think that I didn’t go in. Not that I was in a fright, as some people choose to hint. I swear I was not. But the reason why I did not charge was this:— Nay, I _did_ charge part of the way, and then, I own, stopped. It was an error in judgment. It wasn’t a want of courage. Lord George Sackville was a brave man, and as cool as a cucumber under fire. Well, _he_ didn’t charge at the battle of Minden, and Prince Ferdinand made the deuce and all of a disturbance, as we know. Byng was a brave man,—and I ask, wasn’t it a confounded shame executing him? So with respect to myself. Here is my statement. I make it openly. I don’t care. I am accused of seeing a woman insulted, and not going to her rescue. I am not guilty, I say. That is, there were reasons which caused me not to attack. Even putting aside the superior strength of Elizabeth herself to the enemy,—I vow there were cogent and honourable reasons why I did not charge home. You see I happened to be behind a blue lilac bush (and was turning a rhyme—heaven help us!—in which _death_ was only to part me and Elizabeth) when I saw Baker’s face surge over the chair-back. I rush forward as he cries “by Jove.” Had Miss Prior cried out on her part, the strength of twenty Heenans, I know, would have nerved this arm; but all she did was to turn pale, and say, “Oh, mercy! Captain Baker! Do pity me!” “What! you remember me, Bessy Bellenden, do you?” asks the captain, advancing. “Oh, not that name! please, not that name!” cries Bessy.