But none of these fine sentiments were in Bertram’s mind. He went out, stumbling as he went, because a high tide of personal emotion had surged up in him, swelling to his very brain. That may not be a right way to describe it, because they say all feeling comes from the brain--but that was how he felt. He scarcely heard the jabberings of these Wradisley people, who knew nothing about it. He who was the only man who had anything to say in the matter, to defend her or to assail her--he would have liked to knock down that fellow Ralph; but he would have liked still more to kick Ralph’s brother out of the way, who had taken upon him to interfere and stand up for her, forsooth, as if he knew anything about her, whereas it was he, only he, Frank Bertram, who knew. He went staggering out of the house, but shook himself up when he got into the open air, and pulled himself together. There had been such a strong impulse upon him to go after her last night and seize hold upon her, to tell her all this was folly and nonsense, and couldn’t be. Why had he not done it? He couldn’t tell. To think that was his own child that he had carried about, and that after all she had been called Laetitia, after his mother, though _her_ mother had cut him off and banished him for no immediate fault of his. It was his fault, but it was the fault of ignorance, not of intention. He had believed what he had so intently wished to be true, but he had no more meant to harm Nelly or her child than to sully the sunshine or the skies. And now, when chance or providence, or whatever you chose to call it, had brought them within sight of each other again, that he should not have had the heart to follow that meeting out at once, and insist upon his rights! Perhaps she would not have denied him--he had thought for a moment that there had been something in her eyes--and then, like the dolt he was, like the coward he was, he had let her go, and had gone in to dinner, and had sat through the evening and listened to their talk and their music, and had gone to bed and tossed and dreamed all night, and let her go. There had been impulses in him against all these things. He had thought of excusing himself from dinner. He had thought of pretending a headache, and stealing out later; but he had not done it. He had stuck there in their infernal routine, and let her go. Oh, what a dolt and coward slave am I! He would not put forth a hand to hold her, to clutch her, not a finger! But began to bestir himself as soon as she was out of his reach and had got clear away.