The Honour of His House by Fred M. White

Saltburn stood there was a strange feeling that he was cut off from the rest of the world and was alone in it, the only one of his tribe. And in a certain sense it was true enough. He had always boasted that he had never made a friend, and, indeed, he had never had the opportunity.

But now he felt as it were in a kind of dream and as if he needed assistance. For the first time in his life he was conscious of a feeling which he had never experienced before. It wasn't exactly fear nor illness, and yet it was unpleasant, and Saltburn would have been glad to be without it.