This view of heroism was not possible to him, and he was too strong in mind and body to pretend to it. The two things which affect a career most profoundly are religion, or the lack of it, and marriage--or not marrying; for these things only penetrate to the soul and make what may be called its perpetual atmosphere. The Catholic Faith, which ignores no single possibility in human feeling and no possible flight in human idealism, produces in those who hold it truly a freshness of heart very hard to be understood by the dispassionate critic who weighs character by the newest laws of his favourite degenerate, but never by the primeval tests of God. Robert, therefore, was thinking of his bride's face, the pure curves of her mouth, her sapphirine eyes, her pretty hands, her golden hair, the nose which others found fault with, which he, nevertheless, thought wholly delightful. He wondered what she would say and how she would look when they met. Would she be pale? Would she be frightened? There had always been a certain agony in every former meeting because of the farewell which had to follow. With all his habits of self-control, he had never been able to feel quite sure that the word too much would not be said, that the glance too long would not be given. Her own simplicity, he told himself, had saved him from disaster. She showed her affection so fearlessly--with such tender and discerning trust--that his worst struggles were in solitude--not in her presence at all. It was when he was away from her immediate peaceful influence that the fever, the restlessness, the torments and the desperation (has not old Burton summed up for us the whole situation and all the symptoms in his "_Anatomy_"?) had to be endured and conquered. These trials now--for even a sense of humour could not make them less than trials--were ended. The tragi-comic labour of walking too much and riding too much, working and smoking too much, thinking and sleeping too little--the whole dreary business, in fact, of stifling any absorbing idea or ruling passion, would be no more. When he returned to Almouth House, Reckage was already dressed for his official duties as "best man." He felt an unwonted and genuine excitement about Robert's marriage. He put aside the languor, _ennui_, and depression which he felt too easily on most occasions, and, that day at least, he was, as his own servant expressed it, "nervous and cut-up."