CHAPTER VI.
SAFE AGAINST LOVE-MAKING ONCE AGAIN.
For a considerable time Belton stood under the porch of the house, thinking of what had happened to him, and endeavouring to steady himself under the blow which he had received.

I do not know that he had been sanguine of success.

Probably he had made to himself no assurances on the subject.

But he was a man to whom failure, of itself, was intolerable.

In any other event of life he would have told himself that he would not fail--that he would persevere and conquer.