'I must leave myself free. I have a right to use my own judgment.'
'Don't see him! I beg you not to see him!'
He was so earnest that Sidwell suspected some other reason in his request than regard for her dignity.
'I must leave myself free,' she repeated, with shaking voice. 'In any case I shall be back in London to-morrow evening--that is, if--but I am sure mother will wish to go. Grant me this one kindness; say nothing here or there till I am back and have seen you again.'
He turned a deaf ear, for the persistency with which she resisted proof of Peak's dishonour had begun to alarm him. Who could say what miserable folly she might commit in the next four-and-twenty hours? The unavoidable necessity of his own return exasperated him; he wished to see her safe back in London, and under her father's care.
'No,' he exclaimed, with a gesture of determination; 'I can't keep such a thing as this secret for another hour. Mother must know at once--especially as you mean to invite that fellow into the house again.--I have half a mind to telegraph to Godolphin that I can't possibly be with him to-night.'
Sidwell regarded him and spoke with forced composure.
'Do as seems right to you, Buckland. But don't think that by remaining here you would prevent me from seeing Mr. Peak, if I wish to do so. That is treating me too much like a child. You have done your part--doubtless your duty; now I must reflect and judge for myself. Neither you nor anyone else has authority over me in such circumstances.'
'Very well. I have no authority, as you say, but common sense bids me let mother know how the case stands.'
And angrily he left the room.
_The Critical_ still lay where it had fallen. When Sidwell had stood a while in confused thought, her eye turned to it, and she went hurriedly to take it up. Yes, that was the first thing to be done, to read those pages with close care. For this she must have privacy. She ran upstairs and shut herself in her bedroom.
But did not at once begin to read. It concerned her deeply to know whether Peak had so expressed himself in this paper, that no room was left for doubt as to his convictions; but another question pressed upon her with even more urgency--could it be true that he did not love her? If Buckland were wholly right, then it mattered little in what degree she had been misled by intellectual hypocrisy.
It was impossible to believe that Peak had made love to her in cold blood, with none but sordid impulses. The thought was so humiliating that her mind resolutely rejected it; and she had no difficulty in recalling numberless minutiae of behaviour--nuances of look and tone such as abide in a woman's memory--any one of which would have sufficed to persuade her that he felt genuine emotion. How had it come to pass that a feeling of friendly interest, which did not for a moment threaten her peace, changed all at once to an agitation only the more persistent the more she tried to subdue it,--how, if it were not that her heart responded to a passionate appeal, effectual as only the sincerest love can prove? Prior to that long talk with Godwin, on the eve of her departure for London, she had not imagined that he loved her; when they said good-bye to each other, she knew by her own sensations all that the parting meant to him. She felt glad, instead of sorry, that they were not to meet again for several months; for she wished to think of him calmly and prudently, now that he presented himself to her imagination in so new an aspect. The hand-clasp was a mutual assurance of fidelity.
'I should never have loved him, if he had not first loved me. Of that I am as firmly convinced as of my own existence. It is not in my nature to dream romances. I never did so even as a young girl, and at this age I am not likely to fall into a foolish self-deception. I had often thought about him. He seemed to me a man of higher and more complex type than those with whom I was familiar; but most surely I never attributed to him even a corresponding interest in me. I am neither vain, nor very anxious to please; I never suffered because men did not woo me; I have only moderate good looks, and certainly no uncommon mental endowments.--If he had been attracted by Sylvia, I should have thought it natural; and I more than once suspected that Sylvia was disposed to like him. It seemed strange at first that his choice should have fallen upon me; yet when I was far away from him, and longed so to sit once more by him and hear him talk, I understood that it might be in my power to afford him the companionship he needed.--Mercenary? If I had been merely a governess in the house, he would have loved me just the same!'
Only by a painful effort could she remind herself that the ideal which had grown so slowly was now defaced. He loved her, but it was not the love of an honest man. After all, she had no need to peruse this writing of his; she remembered so well how it had impressed her when she read it on its first appearance, how her father had spoken of it. Buckland's manifold evidence was irresistible. Why should Peak have concealed his authorship? Why had he disappeared from among the people who thoroughly knew him?
She had loved a dream. What a task would it be to distinguish between those parts of Peak's conversation which represented his real thoughts, and those which were mockery of his listeners! The plan of a retired life which he had sketched to her--was it all falsehood? Impossible, for his love was inextricably blended with the details. Did he imagine that the secret of his unbelief could be preserved for a lifetime, and that it would have no effect whatever upon his happiness as a man? This seemed a likely reading of the problem. But what a multitude of moral and intellectual obscurities remained! The character which had seemed to her nobly simple was become a dark and dread enigma.
She knew so little of his life. If only it could all be laid bare to her, the secret of his position would be revealed. Buckland's violence altogether missed its mark; the dishonour of such a man as Godwin Peak was due to no gross incentive.
It was probable that, in talk with her father, he had been guilty of more deliberate misrepresentation than had marked his intercourse with the rest of the family. Her father, she felt sure, had come to regard him as a valuable source of argument in the battle against materialism. Doubtless the German book, which Peak was translating, bore upon that debate, and consequently was used as an aid to dissimulation. Thinking of this, she all but shared her brother's vehement feeling. It pained her to the inmost heart that her father's generous and candid nature should thus have been played upon. The deceit, as it concerned herself alone, she could forgive; at least she could suspend judgment until the accused had offered his defence--feeling that the psychology of the case must till then be beyond her powers of analysis. But the wrong done to her father revolted her.
A tap at the door caused her to rise, trembling. She remembered that by this time her mother must be aware of the extraordinary disclosure, and that a new scene of wretched agitation had to be gone through.
'Sidwell!'
It was Mrs. Warricombe's voice, and the door opened.
'Sidwell!--What _does_ all this mean? I don't understand half that Buckland has been telling me.'
The speaker's face was mottled, and she stood panting, a hand pressed against her side.
'How very, very imprudent we have been! How wrong of father not to have made inquiries! To think that such a man should have sat at our table!'
'Sit down, mother; don't be so distressed,' said Sidwell, calmly. 'It will all very soon be settled.'
'Of course not a word must be said to anyone. How very fortunate that we shall be in London till the summer! Of course he must leave Exeter.'
'I have no doubt he will. Let us talk as little of it as possible, mother. We shall go back to-morrow'----
'This afternoon! We will go back with Buckland. That is decided. I couldn't sleep here another night.'
'We must remain till to-morrow,' Sidwell replied, with quiet determination.
'Why? What reason can there be?'
Mrs. Warricombe's voice was suspended by a horrible surmise.
'Of course we shall go to-day, Sidwell,'