seems to have just come within my reach. Great things and trifles--it's all the same. My course at College was broken off at the moment when I might have assured my future. Later, I made many an effort to succeed in literature, and when at length something of mine was printed in a leading review, I could not even sign it, and had no profit from the attention it excited. Now--well, you see. Laughable, isn't it?'
Sidwell scarcely withheld herself from bending forward and giving him her hand.
'What shall you do?' she asked.
'Oh, I am not afraid. I have still enough money left to support me until I can find some occupation of the old kind. Fortunately, I am not one of those men whose brains have no marketable value.'
'If you knew how it pains me to hear you!'
'If I didn't believe that, I couldn't speak to you like this. I never thought you would let me see you again, and if you hadn't asked me to come, I could never have brought myself to face you. But it would have been a miserable thing to go off without even knowing what you thought of me.'
'Should you never have written to me?'
'I think not. You find it hard to imagine that I have any pride, no doubt; but it is there, explain it how one may.'
'It would have been wrong to leave me in such uncertainty.'
'Uncertainty?'
'About you--about your future.'
'Did you quite mean that? Hadn't your brother made you doubt whether I loved you at all?'
'Yes. But no, I didn't doubt. Indeed, indeed, I didn't doubt! But I felt such a need of hearing from your own lips that--Oh, I can't explain myself!'
Godwin smiled sadly.
'I think I understand. But there was every reason for my believing that _your_ love could not bear such a test. You must regard me as quite a different man--one utterly unknown to you.'
He had resolved to speak not a word that could sound like an appeal to her emotions. When he entered the room he felt a sincere indifference as to what would result from the interview, for to his mind the story was ended, and he had only to retire with the dignity still possible to a dishonoured man. To touch the note of pathos would be unworthy; to exert what influence might be left to him, a wanton cruelty. But he had heard such unexpected things, that it was not easy for him to remember how complete had seemed the severance between him and Sidwell. The charm of her presence was reasserting itself, and when avowal of continued love appeared so unmistakably in her troubled countenance, her broken words, he could not control the answering fervour. He spoke in a changed voice, and allowed his eyes to dwell longingly upon hers.
'I felt so at first,' she answered. 'And it would be wrong to pretend that I can still regard you as I did before.'
It cost her a great effort to add these words. When they were spoken, she was at once glad and fearful.
'I am not so foolish, as to think it possible,' said Peak, half turning away.
'But that is no reason,' she pursued, 'why we should become strangers. You are still so young a man; life must be so full of possibilities for you. This year has been wasted, but when you leave Exeter'----
An impatient movement of Godwin's checked her.
'You are going to encourage me to begin the struggle once more,' he said, bitterly. 'Where? How? It is so easy to talk of "possibilities".'
'You are not without friends--I mean friends whose sympathy is of real value to you.'
Saying this, she looked keenly at him.
'Friends,' he replied, 'who perhaps at this moment are laughing over my disgrace.'
'How do they know of--what has happened?'
'How did your brother get his information? I didn't care to ask him.--No, I don't even wish you to say anything about that.'
'But surely there is no reason for keeping it secret. Why may I not speak freely? Buckland told me that he had heard you spoken of at the house of people named Moxey.'
She endeavoured to understand the smile which rose to his lips. 'Now it is clear to me,' he said. 'Yes, I suppose that was inevitable, sooner or later.'
'You knew that he had become acquainted with the Moxeys?'
Her tone was more reserved than hitherto.
'Yes, I knew he had. He met Miss Moxey by chance at Budleigh Salterton, and I happened to be there--at the Moorhouses'--on the same day.'
Sidwell glanced at him inquiringly, and waited for something more.
'I saw Miss Moxey in private,' he added, speaking more quickly, 'and asked her to keep my secret. I ought to be ashamed to tell you this, but it is better you should know how far my humiliation has gone.'
He saw that she was moved with strong feeling. The low tone in which she answered had peculiar significance.
'Did you speak of me to Miss Moxey?'
'I must forgive you for asking that,' Peak replied, coldly. 'It may well seem to you that I have neither honour nor delicacy left.'
There had come a flush on her cheeks. For some moments she was absorbed in thought.
'It seems strange to you,' he continued at length, 'that I could ask Miss Moxey to share such a secret. But you must understand on what terms we were--she and I. We have known each other for several years. She has a man's mind, and I have always thought of her in much the same way as of my male companions.--Your brother has told you about her, perhaps?'
'I have met her in London.'
'Then that will make my explanation easier,' said Godwin, disregarding the anxious questions that at once suggested themselves to him. 'Well, I misled her, or tried to do so. I allowed her to suppose that I was sincere in my new undertakings, and that I didn't wish--Oh!' he exclaimed, suddenly breaking off, 'Why need I go any further in confession? It must be as miserable for you to hear as for me to speak. Let us make an end of it. I can't understand how I have escaped detection so long.'
Remembering every detail of Buckland's story, Sidwell felt that she had possibly been unjust in representing the Moxeys as her brother's authority; in strictness, she ought to mention that a friend of theirs was the actual source of information. But she could not pursue the subject; like Godwin, she wished to put it out of her mind. What question could there be of honour or dishonour in the case of a person such as Miss Moxey, who had consented to be party to a shameful deceit? Strangely, it was a relief to her to have heard this. The moral repugnance which threatened to estrange her from Godwin, was now directed in another quarter; unduly restrained by love, it found scope under the guidance of jealousy.
'You have been trying to adapt yourself,' she said, 'to a world for which you are by nature unfitted. Your place is in the new order; by turning back to the old, you condemned yourself to a wasted life. Since we have been in London, I have come to understand better the great difference between modern intellectual life and that which we lead in these far-away corners. You must go out among your equals, go and take your part with men who are working for the future.'
Peak rose with a gesture of passionate impatience.
'What is it to me, new world or old? My world is where _you_ are. I have no life of my own; I think only of you, live only by you.'
'If I could help you!' she replied, with emotion. 'What can I do--but be your friend at a distance? Everything else has become impossible.'
'Impossible for the present--for a long time to come. But is there no hope for me?'
She pressed her hands together,