myself to have forfeited.
'If I were to refuse this money, it would be in consequence of a scruple which I do not in truth respect. Christian Moxey tells me that his sister's desire was to enable me to live the life of a free man; and if I have any duty at all in the matter, surely it does not constrain me to defeat her kindness. No condition whatever is attached. The gift releases me from the necessity of leading a hopeless existence--leaves me at liberty to direct my life how I will.
'I wish, then, to put aside all thoughts of how this opportunity came to me, and to ask you if you are willing to be my wife.
'Though I have never written a word of love, my love is unchanged. The passionate hope of three years ago still rules my life. Is _your_ love strong enough to enable you to disregard all hindrances? I cannot of course know whether, in your sight, dishonour still clings to me, or whether you understand me well enough to have forgiven and forgotten those hateful things in the past. Is it yet too soon? Do you wish me still to wait, still to prove myself? Is your interest in the free man less than in the slave? For my life has been one of slavery and exile--exile, if you know what I mean by it, from the day of my birth.
'Dearest, grant me this great happiness! We can live where we will. I am not rich enough to promise all the comforts and refinements to which you are accustomed, but we should be safe from sordid anxieties. We can travel; we can make a home in any European city. It would be idle to speak of the projects and ambitions that fill my mind--but surely I may do something worth doing, win some position among intellectual men of which you would not be ashamed. You yourself urged me to hope that. With you at my side--Silwell grant me this chance, that I may know the joy of satisfied love! I am past the me to hope that. With you at my side--Sidwell, grant me this age which is misled by vain fancies. I have suffered unspeakably, longed for the calm strength, the pure, steady purpose which would result to me from a happy marriage. There is no fatal divergence between our minds; did you not tell me that? You said that if I had been truthful from the first, you might have loved me with no misgiving. Forget the madness into which I was betrayed. There is no soil upon my spirit. I offer you love as noble as any man is capable of. Think--think well--before replying to me; let your true self prevail. You _did_ love me, dearest.----
Yours ever, Godwin Peak.'
At first he wrote slowly, as though engaged on a literary composition, with erasions, insertions. Facts once stated, he allowed himself to forget how Sidwell would most likely view them, and thereafter his pen hastened: fervour inspired the last paragraph. Sidwell's image had become present to him, and exercised all--or nearly all--its old influence.
The letter must be copied, because of that laboured beginning. Copying one's own words is at all times a disenchanting drudgery, and when the end was reached Godwin signed his name with hasty contempt. What answer could he expect to such an appeal? How vast an improbability that Sidwell would consent to profit by the gift of Marcella Moxey!
Yet how otherwise could he write? With what show of sincerity could he _offer_ to refuse the bequest? Nay, in that case he must not offer to do so, but simply state the fact that his refusal was beyond recall. Logically, he had chosen the only course open to him,--for to refuse independence was impossible.
A wheezy clock in his landlady's kitchen was striking two. For very fear of having to revise his letter in the morning, he put it into its envelope, and went out to the nearest pillar-post.
That was done. Whether Sidwell answered with 'Yes' or with 'No', he was a free man.
On the morrow he went to his work as usual, and on the day after that. The third morning might bring a reply--but did not. On the evening of the fifth day, when he came home, there lay the expected letter. He felt it; it was light and thin. That hideous choking of suspense--Well, it ran thus:
'I cannot. It is not that I am troubled by your accepting the legacy. You have every right to do so, and I know that your life will justify the hopes of her who thus befriended you. But I am too weak to take this step. To ask you to wait yet longer, would only be a fresh cowardice. You cannot know how it shames me to write this. In my very heart I believe I love you, but what is such love worth? You must despise me, and you will forget me. I live in a little world; in the greater world where your place is, you will win a love very different.
S. W.'
Godwin laughed aloud as the paper dropped from his hand.
Well, she was not the heroine of a romance. Had he expected her to leave home and kindred--the 'little world' so infinitely dear to her--and go forth with a man deeply dishonoured? Very young girls have been known to do such a thing; but a thoughtful mature woman----! Present, his passion had dominated her: and perhaps her nerves only. But she had had time to recover from that weakness.
A woman, like most women of cool blood, temperate fancies. A domestic woman; the ornament of a typical English home.
Most likely it was true that the matter of the legacy did not trouble her. In any case she would not have consented to marry him, and _therefore_ she knew no jealousy. Her love! why, truly, what was it worth?
(Much, much! of no less than infinite value. He knew it, but this was not the moment for such a truth.)
A cup of tea to steady the nerves. Then thoughts, planning, world-building.
He was awake all night, and Sidwell's letter lay within reach.--Did _she_ sleep calmly? Had she never stretched out her hand for _his_ letter, when all was silent? There were men who would not take such a refusal. A scheme to meet her once more--the appeal of passion, face to face, heart to heart--the means of escape ready--and then the 'greater world'----
But neither was he cast in heroic mould. He had not the self-confidence, he had not the hot, youthful blood. A critic of life, an analyst of moods and motives; not the man who dares and acts. The only important resolve he had ever carried through was a scheme of ignoble trickery--to end in frustration.
'The greater world'. It was a phrase that had been in his own mind once or twice since Moxey's visit. To point him thither was doubtless the one service Sidwell could render him. And in a day or two, that phrase was all that remained to him of her letter.
On a Sunday afternoon at the end of October, Godwin once more climbed the familiar stairs at Staple Inn, and was welcomed by his friend Earwaker. The visit was by appointment. Earwaker knew all about the legacy; that it was accepted; and that Peak had only a few days to spend in London, on his way to the Continent.
'You are regenerated,' was his remark as Godwin entered.
'Do I look it? Just what I feel. I have shaken off a good (or a bad) ten years.'
The speaker's face, at all events in this moment, was no longer that of a man at hungry issue with the world. He spoke cheerily.
'It isn't often that fortune does a man such a kind turn. One often hears it said: If only I could begin life again with all the experience I have gained! That is what I _can_ do. I can break utterly with the past, and I have learnt how to live in the future.'
'Break utterly with the past?'
'In the practical sense. And even morally to a great extent.'
Earwaker pushed a box of cigars across the table. Godwin accepted the offer, and began to smoke. During these moments of silence, the man of letters had been turning over a weekly paper, as if in search of some paragraph; a smile announced his discovery.
'Here is something that will interest you--possibly you have seen it.'
He began to read aloud:
'"On the 23rd inst. was celebrated at St. Bragg's, Torquay, the marriage of the Rev. Bruno Leathwaite Chilvers, late Rector of St Margaret's, Exeter, and the Hon. Bertha Harriet Cecilia Jute, eldest daughter of the late Baron Jute. The ceremony was conducted by the Hon. and Rev. J. C. Jute, uncle of the bride, assisted by the Rev. F. Miller, the Very Rev.