There was no refusing, and no possibility of reflection. Buckland's

hearty manner made the invitation in itself a thoroughly pleasant one,

and before Peak could sufficiently command his thoughts to picture the

scene towards which he was going they were walking side by side through

the town. In appearance, Warricombe showed nothing of the revolutionary

which, in old days, he aimed at making himself, and his speech had a

suavity which no doubt resulted from much intercourse with the polished

world; Godwin was filled with envious admiration of his perfect

physique, and the mettle which kept it in such excellent vigour. Even

for a sturdy walker, it was no common task to keep pace with Buckland's

strides; Peak soon found himself conversing rather too breathlessly for

comfort.

'What is your latest record for the mile?' he inquired.

Warricombe, understanding at once the reference to his old athletic

pastime and its present application, laughed merrily, and checked his

progress.

'A bad habit of mine; it gets me into trouble with everyone.

By-the-bye, haven't you become a stronger man than used to seem likely?

I'm quite glad to see how well you look.'

The sincerity of these expressions, often repeated, put Godwin far more

at his ease than the first moment's sensation had promised. He too

began to feel a genuine pleasure in the meeting, and soon bade defiance

to all misgivings. Delicacy perhaps withheld Warricombe from further

mention of Whitelaw, but on the other hand it was not impossible that

he knew nothing of the circumstances which tormented Godwin's memory.

On leaving the College perchance he had lost all connection with those

common friends who might have informed him of subsequent jokes and

rumours. Unlikely, to be sure; for doubtless some of his Whitelaw

contemporaries encountered him at Cambridge; and again, was it not

probable that the younger Warricombe had become a Whitelaw student?

Then Professor Gale--no matter! The Warricombes of course knew all

about Andrew Peak and his dining-rooms, but they were liberal-minded,

and could forgive a boy's weakness, as well as overlook an

acquaintance's obscure origin. In the joy of finding himself

exuberantly welcomed by a man of Buckland's world he overcame his

ignoble self-consciousness.

'Did you know that we were in this part of the country?' Warricombe

asked, once more speeding ahead.

'I always thought of you in connection with Kingsmill.'

'We gave up Thornhaw seven years ago. My father was never quite

comfortable out of Devonshire. The house I am taking you to has been in

our family for three generations. I have often tried to be proud of the

fact, but, as you would guess, that kind of thing doesn't come very

natural to me.'

In the effort to repudiate such sentiment, Buckland distinctly betrayed

its hold upon him. He imagined he was meeting Godwin on equal ground,

but the sensibility of the proletarian could not thus be deceived.

There was a brief silence, during which each looked away from the other.

'Still keep up your geology?' was Warricombe's next question.

'I can just say that I haven't forgotten it all.'

'I'm afraid that's more than I can. During my Cambridge time it caused

disagreeable debates with my father. You remember that his science is

of the old school. I wouldn't say a word to disparage him. I believe

the extent of his knowledge is magnificent; but he can't get rid of

that old man of the sea, the Book of Genesis. A few years ago I wasn't

too considerate in argument, and I talked as I oughtn't to have done,

called names, and so on. The end of it was, I dropped science

altogether, having got as much out of it as I needed. The good old

pater has quite forgiven my rudeness. At present we agree to differ,

and get on capitally. I'm sure he'll be delighted to see you. There are

some visitors with us; a Miss Moorhouse and her brother. I think you'll

like them. Couldn't you stay overnight?'

Godwin was unable to reply on the instant, and his companion proceeded

with the same heartiness.

'Just as you like, you know. But do stay if you can. On Wednesday

morning I must go back to town. I act as secretary to Godolphin, the

member for Slacksea.'

Peak's acquaintance with current politics was slight, but Mr. Ellis

Godolphin, the aristocratic Radical, necessarily stood before his

imagination with some clearness of outline. So this was how life had

dealt with Buckland. The announcement was made with a certain

satisfaction, as if it implied more than the hearer would readily

appreciate. Again there was a slight shrinking on Godwin's part; it

would be natural for him to avow his own position, and so leave no room

for misunderstandings, but before he could shape a phrase Buckland was

again questioning.

'Do you ever see any of the old fellows?'

'I have met one or two of them, by chance.'

As if his tact informed him that this inquiry had been a mistake,

Warricombe resumed the subject of his family.

'My brother Louis is at home--of course you can't remember him; he was

a youngster when you were at Thornhaw. The younger boy died some years

ago, a pony accident; cut up my father dreadfully. Then there's my

sister Sidwell, and my sister Fanny--that's all of us. I can't quite

answer for Louis, but the rest are of the old school. Liberal enough,

don't be afraid. But--well, the old school.'

As Godwin kept silence, the speaker shot a glance at him, keenly

scrutinising. Their eyes did not meet; Peak kept his on the ground.

'Care much about politics nowadays?'

'Not very much.'

'Can't say that I do myself,' pursued Buckland. 'I rather drifted into

it. Godolphin, I daresay, has as little humbug about him as most

parliamentarians; we stick to the practical fairly well. I shall never

go into the House on my own account. But there's a sort of pleasure in

being in the thick of public movements. I'm not cut out for debate;

should lose my temper, and tell disagreeable truths--which wouldn't do,

you know. But behind the scenes--it isn't bad, in a way.'

A longer pause obliged Godwin to speak of himself.

'My life is less exciting. For years I have worked in a manufacturing

laboratory at Rotherhithe.'

'So science has carried the day with you, after all. It used to be very

doubtful.'

This was a kind and pleasant way of interpreting necessity. Godwin felt

grateful, and added with a smile:

'I don't think I shall stick to it much longer. For one thing, I am

sick of town. Perhaps I shall travel for a year or two; perhaps--I'm in

a state of transition, to tell the truth.'

Buckland revolved this information; his face told that he found it

slightly puzzling.

'You once had thoughts of literature.'

'Long given up.'

'Leisure would perhaps revive them?'

'Possibly; but I think not.'

They were now quitting the town, and Peak, unwilling to appear before

strangers in a state of profuse perspiration, again moderated his

friend's speed. They began to talk about the surrounding country, a

theme which occupied them until the house was reached. With

quick-beating heart, Godwin found himself at the gate by which he had

already twice passed. Secure in the decency of his apparel, and no

longer oppressed by bashfulness, he would have gone joyously forward

but for the dread of a possible ridiculous association which his name

might revive in the thoughts of Mr. and Mrs. Warricombe. Yet

Buckland--who had no lack of kindly feeling--would hardly have brought

him here had the reception which awaited him been at all dubious.

'If we don't come across anyone,' said Warricombe, 'we'll go straight

up to my room.'

But the way was not clear. Within the beautiful old porch sat Sidwell

Warricombe and her friend of the striking countenance, whom Godwin now

knew as Miss Moorhouse. Buckland addressed his sister in a tone of

lively pleasure.

'Whom do you think I have met and brought home with me? Here is my old

friend, Godwin Peak.'

Under the two pairs of female eyes, Godwin kept a calm, if rather

stern, face.

'I should have had no difficulty in recognising Mr. Peak,' said

Sidwell, holding out her hand. 'But was the meeting quite by chance?'

To Godwin himself the question was of course directed, with a look of

smiling interest--such welcome as could not have been improved upon;

she listened to his reply, then presented him to Miss Moorhouse. A

slight languor in her movements and her voice, together with the

beautiful coldness of her complexion, made it probable that she did not

share the exuberant health manifest in her two brothers. She conversed

with mature self-possession, yet showed a slight tendency to

abstractedness. On being addressed, she regarded the speaker steadily

for an instant before shaping her answer, which always, however

trifling the subject, seemed carefully worded. In these few moments of

dialogue, Godwin reached the conclusion that Sidwell had not much sense

of humour, but that the delicacy of her mind was unsurpassable.

In Miss Moorhouse there was no defect of refinement, but her

conversation struck a note of sprightliness at once more energetic and

more subtle than is often found in English girls. Thus, though at times

she looked so young that it might be doubted whether she had long been

out of her teens, at others one suspected her older than Sidwell. The

friends happened to be as nearly as possible of an age, which was

verging to twenty-six.

When he spoke to Miss Moorhouse, Buckland's frank tone subdued itself.

He watched her face with reverent attention, smiled when she smiled,

and joined in her laughter with less than his usual volume of sound. In

acuteness he was obviously inferior to her, and there were moments when

he betrayed some nervousness under her rejoinders. All this was matter

of observation for Peak, who had learnt to exercise his discernment

even whilst attending to the proprieties.

The sounding of the first luncheon-bell left the young men free to go

upstairs. When at length they presented themselves in the drawing-room,

Mrs. Warricombe and her younger daughter sat there alone. The greeting

of his hostess did not quite satisfy Godwin, though it was sufficiently

courteous; he remembered that ten years ago Mrs. Warricombe had

appeared to receive him with some restraint, and his sensation in

renewing her acquaintance was one of dislike. But in a moment the

master of the house joined them, and no visitor could have had a more

kindly welcome than that he offered to his son's friend. With genial

tact, Mr. Warricombe ignored the interval since his last conversation

with Godwin, and spoke as if this visit were the most natural thing in

the world.

'Do you already know the country about Exeter?'

'I have seen very little of it yet.'

'Oh, then, we must show you our points of view. Our own garden offers a

glimpse of the river-mouth and a good prospect of Haldon--the ridge

beyond the Exe; but there are many much better points within easy

reach. You are in no hurry, I hope?'

Louis Warricombe and Miss Moorhouse's brother were away on a long walk;

they did not return for lunch. Godwin was glad of this, for time had

wrought the change in him that he felt more at ease in female society

than under the eyes of young men whose social position inclined them to

criticism. The meal proved as delightful as luncheon is wont to be in a

luxurious country-house, when brilliant sunshine gleams on the foliage

visible from windows, and the warmth of the season sanctions clear

colours in costume. The talk was wholly of country pleasures. It

afforded the visitor no little satisfaction to be able to make known

his acquaintance with parts of England to which the Warricombes had not

penetrated. Godwin learnt that the family were insular in their tastes;

a mention by Miss Moorhouse of continental scenes led the host to avow

a strong preference for his own country, under whatever aspect, and

Sidwell murmured her sympathy.

No less introspective than in the old days, though he could better

command his muscles, Peak, after each of his short remarks, made

comparison of his tone and phraseology with those of the other

speakers. Had he still any marks of the ignoble world from which he

sprang? Any defect of pronunciation, any native awkwardness of

utterance? Impossible to judge himself infallibly, but he was conscious

of no vulgar mannerism. Though it was so long since he left Whitelaw,

the accent of certain of the Professors still remained with him as an

example: when endeavouring to be graceful, he was wont to hear the

voice of Dr Nares, or of Professor Barber who lectured on English

Literature. More recently he had been observant of Christian Moxey's

speech, which had a languid elegance worth imitating in certain

particulars. Buckland Warricombe was rather a careless talker, but it

was the carelessness of a man who had never needed to reflect on such a

matter, the refinement of whose enunciation was assured to him from the

nursery. That now was a thing to be aimed at. Preciseness must be

avoided, for in a young man it seemed to argue conscious effort: a

loose sentence now and then, a colloquialism substituted for the more

grammatical phrase.

Heaven be thanked that he was unconcerned on the point of garb!

Inferiority in that respect would have been fatal to his ease. His

clothes were not too new, and in quality were such as he had the habit

of wearing. The Warricombes must have immediately detected any

pretentiousness, were it but in a necktie; that would impress them more

unfavourably than signs of poverty. But he defied inspection. Not

Sidwell herself, doubtless sensitive in the highest degree, could

conceive a prejudice against him on this account.

His misgivings were overcome. If these people were acquainted with the

'dining-rooms' joke, it certainly did not affect their behaviour to

him, and he could hope, by the force of his personality, to obliterate

from their minds such disagreeable thoughts as they might secretly

entertain. Surely he could make good his claim to be deemed a

gentleman. To Buckland he had declared his position, and no shame

attached to it. A man of scientific tastes, like Mr. Warricombe, must

consider it respectable enough. Grant him a little time, and why should

he not become a recognised friend of this family?

If he were but resident in Exeter.

For the first time, he lost himself in abstraction, and only an inquiry

from Sidwell recalled him.

'You have seen the Cathedral, Mr. Peak?'

'Oh yes! I attended service there yesterday morning.'

Had he reflected, perhaps he would not have added this circumstance;

even in speaking he suffered a confused doubtfulness. But as soon as

the words were uttered, he felt strangely glad. Sidwell bestowed upon

him an unmistakable look of approval; her mother gazed with colder

interest; Mr. Warricombe regarded him, and mused; Buckland, a smile of

peculiar meaning on his close lips, glanced from him to Miss Moorhouse.

'Ah, then, you heard Canon Grayling,' remarked the father of the

family, with something in his tone which answered to Sidwell's facial

expression. 'How did you like his sermon?'

Godwin was trifling with a pair of nut-crackers, but the nervousness

evident in his fingers did not prevent him from replying with a natural

air of deliberation.

'I was especially struck with the passage about the barren fig-tree.'

The words might have expressed a truth, but in that case a tone of

sarcasm must have winged them. As it was, they involved either

hypocrisy or ungenerous irony at the expense of his questioner.

Buckland could not but understand them in the latter sense; his face

darkened. At that moment, Peak met his eye, and encountered its steady

searching gaze with a perfectly calm smile. Half-a-dozen pulsings of

his heart--violent, painful, and the fatal hour of his life had struck.

'What had he to say about it?' Buckland asked, carelessly.

Peak's reply was one of those remarkable efforts of mind--one might

say, of character--which are sometimes called forth, without

premeditation, almost without consciousness, by a profound moral

crisis. A minute or two ago he would have believed it impossible to

recall and state in lucid terms the arguments to which, as he sat in

the Cathedral, he had barely given ear; he remembered vaguely that the

preacher (whose name he knew not till now) had dwelt for a few moments

on the topic indicated, but at the time he was indisposed to listen

seriously, and what chance was there that the chain of thought had

fixed itself in his memory? Now, under the marvelling regard of his

conscious self, he poured forth an admirable rendering of the Canon's

views, fuller than the original--more eloquent, more subtle. For five

minutes he held his hearers in absorbed attention, even Buckland

bending forward with an air of genuine interest; and when he stopped,

rather suddenly, there followed a silence.

'Mr. Peak,' said the host, after a cough of apology, 'you have made

that clearer to me than it was yesterday. I must thank you.'

Godwin felt that a slight bow of acknowledgment was perhaps called for,

but not a muscle would obey his will. He was enervated; perspiration

stood on his forehead. The most severe physical effort could not have

reduced him to a feebler state.

Sidwell was speaking:

'Mr. Peak has developed what Canon Grayling only suggested.'

'A brilliant effort of exegesis,' exclaimed Buckland, with a

good-natured laugh.

Again the young men exchanged looks. Godwin smiled as one might under a

sentence of death. As for the other, his suspicion had vanished, and he

now gave way to frank amusement. Luncheon was over, and by a general

movement all went forth on to the lawn in front of the house. Mr.

Warricombe, even more cordial than hitherto, named to Godwin the

features of the extensive landscape.

'But you see that the view is in a measure spoilt by the growth of the

city. A few years ago, none of those ugly little houses stood in the

mid-distance. A few years hence, I fear, there will be much more to

complain of. I daresay you know all about the ship-canal: the story of

the countess, and so forth?'

Buckland presently suggested that the afternoon might be used for a

drive.

'I was about to propose it,' said his father. 'You might start by the

Stoke Canon Road, so as to let Mr. Peak have the famous view from the

gate; then go on towards Silverton, for the sake of the reversed

prospect from the Exe. Who shall be of the party?'

It was decided that four only should occupy the vehicle, Miss Moorhouse

and Fanny Warricombe to be the two ladies. Godwin regretted Sidwell's

omission, but the friendly informality of the arrangement delighted

him. When the carriage rolled softly from the gravelled drive, Buckland

holding the reins, he felt an animation such as no event had ever

produced in him. No longer did he calculate phrases. A spontaneous

aptness marked his dialogue with Miss Moorhouse, and the laughing words

he now and then addressed to Fanny. For a short time Buckland was

laconic, but at length he entered into the joyous tone of the occasion.

Earwaker would have stood in amazement, could he have seen and heard

the saturnine denizen of Peckham Rye.

The weather was superb. A sea-breeze mitigated the warmth of the

cloudless sun, and where a dark pine-tree rose against the sky it gave

the azure depths a magnificence unfamiliar to northern eyes.

'On such a day as this,' remarked Miss Moorhouse, dividing her look

between Buckland and his friend, 'one feels that there's a good deal to

be said for England.'

'But for the vile weather,' was Warricombe's reply, 'you wouldn't know

such enjoyment.'

'Oh, I can't agree with that for a moment! My capacity for enjoyment is

unlimited. That philosophy is unworthy of you; it belongs to a paltry

scheme called "making the best of things".'

'In which you excel, Miss Moorhouse.'

'That she does!' agreed Fanny--a laughing, rosy-cheeked maiden.

'I deny it! No one is more copious in railing against circumstances.'

'But you turn them all to a joke,' Fanny objected.

'That's my profound pessimism. I am misunderstood. No one expects irony

from a woman.'

Peak found it difficult not to gaze too persistently at the subtle

countenance. He was impelled to examine it by a consciousness that he

himself received a large share of Miss Moorhouse's attention, and a

doubt as to the estimation in which she held him. Canon Grayling's

sermon and Godwin's comment had elicited no remark from her. Did she

belong to the ranks of emancipated women? With his experience of

Marcella Moxey, he welcomed the possibility of this variation of the

type, but at the same time, in obedience to a new spirit that had

strange possession of him, recognised that such phenomena no longer

aroused his personal interest. By the oddest of intellectual processes

he had placed himself altogether outside the sphere of unorthodox

spirits. Concerning Miss Moorhouse he cared only for the report she

might make of him to the Warricombes.

Before long, the carriage was stopped that he might enjoy one of the

pleasantest views in the neighbourhood of the city. A gate,

interrupting a high bank with which the road was bordered, gave

admission to the head of a great cultivated slope, which fell to the

river Exe; hence was suddenly revealed a wide panorama. Three

well-marked valleys--those of the Creedy, the Exe, and the Culm--spread

their rural loveliness to remote points of the horizon; gentle

undulations, with pasture and woodland, with long winding roads, and

many a farm that gleamed white amid its orchard leafage, led the gaze

into regions of evanescent hue and outline. Westward, a bolder swell

pointed to the skirts of Dartmoor. No inappropriate detail disturbed

the impression. Exeter was wholly hidden behind the hill on which the

observers stood, and the line of railway leading thither could only be

descried by special search. A foaming weir at the hill's foot blended

its soft murmur with that of the fir branches hereabouts; else, no

sound that the air could convey beyond the pulsing of a bird's note.

All had alighted, and for a minute or two there was silence. When Peak

had received such geographical instruction as was needful, Warricombe

pointed out to him a mansion conspicuous on the opposite slope of the

Exe valley, the seat of Sir Stafford Northcote. The house had no

architectural beauty, but its solitary lordship amid green pastures and

tracts of thick wood declared the graces and privileges of ancestral

wealth. Standing here alone, Godwin would have surveyed these

possessions of an English aristocrat with more or less bitterness; envy

would, for a moment at all events, have perturbed his pleasure in the

natural scene. Accompanied as he was, his emotion took a form which

indeed was allied to envy, but had nothing painful. He exulted in the

prerogatives of birth and opulence, felt proud of hereditary pride,

gloried that his mind was capable of appreciating to the full those

distinctions which, by the vulgar, are not so much as suspected.

Admitted to equal converse with men and women who represented the best

in English society, he could cast away the evil grudge, the fierce

spirit of self-assertion, and be what nature had proposed in endowing

him with large brain, generous blood, delicate tissues. What room for

malignancy? He was accepted by his peers, and could regard with

tolerance even those ignoble orders of mankind amid whom he had so long

dwelt unrecognised.

A bee hummed past him, and this sound--of all the voices of nature that

which most intenerates--filled his heart to overflowing. Moisture made

his eyes dim, and at the impulse of a feeling of gratitude, such as

only the subtlest care of psychology could fully have explained, he

turned to Buckland, saying:

'But for my meeting with you I should have had a lonely and not very

cheerful holiday. I owe you a great deal.'

Warricombe laughed, but as an Englishman does when he wishes to avoid

show of emotion.

'I am very glad indeed that we did meet. Stay with us over tomorrow. I

only wish I were not obliged to go to London on Wednesday.--Look,

Fanny, isn't that a hawk, over Cowley Bridge?'

'Do you feel you would like to shoot it?' asked Miss Moorhouse--who a

moment ago had very closely examined Peak's face.

'To shoot it--why do you ask that?'

'Confess that you felt the desire.'

'Every man does,' replied Buckland, 'until he has had a moment to

recover himself. That's the human instinct.'

'The male human instinct. Thank you for your honesty.'

They drove on, and by a wide circuit, occasionally stopping for the

view, returned to the Old Tiverton Road, and so home. By this time

Louis Warricombe and Mr. Moorhouse were back from their walk. Reposing

in the company of the ladies, they had partaken of such refreshments as

are lawful at five o'clock, and now welcomed with vivacity the later

arrivals. Moorhouse was something older than Buckland, a sallow-cheeked

man with forehead and eyes expressive of much intelligence. Till of

late he had been a Cambridge tutor, but was now privately occupied in

mathematical pursuits. Louis Warricombe had not yet made up his mind

what profession to follow, and to aid the process of resolve had for

the present devoted himself to physical exercise.

Tea-cup in hand, Godwin seated himself by Sidwell, who began by

inquiring how the drive had pleased him. The fervour of his reply

caused her to smile with special graciousness, and their conversation

was uninterrupted for some minutes. Then Fanny came forward with a book

of mosses, her own collection, which she had mentioned to Peak as they

were talking together in the carriage.

'Do you make special study of any science?' Sidwell asked, when certain

remarks of Godwin's had proved his familiarity with the things he was

inspecting.

'It is long since I worked seriously at anything of the kind,' he

answered; adding in a moment, 'except at chemistry--that only because

it is my business.'

'Organic or inorganic chemistry?' inquired Fanny, with the promptness

of a schoolgirl who wishes to have it known that her ideas are no

longer vague.

'Organic for the most part,' Godwin replied, smiling at her. 'And of

the most disagreeable kind.'

Sidwell reflected, then put another question, but with some diffidence.

'I think you were once fond of geology?'

It was the first allusion to that beginning of their acquaintance, ten

years ago. Peak succeeded in meeting her look with steadiness.

'Yes, I still like it.'

'Father's collections have been much improved since you saw them at

Thornhaw.'

'I hope Mr. Warricombe will let me see them.'

Buckland came up and made an apology for drawing his friend aside.

'Will you let us send for your traps? You may just as well have a room

here for a night or two.'

Perpetually imagining some kind chance that might associate him with

civilised people, Godwin could not even pack his portmanteau for a

ramble to Land's End without stowing away a dress suit. He was thus

saved what would have been an embarrassment of special annoyance.

Without hesitation, he accepted Buckland's offer, and named the hotel

at which the luggage was deposited.

'All right; the messenger shall explain. Our name's well enough known

to them. If you would like to look up my father in his study, he'll be

delighted to go over his collections with you. You still care for that

kind of thing?'

'Most certainly. How can you doubt it?'

Buckland smiled, and gave no other reply.

'Ask Fanny to show you the way when you care to go.' And he left the

room.

CHAPTER IV

Sidwell had fallen into conversation with Mr. Moorhouse. Miss

Moorhouse, Mrs. Warricombe, and Louis were grouped in animated talk.

Observing that Fanny threw glances towards him from a lonely corner,

Peak went over to her, and was pleased with the smile he met. Fanny had

watched eyes, much brighter than Sidwell's; her youthful vivacity

blended with an odd little fashion of schoolgirl pedantry in a very

piquant way. Godwin's attempts at conversation with her were rather

awkward; he found it difficult to strike the suitable note, something

not too formal yet not deficient in respect.

'Do you think,' he asked presently, 'that I should disturb your father

if I went to him?'

'Oh, not at all! I often go and sit in the study at this time.'

'Will you show me the way?'

Fanny at once rose, and together they crossed the hall, passed through

a sort of anteroom connecting with a fernery, and came to the study

door. A tap was answered by cheerful summons, and Fanny looked in.

'Well, my ladybird? Ah, you are bringing Mr. Peak; come in, come in!'

It was a large and beautiful room, its wide windows, in a cushioned

recess, looking upon the lawn where the yew tree cast solemn shade. One

wall presented an unbroken array of volumes, their livery sober but

handsome; detached bookcases occupied other portions of the irregular

perimeter. Cabinets, closed and open, were arranged with due regard to

convenience. Above the mantelpiece hung a few small photographs, but

the wall-space at disposal was chiefly occupied with objects which

illustrated Mr. Warricombe's scientific tastes. On a stand in the light

of the window gleamed two elaborate microscopes, provocative of

enthusiasm in a mind such as Godwin's.

In a few minutes, Fanny silently retired. Her father, by no means

forward to speak of himself and his pursuits, was led in that direction

by Peak's expressions of interest, and the two were soon busied with

matters which had a charm for both. A collection of elvans formed the

starting-point, and when they had entered upon the wide field of

palaeontology it was natural for Mr. Warricombe to invite his guest's

attention to the species of _homalonotus_ which he had had the

happiness of identifying some ten years ago--a discovery now recognised

and chronicled. Though his sympathy was genuine enough, Godwin

struggled against an uneasy sense of manifesting excessive

appreciation. Never oblivious of himself, he could not utter the

simplest phrase of admiration without criticising its justice, its

tone. And at present it behoved him to bear in mind that he was

conversing with no half-bred sciolist. Mr Warricombe obviously had his

share of human weakness, but he was at once a gentleman and a student

of well-stored mind; insincerity must be very careful if it would not

jar upon his refined ear. So Godwin often checked himself in the

utterance of what might sound too much like flattery. A young man

talking with one much older, a poor man in dialogue with a wealthy,

must under any circumstances guard his speech; for one of Godwin's

aggressive idiosyncrasy the task of discretion had peculiar

difficulties, and the attitude he had assumed at luncheon still further

complicated the operations of his mind. Only at moments could he speak

in his true voice, and silence meant for the most part a studious

repression of much he would naturally have uttered.

Resurgent envy gave him no little trouble. On entering the room, he

could not but exclaim to himself, 'How easy for a man to do notable

work amid such surroundings! If I were but thus equipped for

investigation!' And as often as his eyes left a particular object to

make a general survey, the same thought burned in him. He feared lest

it should be legible on his countenance.

Taking a pamphlet from the table, Mr. Warricombe, with a humorous

twinkle in his eyes, inquired whether Peak read German; the answer

being affirmative:

'Naturally,' he rejoined, 'you could hardly have neglected so important

a language. I, unfortunately, didn't learn it in my youth, and I have

never had perseverance enough to struggle with it since. Something led

me to take down this brochure the other day--an old attempt of mine to

write about the weathering of rocks. It was printed in '76, and no

sooner had it seen the light than friends of mine wanted to know what I

meant by appropriating, without acknowledgement, certain facts quite

recently pointed out by Professor Pfaff of Erlangen! Unhappily,

Professor Pfaff's results were quite unknown to me, and I had to get

them translated. The coincidences, sure enough, were very noticeable.

Just before you came in, I was reviving that old discomfiture.'

Peak, in glancing over the pages, murmured with a smile:

'_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt_!'

'Even so!' exclaimed Mr. Warricombe, laughing with a subdued heartiness

which was one of his pleasant characteristics. And, after a pause, he

inquired, 'Do you find any time to keep up your classics?'

'By fits and starts. Sometimes I return to them for a month or two.'

'Why, it's pretty much the same with me. Here on my table, for

instance, lies Tacitus. I found it mentioned not long ago that the

first sentence of the _Annals_ is a hexameter--did you know it?--and

when I had once got hold of the book I thought it a shabby thing to

return it to the dust of its shelf without reading at least a few

pages. So I have gone on from day to day, with no little enjoyment.

Buckland, as you probably know, regards these old fellows with scorn.'

'We always differed about that.'

'I can't quite decide whether he is still sincere in all he says about

them. Time, I suspect, is mellowing his judgment.'

They moved to the shelves where Greek and Latin books stood in serried

order, and only the warning dinner-bell put an end to their sympathetic

discussion of the place such authors should hold in modern educational

systems.

'Have they shown you your room?' Mr. Warricombe asked.

But, as he spoke, the face of his eldest son appeared at the door.

'Your traps have safely arrived, Peak.'

The bedroom to which Godwin was conducted had a delicious fragrance, of

source indeterminable. When he had closed the door, he stood for a few

moments looking about him; it was his first experience of the upper

chambers of houses such as this. Merely to step upon the carpet

fluttered his senses: merely to breathe the air was a purification.

Luxury of the rational kind, dictated by regard for health of body and

soul, appeared in every detail. On the walls were water-colours,

scenery of Devon and Cornwall; a hanging book-case held about a score

of volumes poets, essayists, novelists. Elsewhere, not too prominent,

lay a Bible and a Prayer-book.

He dressed, as never before, with leisurely enjoyment of the process.

When the mirror declared him ready, his eyes returned frequently to an

inspection of the figure he presented, and it seemed to him that he was

not unworthy to take his place at the dinner-table. As for his visage,

might he not console himself with the assurance that it was of no

common stamp? 'If I met that man in a room, I should be curious about

him; I should see at once that he didn't belong to the vulgar; I should

desire to hear him speak.' And the Warricombes were not lacking in

discernment. He would compare more than favourably with Mr. Moorhouse,

whose aspect, bright and agreeable enough, made no promise of

originality.--It must be time to go down. He left the room with an air

of grave self-confidence.

At dinner he was careful to attempt no repetition of the display which

had done very well at luncheon; it must not be thought that he had the

habit of talking for effect. Mrs. Warricombe, unless he mistook, had

begun to view him more favourably; her remarks made less distinction

between him and the other guests. But he could not like his hostess; he

thought her unworthy to be the mother of Sidwell and Fanny, of Buckland

and Louis; there was a marked strain of the commonplace in her. The

girls, costumed for the evening, affected him with a return of the awe

he had all but overcome. Sidwell was exquisite in dark colours, her

sister in white. Miss Moorhouse (addressed by her friends as 'Sylvia')

looked older than in the day-time, and had lost something of her

animation; possibly the country routine had begun to weary her a little.

Peak was at a vast distance from the hour which saw him alight at

Exeter and begin his ramble about the city. He no longer felt himself

alone in the world; impossible to revive the mood in which he

deliberately planned to consume his economies in a year or two of

desert wandering; far other were the anticipations which warmed his

mind when the after-dinner repose attuned him to unwonted hopefulness.

This family were henceforth his friends, and it depended only upon

himself to make the connection lasting, with all manner of benefits

easily imagined. Established in the country, the Warricombes stood to

him in quite a different relation from any that could have arisen had

he met with them in London. There he would have been nothing more than

a casual dinner-guest, welcomed for the hour and all but forgotten when

he had said good-night. For years he had understood that London offered

him no prospect of social advancement. But a night passed under this

roof practically raised him to a level whence he surveyed a rich field

of possible conquest. With the genial geologist he felt himself on

excellent terms, and much of this was ascribable to a singular chance

which had masked his real being, and represented him, with scarce an

effort of his own, in a light peculiarly attractive to Mr. Warricombe.

He was now playing the conscious hypocrite; not a pleasant thing to

face and accept, but the fault was not his--fate had brought it about.

At all events, he aimed at no vulgar profit; his one desire was for

human fellowship; he sought nothing but that solace which every code of

morals has deemed legitimate. Let the society which compelled to such

an expedient bear the burden of its shame.

That must indeed have been a circle of great intellects amid which

Godwin Peak felt himself subordinate. He had never known that

impression, and in the Warricombe family was no one whom he could

regard even as his equal. Buckland, doubtless, had some knowledge of

the world, and could boast of a free mind; but he lacked subtlety: a

psychological problem would easily puzzle him. Mr. Warricombe's

attainments were respectable, but what could be said of a man who had

devoted his life to geology, and still (in the year 1884) remained an

orthodox member of the Church of England? Godwin, as he sat in the

drawing-room and enjoyed its atmosphere of refinement, sincerely held

himself of far more account as an intellectual being than all the

persons about him.

But if his brain must dwell in solitude his heart might compass worthy

alliances--the thing most needful to humanity. One may find the

associates of his intellect in libraries--the friend of one's emotions

must walk in flesh and blood. Earwaker, Moxey--these were in many

respects admirable fellows, and he had no little love for them, but the

world they represented was womanless, and so of flagrant imperfection.

Of Marcella Moxey he could not think emotionally; indeed she emphasised

by her personality the lack which caused his suffering. Sidwell

Warricombe suggested, more completely than any woman he had yet

observed, that companionship without which life must to the end taste

bitter. His interest in her was not strictly personal; she moved and

spoke before him as a typical woman, not as the daughter of Martin

Warricombe and the sister of Buckland. Here at last opened to his view

that sphere of female society which he had known as remotely existing,

the desperate aim of ambition.

Conventional women--but was not the phrase tautological? In the few

females who have liberated their souls, was not much of the woman

inevitably sacrificed, and would it not be so for long years to come?

On the other hand, such a one as Sidwell might be held a perfect

creature, perfect in relation to a certain stage of human development.

Look at her, as she sat conversing with Moorhouse, soft candle-light

upon her face; compare her on the one hand with an average emancipated

girl, on the other with a daughter of the people. How unsatisfying was

the former; the latter, how repulsive! Here one had the exquisite mean,

the lady as England has perfected her towards the close of this

nineteenth century. A being of marvellous delicacy, of purest

instincts, of unsurpassable sweetness. Who could not detail her

limitations, obvious and, in certain moods, irritating enough? These

were nothing to the point, unless one would roam the world a hungry

idealist; and Godwin was weary of the famined pilgrimage.

The murmur of amiable voices softened him to the reception of all that

was good in his present surroundings, and justified in the light of

sentiment his own dishonour. This English home, was it not surely the

best result of civilisation in an age devoted to material progress?

Here was peace, here was scope for the kindliest emotions. Upon

him--the born rebel, the scorner of average mankind, the consummate

egoist--this atmosphere exercised an influence more tranquillising,

more beneficent, than even the mood of disinterested study. In the

world to which sincerity would condemn him, only the worst elements of

his character found nourishment and range; here he was humanised, made

receptive of all gentle sympathies. Heroism might point him to an

unending struggle with adverse conditions, but how was heroism possible

without faith? Absolute faith he had none; he was essentially a

negativist, guided by the mere relations of phenomena. Nothing easier

than to contemn the mode of life represented by this wealthy middle

class; but compare it with other existences conceivable by a thinking

man, and it was emphatically good. It aimed at placidity, at

benevolence, at supreme cleanliness,--things which more than

compensated for the absence of higher spirituality. We can be but what

we are; these people accepted themselves, and in so doing became

estimable mortals. No imbecile pretensions exposed them to the rebuke

of a social satirist; no vulgarity tainted their familiar intercourse.

Their allegiance to a worn-out creed was felt as an added grace; thus

only could their souls aspire, and the imperfect poetry of their

natures be developed.

He took an opportunity of seating himself by Mrs. Warricombe, with whom

as yet he had held no continuous dialogue.

'Has there been anything of interest at the London theatres lately?'

she asked.

'I know so little of them,' Godwin replied, truthfully. 'It must be

several years since I saw a play.'

'Then in that respect you have hardly become a Londoner.'

'Nor in any other, I believe,' said Peak, with a smile. 'I have lived

there ten years, but am far from regarding London as my home. I hope a

few months more will release me from it altogether.'

'Indeed!--Perhaps you think of leaving England?'

'I should be very sorry to do that--for any length of time. My wish is

to settle somewhere in the country, and spend a year or two in quiet

study.'

Mrs. Warricombe looked amiable surprise, but corrected herself to

approving interest.

'I have heard some of our friends say that their minds get unstrung, if

they are long away from town, but I should have thought that country

quietness would be much better than London noise. My husband certainly

finds it so.'

'People are very differently constituted,' said Godwin. 'And then it

depends much on the nature of one's work.'

Uttering these commonplaces with an air of reflection, he observed that

they did not cost him the self-contempt which was wont to be his

penalty for concession to the terms of polite gossip; rather, his mind

accepted with gratitude this rare repose. He tasted something of the

tranquil self-content which makes life so enjoyable when one has never

seen a necessity for shaping original remarks. No one in this room

would despise him for a platitude, were it but recommended with a

pleasant smile. With the Moxeys, with Earwaker, he durst not thus have

spoken.

When the hour of separation was at hand, Buckland invited his guest to

retire with him to a part of the house where they could smoke and chat

comfortably.

'Moorhouse and Louis are fagged after their twenty mile stretch this

morning; I have caught both of them nodding during the last few

minutes. We can send them to bed without apology.'

He led the way upstairs to a region of lumber-rooms, whence a narrow

flight of steps brought them into a glass-house, octangular and with

pointed tops, out upon the roof. This, he explained, had been built

some twenty years ago, at a time when Mr. Warricombe amused himself

with photography. A few indications of its original purposes were still

noticeable; an easel and a box of oil-colours showed that

someone--doubtless of the younger generation--had used it as a

painting-room; a settee and deep cane chairs made it an inviting lounge

on a warm evening like the present, when, by throwing open a hinged

wall, one looked forth into the deep sky and tasted the air from the

sea.

'Sidwell used to paint a little,' said Buckland, as his companion bent

to examine a small canvas on which a landscape was roughed in. It lay

on a side table, and was half concealed by an ordnance map, left

unfolded. 'For the last year or two I think she has given it up. I'm

afraid we are not strong in matters of art. Neither of the girls can

play very well, though of course they both tinkle for their own

amusement. Maurice--the poor lad who was killed--gave a good deal of

artistic promise; father keeps some little water-colours of his, which

men in that line have praised--perhaps sincerely.'

'I remember you used to speak slightingly of art,' said Godwin, as he

took an offered cigar.

'Did I? And of a good many other things, I daresay. It was my habit at

one time, I believe, to grow heated in scorn of Euclid's definitions.

What an interesting book Euclid is! Half a year ago, I was led by a

talk with Moorhouse to go through some of the old "props", and you

can't imagine how they delighted me. Moorhouse was so obliging as to

tell me that I had an eminently deductive mind.'

He laughed, but not without betraying some pleasure in the remark.

'Surprising,' he went on, 'how very little such a mind as Moorhouse's

suggests itself in common conversation. He is really profound in

mathematics, a man of original powers, but I never heard him make a

remark of the slightest value on any other subject. Now his sister--she

has studied nothing in particular, yet she can't express an opinion

that doesn't bear the stamp of originality.'

Godwin was contented to muse, his eyes fixed on a brilliant star in the

western heaven.

'There's only one inconsistency in her that annoys and puzzles me,'

Buckland pursued, speaking with the cigar in his mouth. 'In religion,

she seems to be orthodox. True, we have never spoken on the subject,

but--well, she goes to church, and carries prayer-books. I don't know

how to explain it. Hypocrisy is the last thing one could suspect her

of. I'm sure she hates it in every form. And such a clear brain!--I

can't understand it.'

The listener was still star-gazing. He had allowed his cigar, after the

first few puffs, to smoulder untasted; his lips were drawn into an

expression very unlike the laxity appropriate to pleasurable smoking.

When the murmur of the pines had for a moment been audible, he said,

with a forced smile:

'I notice you take for granted that a clear brain and religious

orthodoxy are incompatible.'

The other gave him a keen look.

'Hardly,' was Buckland's reply, spoken with less ingenuousness of tone

than usual. 'I say that Miss Moorhouse has undeniably a strong mind,

and that it is impossible to suspect her of the slightest hypocrisy.'

'Whence the puzzle that keeps you occupied,' rejoined Peak, in a voice

that sounded like assumption of superiority, though the accent had an

agreeable softness.

Warricombe moved as if impatiently, struck a match to rekindle his

weed, blew tumultuous clouds, and finally put a blunt question:

'What do you think about it yourself?'

'From my point of view, there is no puzzle at all,' Godwin replied, in

a very clear voice, smiling as he met the other's look.

'How am I to understand that?' asked Buckland, good-naturedly, though

with a knitting of his brows.

'Not as a doubt of Miss Moorhouse's sincerity. I can't see that a

belief in the Christian religion is excluded by any degree of

intellectual clearness.'

'No--your views have changed, Peak?'

'On many subjects, this among them.'

'I see.'

The words fell as if involuntarily from Warricombe's lips. He gazed at

the floor awhile, then, suddenly looking up, exclaimed:

'It would be civil to accept this without surprise, but it is too much

for me. How has it come about?'

'That would take me a long time to explain.'

'Then,' pursued his companion, watching him closely, 'you were quite in

sympathy with that exposition you gave at lunch today?'

'Quite. I hope there was nothing in my way of speaking that made you

think otherwise?'

'Nothing at all. I couldn't help wondering what it meant. You seemed

perfectly in earnest, yet such talk had the oddest sound on your

lips--to me, I mean. Of course I thought of you as I used to know you.'

'Naturally.' Peak was now in an attitude of repose, his legs crossed,

thumb and forefinger stroking his chin. 'I couldn't very well turn

aside to comment on my own mental history.'

Here again was the note of something like genial condescension.

Buckland seemed sensible of it, and slightly raised his eyebrows.

'I am to understand that you have become strictly orthodox in matters

of religious faith?'

'The proof is,' replied Godwin, 'that I hope before long to take

Orders.'

Again there was silence, and again the sea-breath made its whispering

in the pines. Warricombe, with a sudden gesture, pointed towards the

sky.

'A shooting star--one of the brightest I ever saw!'

'I missed it,' said Peak, just glancing in that direction.

The interruption enabled Buckland to move his chair; in this new

position he was somewhat further from Peak, and had a better view of

his face.

'I should never have imagined you a clergyman,' he said, thoughtfully,

'but I can see that your mind has been developing powers in that

direction.--Well, so be it! I can only hope you have found your true

work in life.'

'But you doubt it?'

'I can't say that I doubt it, as I can't understand you. To be sure, we

have been parted for many years. In some respects I must seem much

changed'--

'Greatly changed,' Godwin put in, promptly.

'Yes,' pursued the other, correctively, 'but not in a way that would

seem incredible to anyone whatever. I am conscious of growth in

tolerance, but my attitude in essentials is unchanged. Thinking of

you--as I have often enough done--I always kept the impression you made

on me when we were both lads; you seemed most distinctly a modern

mind--one of the most modern that ever came under my notice. Now, I

don't find it impossible to understand my father, when he reconciles

science with religion; he was born sixty years ago. But Godwin Peak as

a--a--'

'Parson,' supplied Peak, drily.

'Yes, as a parson--I shall have to meditate much before I grasp the

notion.'

'Perhaps you have dropped your philosophical studies?' said Godwin,

with a smile of courteous interest.

'I don't know. Metaphysics have no great interest for me, but I

philosophise in a way. I thought myself a student of human nature, at

all events.'

'But you haven't kept up with philosophical speculation on the points

involved in orthodox religion?'

'I confess my ignorance of everything of the kind--unless you include

Bishop Blougram among the philosophers?'

Godwin bore the gaze which accompanied this significant inquiry. For a

moment he smiled, but there followed an expression of gravity touched

with pain.

'I hadn't thought of broaching this matter,' he said, with slow

utterance, but still in a tone of perfect friendliness. 'Let us put it

aside.'

Warricombe seemed to make an effort, and his next words had the accent

of well-bred consideration which distinguished his ordinary talk.

'Pray forgive my bad joke. I merely meant that I have no right whatever

to argue with anyone who has given serious attention to such things.

They are altogether beyond my sphere. I was born an agnostic, and no

subtlety of demonstration could incline me for a moment to theological

views; my intellect refuses to admit a single preliminary of such

arguments. You astonish me, and that's all I am justified in saying.'

'My dear Warricombe, you are justified in saying whatever your mind

suggests. That is one of the principles which I hold unaltered--let me

be quite frank with you. I should never have decided upon such a step

as this, but for the fact that I have managed to put by a small sum of

money which will make me independent for two or three years. Till quite

lately I hadn't a thought of using my freedom in this way; it was clear

to me that I must throw over the old drudgery at Rotherhithe, but this

resolve which astonishes you had not yet ripened--I saw it only as one

of the possibilities of my life. Well, now, it's only too true that

there's something of speculation in my purpose; I look to the Church,

not only as a congenial sphere of activity, but as a means of

subsistence. In a man of no fortune this is inevitable; I hope there is

nothing to be ashamed of. Even if the conditions of the case allowed

it, I shouldn't present myself for ordination forthwith; I must study

and prepare myself in quietness. How the practical details will be

arranged, I can't say; I have no family influence, and I must hope to

make friends who will open a way for me. I have always lived apart from

society; but that isn't natural to me, and it becomes more distasteful

the older I grow. The probability is that I shall settle somewhere in

the country, where I can live decently on a small income. After all,

it's better I should have let you know this at once. I only realised a

few minutes ago that to be silent about my projects was in a way to be

guilty of false pretences.'

The adroitness of this last remark, which directed itself, with such

show of candour, against a suspicion precisely the opposite of that

likely to be entertained by the listener, succeeded in disarming

Warricombe; he looked up with a smile of reassurance, and spoke

encouragingly.

'About the practical details I don't think you need have any anxiety.

It isn't every day that the Church of England gets such a recruit. Let

me suggest that you have a talk with my father.'

Peak reflected on the proposal, and replied to it with grave

thoughtfulness:

'That's very kind of you, but I should have a difficulty in asking Mr.

Warricombe's advice. I'm afraid I must go on in my own way for a time.

It will be a few months, I daresay, before I can release myself from my

engagements in London.'

'But I am to understand that your mind is really made up?'

'Oh, quite!'

'Well, no doubt we shall have opportunities of talking. We must meet in

town, if possible. You have excited my curiosity, and I can't help

hoping you'll let me see a little further into your mind some day. When

I first got hold of Newman's _Apologia_, I began to read it with the

utmost eagerness, flattering myself that now at length I should

understand how a man of brains could travel such a road. I was horribly

disappointed, and not a little enraged, when I found that he began by

assuming the very beliefs I thought he was going to justify. In you I

shall hope for more logic.'

'Newman is incapable of understanding such an objection,' said Peak,

with a look of amusement.

'But you are not.'

The dialogue grew chatty. When they exchanged good-night, Peak fancied

that the pressure of Buckland's hand was less fervent than at their

meeting, but his manner no longer seemed to indicate distrust. Probably

the agnostic's mood was one of half-tolerant disdain.

Godwin turned the key in his bedroom door, and strayed aimlessly about.

He was fatigued, but the white, fragrant bed did not yet invite him; a

turbulence in his brain gave warning that it would be long before he

slept. He wound up his watch; the hands pointed to twelve. Chancing to

come before the mirror, he saw that he was unusually pale, and that his

eyes had a swollen look.

The profound stillness was oppressive to him; he started nervously at

an undefined object in a dim corner, and went nearer to examine it; he

was irritable, vaguely discontented, and had even a moment of nausea,

perhaps the result of tobacco stronger than he was accustomed to smoke.

After leaning for five minutes at the open window, he felt a soothing

effect from the air, and could think consecutively of the day's events.

What had happened seemed to him incredible; it was as though he revived

a mad dream, of ludicrous coherence. Since his display of rhetoric at

luncheon all was downright somnambulism. What fatal power had subdued

him? What extraordinary influence had guided his tongue, constrained

his features? His conscious self had had no part in all this comedy;

now for the first time was he taking count of the character he had

played.

Had he been told this morning that--Why, what monstrous folly was all

this? Into what unspeakable baseness had he fallen? Happily, he had but

to take leave of the Warricombe household, and rush into some region

where he was unknown. Years hence, he would relate the story to

Earwaker.

For a long time he suffered the torments of this awakening. Shame

buffeted him on the right cheek and the left; he looked about like one

who slinks from merited chastisement. Oh, thrice ignoble varlet! To

pose with unctuous hypocrisy before people who had welcomed him under

their roof, unquestioned, with all the grace and kindliness of English

hospitality! To lie shamelessly in the face of his old fellow-student,

who had been so genuinely glad to meet him again!

Yet such possibility had not been unforeseen. At the times of his

profound gloom, when solitude and desire crushed his spirit, he had

wished that fate would afford him such an opportunity of knavish

success. His imagination had played with the idea that a man like

himself might well be driven to this expedient, and might even use it

with life-long result. Of a certainty, the Church numbered such men

among her priests,--not mere lukewarm sceptics who made religion a

source of income, nor yet those who had honestly entered the portal and

by necessity were held from withdrawing, though their convictions had

changed; but deliberate schemers from the first, ambitious but hungry

natures, keen-sighted, unscrupulous. And they were at no loss to defend

themselves against the attack of conscience. Life is a terrific

struggle for all who begin it with no endowments save their brains. A

hypocrite was not necessarily a harm-doer; easy to picture the

unbelieving priest whose influence was vastly for good, in word and

deed.

But he, he who had ever prided himself on his truth-fronting intellect,

and had freely uttered his scorn of the credulous mob! He who was his

own criterion of moral right and wrong! No wonder he felt like a

whipped cur. It was the ancestral vice in his blood, brought out by

over-tempting circumstance. The long line of base-born predecessors,

the grovelling hinds and mechanics of his genealogy, were responsible

for this. Oh for a name wherewith honour was hereditary!

His eyes were blinded by a rush of hot tears. Down, down--into the

depths of uttermost despondency, of self-pity and self-contempt! Had it

been practicable, he would have fled from the house, leaving its

occupants to think of him as they would; even as, ten years ago, he had

fled from the shame impending over him at Kingsmill. A cowardly

instinct, this; having once acted upon it gave to his whole life a

taint of craven meanness. Mere bluster, all his talk of mental dignity

and uncompromising scorn of superstitions. A weak and idle man, whose

best years were already wasted!

He gazed deliberately at himself in the glass, at his red eyelids and

unsightly lips. Darkness was best; perhaps he might forget his shame

for an hour or two, ere the dawn renewed it. He threw off his garments

heedlessly, extinguished the lamp, and crept into the ready

hiding-place.

Part III

CHAPTER I

'Why are you obstinately silent? [wrote Earwaker, in a letter addressed

to Godwin at his Peckham lodgings]. I take it for granted that you must

by this time be back from your holiday. Why haven't you replied to my

letter of a fortnight ago? Nothing yet from _The Critical_. If you are

really at work as usual, come and see me to-morrow evening, any time

after eight. The posture of my affairs grows dubious; the shadow of

Kenyon thickens about me. In all seriousness I think I shall be driven

from _The Weekly Post_ before long. My quarrels with Runcorn are too

frequent, and his blackguardism keeps more than pace with the times.

Come or write, for I want to know how things go with you.

_Tuissimus_, J.E.E.'

Peak read this at breakfast on a Saturday morning. It was early in

September, and three weeks had elapsed since his return from the west

of England. Upon the autumn had fallen a blight of cold and rainy

weather, which did not enhance the cheerfulness of daily journeying

between Peckham Rye and Rotherhithe. When it was necessary for him to

set forth to the train, he muttered imprecations, for a mood of

inactivity possessed him; he would gladly have stayed in his

comfortable sitting-room, idling over books or only occupied with

languid thought.

In the afternoon he was at liberty to follow his impulse, and this

directed him to the British Museum, whither of late he had several

times resorted as a reader. Among the half-dozen books for which he

applied was one in German, Reusch's _Bibel und Natur_. After a little

dallying, he became absorbed in this work, and two or three hours

passed before its hold on his attention slackened. He seldom changed

his position; the volume was propped against others, and he sat bending

forward, his arms folded upon the desk. When he was thus deeply

engaged, his face had a hard, stern aspect; if by chance his eye

wandered for a moment, its look seemed to express resentment of

interruption.

At length he threw himself back with a sudden yielding to weariness,

crossed his legs, sank together in the chair, and for half-an-hour

brooded darkly. A fit of yawning admonished him that it was time to

quit the atmosphere of study. He betook himself to a restaurant in the

Strand, and thence about eight o'clock made his way to Staple Inn,

where the journalist gave him cheerful welcome.

'Day after day I have meant to write,' thus he excused himself. 'But I

had really nothing to say.'

'You don't look any better for your holiday,' Earwaker remarked.

'Holiday? Oh, I had forgotten all about it. When do _you_ go?'

'The situation is comical. I feel sure that if I leave town, my

connection with the _Post_ will come to an end. I shall have a note

from Runcorn saying that we had better take this opportunity of

terminating my engagement. On the whole I should be glad, yet I can't

make up my mind to be ousted by Kenyon--that's what it means. They want

to get me away, but I stick on, postponing holiday from week to week.

Runcorn can't decide to send me about my business, yet every leader I

write enrages him. But for Kenyon, I should gain my point; I feel sure

of it. It's one of those cases in which homicide would be justified by

public interest. If Kenyon gets my place, the paper becomes at once an

organ of ruffiandom, the delight of the blackguardry.'

'How's the circulation?' inquired Peak.

'Pretty sound; that adds to the joke. This series of stories by

Doubleday has helped us a good deal, and my contention is, if we can

keep financially right by help of this kind, why not make a little

sacrifice for the sake of raising our political tone? Runcorn won't see

it; he listens eagerly to Kenyon's assurance that we might sell several

thousand more by striking the true pot-house note.'

'Then pitch the thing over! Wash your hands, and go to cleaner work.'

'The work I am doing is clean enough,' replied Earwaker. 'Let me have

my way, and I can make the paper a decent one and a useful one. I

shan't easily find another such chance.'

'Your idealism has a strong root,' said Godwin, rather contemptuously.

'I half envy you. There must be a distinct pleasure in believing that

any intellectual influence will exalt the English democracy.'

'I'm not sure that I do believe it, but I enjoy the experiment. The

chief pleasure, I suppose, is in fighting Runcorn and Kenyon.'

'They are too strong for you, Earwaker. They have the spirit of the age

to back them up.'

The journalist became silent; he smiled, but the harassment of conflict

marked his features.

'I hear nothing about "The New Sophistry",' he remarked, when Godwin

had begun to examine some books that lay on the table. 'Dolby has the

trick of keeping manuscripts a long time. Everything that seems at the

first glance tolerable, he sends to the printer, then muses over it at

his leisure. Probably your paper is in type.'

'I don't care a rap whether it is or not. What do you think of this

book of Oldwinkle's?'

He was holding a volume of humorous stories, which had greatly taken

the fancy of the public.

'It's uncommonly good,' replied the journalist, laughing. 'I had a

prejudice against the fellow, but he has overcome me. It's more than

good farce--something like really strong humour here and there.'

'I quite believe it,' said Peak, 'yet I couldn't read a page. Whatever

the mob enjoys is at once spoilt for me, however good I should

otherwise think it. I am sick of seeing and hearing the man's name.'

Earwaker shook his head in deprecation.

'Narrow, my boy. One must be able to judge and enjoy impartially.'

'I know it, but I shall never improve. This book seems to me to have a

bad smell; it looks mauled with dirty fingers. I despise Oldwinkle for

his popularity. To make them laugh, and to laugh _with_ them--pah!'

They debated this point for some time, Peak growing more violent,

though his friend preserved a smiling equanimity. A tirade of virulent

contempt, in which Godwin exhibited all his powers of savage eloquence,

was broken by a visitor's summons at the door.

'Here's Malkin,' said the journalist; 'you'll see each other at last.'

Peak could not at once command himself to the look and tone desirable

in meeting a stranger; leaning against the mantelpiece, he gazed with a

scowl of curiosity at the man who presented himself, and when he shook

hands, it was in silence. But Malkin made speech from the others

unnecessary for several minutes. With animated voice and gesture, he

poured forth apologies for his failure to keep the appointment of six

or seven weeks ago.

'Only the gravest call of duty could have kept me away, I do assure

you! No doubt Earwaker has informed you of the circumstances. I

telegraphed--I think I telegraphed; didn't I, Earwaker?'

'I have some recollection of a word or two of scant excuse,' replied

the journalist.

'But I implore you to consider the haste I was in,' cried Malkin; 'not

five minutes, Mr. Peak, to book, to register luggage, to do everything;

not five minutes, I protest! But here we are at last. Let us talk! Let

us talk!'

He seated himself with an air of supreme enjoyment, and began to cram

the bowl of a large pipe from a bulky pouch.

'How stands the fight with Kenyon and Co.?' he cried, as soon as the

tobacco was glowing.

Earwaker briefly repeated what he had told Peak.

'Hold out! No surrender and no compromise! What's your opinion, Mr

Peak, on the abstract question? Is a popular paper likely, or not, to

be damaged in its circulation by improvement of style and tone--within

the limits of discretion?'

'I shouldn't be surprised if it were,' Peak answered, drily.

'I'm afraid you're right. There's no use in blinking truths, however

disagreeable. But, for Earwaker, that isn't the main issue. What he has

to do is to assert himself. Every man's first duty is to assert

himself. At all events, this is how I regard the matter. I am all for

individualism, for the development of one's personality at whatever

cost. No compromise on points of faith! Earwaker has his ideal of

journalistic duty, and in a fight with fellows like Runcorn and Kenyon

he must stand firm as a rock.'

'I can't see that he's called upon to fight at all,' said Peak. 'He's

in a false position; let him get out of it.'

'A false position? I can't see that. No man better fitted than Earwaker

to raise the tone of Radical journalism. Here's a big Sunday newspaper

practically in his hands; it seems to me that the circumstances give

him a grand opportunity of making his force felt. What are we all

seeking but an opportunity for striking out with effect?'

Godwin listened with a sceptical smile, and made answer in slow,

careless tones.

'Earwaker happens to be employed and paid by certain capitalists to

increase the sale of their paper.'

'My dear sir!' cried the other, bouncing upon his seat. 'How can you

take such a view? A great newspaper surely cannot be regarded as a mere

source of income. These capitalists declare that they have at heart the

interests of the working classes; so has Earwaker, and he is far better

able than they to promote those interests. His duty is to apply their

money to the best use, morally speaking. If he were lukewarm in the

matter, I should be the first to advise his retirement; but this fight

is entirely congenial to him. I trust he will hold his own to the last

possible moment.'

'You must remember,' put in the journalist, with a look of amusement,

'that Peak has no sympathy with Radicalism.'

'I lament it, but that does not affect my argument. If you were a high

Tory, I should urge you just as strongly to assert yourself. Surely you

agree with this point of mine, Mr. Peak? You admit that a man must

develop whatever strength is in him.'

'I'm not at all sure of that.'

Malkin fixed himself sideways in the chair, and examined his

collocutor's face earnestly. He endeavoured to subdue his excitement to

the tone of courteous debate, but the words that at length escaped him

were humorously blunt.

'Then of what _are_ you sure?'

'Of nothing.'

'Now we touch bottom!' cried Malkin. 'Philosophically speaking, I agree

with you. But we have to live our lives, and I suppose we must direct

ourselves by some conscious principle.'

'I don't see the necessity,' Peak replied, still in an impassive tone.

'We may very well be guided by circumstances as they arise. To be sure,

there's a principle in that, but I take it you mean something

different.'

'Yes I do. I hold that the will must direct circumstances, not receive

its impulse from them. How, then, are we to be guided? What do you set

before yourself?'

'To get through life with as much satisfaction and as little pain as

possible.'

'You are a hedonist, then. Well and good! Then that is your conscious

principle'--

'No, it isn't.'

'How am I to understand you?'

'By recognising that a man's intellectual and moral principles as

likely as not tend to anything but his happiness.'

'I can't admit it!' exclaimed Malkin, leaping from his chair. 'What

_is_ happiness?'

'I don't know.'

'Earwaker, _what_ is happiness? What _is_ happiness?'

'I really don't know,' answered the journalist, mirthfully.

'This is trifling with a grave question. We all know perfectly well

that happiness is the conscious exertion of individual powers. Why is

there so much suffering under our present social system? Because the

majority of men are crushed to a dead level of mechanical toil, with no

opportunity of developing their special faculties. Give a man scope,

and happiness is put within his reach.'

'What do you mean by scope?' inquired Godwin.

'Scope? Scope? Why, room to expand. The vice of our society is

hypocrisy; it comes of over-crowding. When a man isn't allowed to be

himself, he takes refuge in a mean imitation of those other men who

appear to be better off. That was what sent me off to South America. I

got into politics, and found that I was in danger of growing dishonest,

of compromising, and toadying. In the wilderness, I found myself

again.--Do you seriously believe that happiness can be obtained by

ignoring one's convictions?'

He addressed the question to both, snuffing the air with head thrown

back.

'What if you have no convictions?' asked Peak.

'Then you are incapable of happiness in any worthy sense! You may

graze, but you will never feast.'

The listeners joined in laughter, and Malkin, after a moment's

hesitation, allowed his face to relax in good-humoured sympathy.

'Now look here!' he cried. 'You--Earwaker; suppose you sent conscience

to the devil, and set yourself to please Runcorn by increasing the

circulation of your paper by whatever means. You would flourish,

undoubtedly. In a short time you would be chief editor, and your

pockets would burst with money. But what about your peace of mind? What

about happiness?'

'Why, I'm disposed to agree with Peak,' answered the journalist. 'If I

_could_ take that line, I should be a happier man than

conscientiousness will ever make me.'

Malkin swelled with indignation.

'You don't mean it! You are turning a grave argument into

jest!--Where's my hat? Where the devil is my hat? Send for me again

when you are disposed to talk seriously.'

He strode towards the door, but Earwaker arrested him with a shout.

'You're leaving your pipe!'

'So I am. Where is it?--Did I tell you where I bought this pipe?'

'No. What's the wood?'

On the instant Malkin fell into a cheerful vein of reminiscence. In

five minutes he was giving a rapturous description of tropical scenes,

laughing joyously as he addressed now one now the other of his

companions.

'I hear you have a mind to see those countries, Mr. Peak,' he said at

length. 'If you care for a travelling companion--rather short-tempered,

but you'll pardon that--pray give me the preference. I should enjoy

above all things to travel with a man of science.'

'It's very doubtful whether I shall ever get so far,' Godwin replied,

musingly.

And, as he spoke, he rose to take leave. Earwaker's protest that it was

not yet ten o'clock did not influence him.

'I want to reflect on the meaning of happiness,' he said, extending his

hand to Malkin; and, in spite of the smile, his face had a sombre cast.

The two who were left of course discussed him.

'You won't care much for Peak,' said Earwaker. 'He and I suit each

other, because there's a good deal of indifferentism in both of us.

Moral earnestness always goes against the grain with him; I've noticed

it frequently.'

'I'm sorry I spoke so dogmatically. It wasn't altogether good manners.

Suppose I write him a short letter, just expressing my regret for

having been led away'--

'Needless, needless,' laughed the journalist. 'He thinks all the better

of you for your zeal. But happiness is a sore point with him; few men,

I should think, have known less of it. I can't imagine any

circumstances which would make him thoroughly at peace with himself and

the world.'

'Poor fellow! You can see something of that in his face. Why doesn't he

get married?'

'A remarkable suggestion!--By the way, why don't _you_?'.

'My dear boy, there's nothing I wish more, but it's a business of such

fearful precariousness. I'm one of those men whom marriage will either

make or ruin. You know my characteristics; the slightest check upon my

independence, and all's up with me. The woman I marry must be perfectly

reasonable, perfectly good-tempered; she must have excellent education,

and every delicacy of breeding. Where am I to find this paragon?'

'Society is open to you.'

'True, but I am not open to society. I don't take kindly to the people

of my own class. No, I tell you what--my only chance of getting a

suitable wife is to train some very young girl for the purpose. Don't

misunderstand me, for heaven's sake! I mean that I must make a

friendship with some schoolgirl in whose education I can have a voice,

whose relatives will permit me to influence her mind and develop her

character. What do you think of this idea?'

'Not bad, but it demands patience.'

'And who more patient than I? But let us talk of that poor Mrs. Jacox

and her girls. You feel that you know them pretty well from my letters,

don't you? Nothing more monstrous can be imagined than the treatment to

which this poor woman has been subjected! I couldn't have believed that

such dishonesty and brutality were possible in English families of

decent position. Her husband deserted her, her brother robbed her, her

sister-in-law libelled her,--the whole story is nauseating!'

'You're quite sure that she tells you the truth?'

Malkin glared with sudden resentment.

'The truth? What! you also desire to calumniate her? For shame,

Earwaker! A poor widow toiling to support herself in a foreign country,

with two children dependent on her.'

'Yes, yes, yes; but you seem to know very little of her.'

'I know her perfectly, and all her circumstances!'

Mrs. Jacox was the mother of the two girls whom Malkin had escorted to

Rouen, after an hour or so of all but casual acquaintance. She and her

history had come in a very slight degree under the notice of certain

good-natured people with whom Malkin was on friendly terms, and hearing

that the children, Bella and Lily, aged fourteen and twelve

respectively, were about to undertake alone a journey to the Continent,

the erratic hero felt it incumbent upon him to see them safe at their

mother's side. Instead of returning forthwith, he lingered in Normandy

for several weeks, striking off at length, on the summons of a friend,

to Orleans, whence he was only to-day returned. Two or three letters

had kept Earwaker informed of his movements. Of Mrs. Jacox he wrote as

he now spoke, with compassionate respect, and the girls, according to

him, were exquisite models of budding maidenhood.

'You haven't told me,' said Earwaker, calmly fronting the indignant

outburst, 'what her circumstances are--at present.'

'She assists an English lady in the management of a boardinghouse,'

Malkin replied, with an air which forbade trivial comment. 'Bella and

Lily will of course continue their studies. I daresay I shall run over

now and then to see them.'

'May I, without offence, inquire if either of these young ladies seems

suitable for the ideal training of which you spoke?'

Malkin smiled thoughtfully. He stood with his legs apart and stroked

his blond beard.

'The surmise is not unnatural. Well, I confess that Bella has inspired

me with no little interest. She is rather mature, unfortunately; I wish

she had been Lily's age. We shall see; we shall see.'

Musing, he refilled his pipe, and gossip was prolonged till something

after one o'clock. Malkin was never known to retire willingly from an

evening's congenial talk until the small hours were in progress.

Peak, on reaching home about eleven, was surprised to see a light in

his sitting-room window. As he entered, his landlady informed him that

Mr. Moxey had been waiting upstairs for an hour or two. Christian was

reading. He laid down the book and rose languidly. His face was

flushed, and he spoke with a laugh which suggested that a fit of

despondency (as occasionally happened) had tempted him to excess in

cordials. Godwin understood these signs. He knew that his friend's

intellect was rather brightened than impaired by such stimulus, and he

affected not to be conscious of any peculiarity.

'As you wouldn't come to me,' Christian began, 'I had no choice but to

come to you. My visit isn't unwelcome, I hope?'

'Certainly not. But how are you going to get home? You know the time?'

'Don't trouble. I shan't go to bed to-night. Let me sit here and read,

will you? If I feel tired I can lie down on the sofa. What a delightful

book this is! I must get it.'

It was a history of the Italian Renaissance, recently published.

'Where does this phrase come from?' he continued, pointing to a scrap

of paper, used as a book-mark, on which Godwin had pencilled a note.

The words were: '_Foris ut moris, intus ut libet_.'

'It's mentioned there,' Peak replied, 'as the motto of those humanists

who outwardly conformed to the common faith.'

'I see. All very well when the Inquisition was flourishing, but sounds

ignoble nowadays.'

'Do you think so? In a half-civilised age, whether the sixteenth or the

nineteenth century, a wise man may do worse than adopt it.'

'Better be honest, surely?'

Peak stood for a moment as if in doubt, then exclaimed irritably:

'Honest? Honest? Who is or can be honest? Who truly declares himself?

When a man has learnt that truth is indeterminable, how is it more

moral to go about crying that you don't believe a certain dogma than to

concede that the dogma may possibly be true? This new morality of the

agnostics is mere paltry conceit. Why must I make solemn declaration

that I don't believe in absolute knowledge? I might as well be called

upon to inform all my acquaintances how I stand with regard to the

theories of chemical affinity. One's philosophy has nothing to do with

the business of life. If I chose to become a Church of England

clergyman, what moral objection could be made?'

This illustration was so amusing to Moxey, that his surprise at what

preceded gave way to laughter.

'I wonder,' he exclaimed, 'that you never seriously thought of a

profession for which you are so evidently cut out.'

Godwin kept silence; his face had darkened, and he seated himself with

sullen weariness.

'Tell me what you've been doing,' resumed Moxey. 'Why haven't I heard

from you?'

'I should have come in a day or two. I thought you were probably out of

town.'

'Her husband is ill,' said the other, by way of reply. He leaned

forward with his arms upon the table, and gazed at Godwin with eyes of

peculiar brightness.

'Ill, is he?' returned Godwin, with slow interest. 'In the same way as

before?'

'Yes, but much worse.'

Christian paused; and when he again spoke it was hurriedly, confusedly.

'How can I help getting excited about it? How can I behave decently?

You're the only man I ever speak to on the subject, and no doubt I both

weary and disgust you; but I _must_ speak to some one. My nerves are

strung beyond endurance; it's only by speaking that I can ease myself

from the intolerable strain.'

'Have you seen her lately?'

'Yesterday, for a moment, in the street. It's ten months since the last

meeting.'

'Well,' remarked Godwin, abruptly, 'it's probable the man will die one

of these days, then your trials will have a happy end. I see no harm in

hoping that his life may be short--that's a conventional feeling. If

two people can be benefited by the death of a single person, why

shouldn't we be glad in the prospect of his dying? Not of his

suffering--that's quite another thing. But die he must; and to curtail

the life of a being who at length wholly ceases to exist is no injury.

You can't injure a nonentity. Do you think I should take it ill if I

knew that some persons were wishing my death? Why, look, if ever I

crush a little green fly that crawls upon me in the fields, at once I

am filled with envy of its fate--sincerest envy. To have passed so

suddenly from being into nothingness--how blessed an extinction! To

feel in that way, instinctively, in the very depths of your soul, is to

be a true pessimist. If I had ever doubted my sincerity in pessimism,

this experience, several times repeated, would have reassured me.'

Christian covered his face, and brooded for a long time, whilst Godwin

sat with his eyes on vacancy.

'Come and see us to-morrow,' said the former, at length.

'Perhaps.';

'Why do you keep away?'

'I'm in no mood for society.'

'We'll have no one. Only Marcella and I.'

Again a long silence.

'Marcella is going in for comparative philology,' Christian resumed,

with the gentle tone in which he invariably spoke of his sister. 'What

a mind that girl has! I never knew any woman of half her powers.'

Godwin said nothing.

'No,' continued the other fervently, 'nor of half her goodness. I

sometimes think that no mortal could come nearer to our ideal of moral

justice and purity. If it were not for her, I should long ago have gone

to perdition, in one way or another. It's her strength, not my own,

that has saved me. I daresay you know this?'

'There's some truth in it, I believe,' Peak answered, his eye wandering.

'See how circumstances can affect one's judgment. If, just about the

time I first knew you, I had abandoned myself to a life of sottish

despair, of course I should have charged Constance with the blame of

it. Now that I have struggled on, I can see that she has been a

blessing to me instead of a curse. If Marcella has given me strength, I

have to thank Constance for the spiritual joy which otherwise I should

never have known.'

Peak uttered a short laugh.

'That is only saying that she _might_ have been ruinous, but in the

course of circumstances has proved helpful. I envy your power of

deriving comfort from such reflections.'

'Well, we view things differently. I have the habit of looking to the

consolatory facts of life, you to the depressing. There's an

unfortunate lack in you, Peak; you seem insensible to female influence,

and I believe that is closely connected with your desperate pessimism.'

Godwin laughed again, this time with mocking length of note. 'Come now,

isn't it true?' urged the other. 'Sincerely, do you care for women at

all?'

'Perhaps not.'

'A grave misfortune, depend upon it! It accounts for nearly everything

that is unsatisfactory in your life. If you had ever been sincerely

devoted to a woman, be assured your powers would have developed in a

way of which you have no conception. It's no answer to tell me that _I_

am still a mere trifler, never likely to do anything of account; I

haven't it in me to be anything better, and I might easily have become

much worse. But you might have made yourself a great position--I mean,

you _might_ do so; you are still very young. If only you knew the

desire of a woman's help.'

'You really think so?' said Godwin, with grave irony.

'I am sure of it! There's no harm in repeating what you have often told

me--your egoism oppresses you. A woman's influence takes one out of

oneself. No man can be a better authority on this than I. For more than

eleven years I have worshipped one woman with absolute faithfulness'----

'Absolute?' interrupted Godwin, bluntly.

'What exception occurs to you?'

'As you challenge inquiry, forgive me for asking what your interest was

in one of your cousins at Twybridge?'

Christian started, and averted his face with a look of embarrassment.

'Do you mean to say that you knew anything about that?'

'I was always an observer,' Peak replied, smiling. 'You don't remember,

perhaps, that I happened to be present when a letter had just arrived

for you at your uncle's house--a letter which evidently disturbed you?'

'This is astonishing! Peak, you're a terrible fellow! Heaven forbid

that I should ever be at your mercy! Yes, you are quite right,' he

continued, despondently. 'But that was no real unfaithfulness. I don't

quite know how to explain it. I _did_ make love to poor Janet, and with

the result that I have never since seen any of the family. My uncle,

when he found I had drawn back, was very savage--naturally enough.

Marcella and I never again went to Twybridge. I liked Janet; she was a

good, kind girl. I believed just then that my love for Constance was

hopeless; my mood impelled me to the conviction that the best thing I

could do was to marry Janet and settle down to a peaceful domestic

life. Then came that letter--it was from Constance herself. It meant

nothing, yet it was enough to revive all my hopes. I rushed off--! How

brutally I had behaved! Poor little Janet!'

He let his face fall upon his hands.

'Allow me an indiscreet question,' said Peak, after a silence. 'Have

you any founded hope of marrying Constance if she becomes a widow?'

Christian started and looked up with wide eyes.

'Hope? Every hope! I have the absolute assurance of her love.'

'I see.'

'But I mustn't mislead you,' pursued the other, hurriedly. 'Our

relations are absolutely pure. I have only allowed myself to see her at

very long intervals. Why shouldn't I tell you? It was less than a year

after her marriage; I found her alone in a room in a friend's house;

her eyes were red with weeping. I couldn't help holding my hand to her.

She took it, and held it for a moment, and looked at me steadily, and

whispered my name--that was all. I knew then that she repented of her

marriage--who can say what led her into it? I was poor, you know;

perhaps--but in spite of all, she _did_ love me. There has never since

been anything like a scene of emotion between us--_that_ her conscience

couldn't allow. She is a noble-minded woman, and has done her duty. But

if she is free'--

He quivered with passionate feeling.

'And you are content,' said Godwin, drily, 'to have wasted ten years of

your life for such a possibility?'

'Wasted!' Christian exclaimed. 'Come, come, Peak; why _will_ you affect

this wretched cynicism? Is it waste of years to have lived with the

highest and purest ideal perpetually before one's mind? What can a man

do better than, having found an admirable woman, to worship her

thenceforth, and defy every temptation that could lead him astray? I

don't like to seem boastful, but I _have_ lived purely and devotedly.

And if the test endured to the end of my life, I could sustain it. Is

the consciousness of my love nothing to Constance? Has it not helped

her?'

Such profound sincerity was astonishing to Peak. He did not admire it,

for it seemed to him, in this case at all events, the fatal weakness of

a character it was impossible not to love. Though he could not declare

his doubts, he thought it more than probable that this Laura of the

voiceless Petrarch was unworthy of such constancy, and that she had no

intention whatever of rewarding it, even if the opportunity arrived.

But this was the mere speculation of a pessimist; he might be

altogether wrong, for he had never denied the existence of high virtue,

in man or woman.

'There goes midnight!' he remarked, turning from the subject. 'You

can't sleep, neither can I. Why shouldn't we walk into town?'

'By all means; on condition that you will come home with me, and spend

to-morrow there.'

'Very well.'

They set forth, and with varied talk, often broken by long silences,

made their way through sleeping suburbs to the dark valley of Thames.

There passed another month, during which Peak was neither seen nor

heard of by his friends. One evening in October, as he sat studying at

the British Museum, a friendly voice claimed his attention. He rose

nervously and met the searching eye of Buckland Warricombe.

'I had it in mind to write to you,' said the latter. 'Since we parted

down yonder I have been running about a good deal, with few days in

town. Do you often read here?'

'Generally on Saturday afternoon.'

Buckland glanced at the open volume, and caught a heading, 'Apologetic

Theology.'

'Still at the works?'

'Yes; I shall be there till Christmas--no longer.'

'Are you by chance disengaged to-morrow? Could you dine with me? I

shall be alone; perhaps you don't mind that? We could exchange views on

"fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute".'

Godwin accepted the invitation, and Warricombe, unable to linger, took

leave of him.

They met the next evening in Buckland's rooms, not far from the Houses

of Parliament. Commonplace comfort was the note of these quarters. Peak

wondered that a man who had it in his power to surround himself with

evidences of taste should be content to dwell thus. His host seemed to

detect this thought in the glances Godwin cast about him.

'Nothing but a _pied-a-terre_. I have been here three or four years,

but I don't think of it as a home. I suppose I shall settle somewhere

before long: yet, on the whole, what does it matter where one lives?

There's something in the atmosphere of our time that makes one

indisposed to strike roots in the old way. Who knows how long there'll

be such a thing as real property? We are getting to think of ourselves

as lodgers; it's as well to be indifferent about a notice to quit.'

'Many people would still make a good fight for the old homes,' replied

Peak.

'Yes; I daresay I should myself, if I were a family man. A wife and

children are strong persuasions to conservatism. In those who have

anything, that's to say. Let the families who have nothing learn how

they stand in point of numbers, and we shall see what we shall see.'

'And you are doing your best to teach them that.'

Buckland smiled.

'A few other things at the same time. One isn't necessarily an

anarchist, you know.'

'What enormous faith you must have in the metaphysical powers of the

multitude!'

'Trenchant! But say, rather, in the universal self-interest. That's the

trait of human nature which we have in mind when we speak of

enlightenment. The aim of practical Radicalism is to instruct men's

selfishness. Astonishing how capable it is of being instructed! The

mistake of the Socialist lies in his crediting men with far too much

self-esteem, far too little perception of their own limits. The

characteristic of mankind at large is humility.'

Peak began to understand his old acquaintance; he had imagined him less

acute. Gratified by the smile of interest, Warricombe added:

'There are forces of madness; I have shown you that I make allowance

for them. But they are only dangerous so long as privilege allies

itself with hypocrisy. The task of the modern civiliser is to sweep

away sham idealisms.'

'I agree with you,' Godwin replied.

With sudden change of mood, Buckland began to speak of an indifferent

topic of the day, and in a few minutes they sat down to dinner.

Not till the welcome tobacco blended its aroma with that of coffee did

a frankly personal note sound in their conversation.

'So at Christmas you are free,' said Warricombe. 'You still think of

leaving London?'

'I have decided to go down into Devonshire.'

'The seaside?'

'I shall stay first of all in Exeter,' Godwin replied, with

deliberation; 'one can get hold of books there.'

'Yes, especially of the ecclesiastical colour.'

'You are still unable to regard my position with anything but

contempt?' Peak asked, looking steadily at the critical face.

'Come now; what does it all mean? Of course I quite understand how

tolerant the Church is becoming: I know what latitude it permits in its

servants. But what do you propose to yourself?'

'Precisely what you call the work of the civiliser--to attack sham

ideals.'

'As for instance--?'

'The authority of the mob,' answered Peak, suavely.

'Your clericalism is political, then?'

'To a great extent.'

'I discern a vague sort of consistency in this. You regard the Church

formulas as merely symbolical--useful for the purposes of the day?'

'Rather for the purposes of eternity.'

'In the human sense.'

'In every sense.'

Warricombe perceived that no directness of questioning would elicit

literal response, and on the whole this relieved him. To hear Godwin

Peak using the language of a fervent curate would have excited in him

something more than disgust. It did not seem impossible that a nature

like Peak's--intellectually arrogant, vehemently anti-popular--should

have been attracted by the traditions, the social prestige, of the

Anglican Church; nor at all unlikely that a mind so constituted should

justify a seeming acceptance of dogmas, which in the strict sense it

despised. But he was made uneasy by his ignorance of Peak's private

life during the years since their parting at College. He did not like

to think of the possible establishment of intimacy between this man of

low origin, uncertain career, boundless ambition, and the household of

Martin Warricombe. There could be no doubt that Peak had decided to go

to Exeter because of the social prospects recently opened to him. In

the vulgar phrase, he had probably 'taken stock' of Mr. Warricombe's

idiosyncrasy, and saw therein a valuable opportunity for a theological

student, who at the same time was a devotee of natural science. To be

sure, the people at Exeter could be put on their guard. On the other

hand, Peak had plainly avowed his desire to form social connections of

the useful kind; in his position such an aim was essential, a mere

matter of course.

Godwin's voice interrupted this train of thought.

'Let me ask you a plain question. You have twice been kind enough to

introduce me to your home as a friend of yours. Am I guilty of

presumption in hoping that your parents will continue to regard me as

an acquaintance? I trust there's no need to assure you that I know the

meaning of discretion.'

An appeal to Buckland's generosity seldom failed. Yes, it was true that

he had more than once encouraged the hope now frankly expressed.

Indulging a correspondent frankness, he might explain that Peak's

position was so distasteful to him that it disturbed the future with

many kinds of uncertainty. But this would be churlish. He must treat

his guest as a gentleman, so long as nothing compelled him to take the

less agreeable view.

'My dear Peak, let us have none of these formalities. My parents have

distinctly invited you to go and see them whenever you are in the

neighbourhood. I am quite sure they will help to make your stay in

Exeter a pleasant one.'

Therewith closed the hazardous dialogue. Warricombe turned at once to a

safe topic--that of contemporary fiction, and they chatted pleasantly

enough for the rest of the evening.

Not many days after this, Godwin received by post an envelope which

contained certain proof sheets, and therewith a note in which the

editor of _The Critical Review_ signified his acceptance of a paper

entitled 'The New Sophistry'. The communication was originally

addressed to Earwaker, who had scribbled at the foot, 'Correct, if you

are alive, and send back to Dolby.'

The next morning he did not set out as usual for Rotherhithe. Through

the night he had not closed his eyes; he was in a state of nervousness

which bordered on fever. A dozen times he had read over the proofs,

with throbbing pulse, with exultant self-admiration: but the printer's

errors which had caught his eye, and a few faults of phrase, were still

uncorrected. What a capital piece of writing it was! What a

flagellation of M'Naughten and all his tribe! If this did not rouse

echoes in the literary world--

Through the long day he sat in languor or paced his room like one made

restless by pain. Only when the gloom of nightfall obliged him to light

his lamp did he at length sit down to the table and carefully revise

the proofs, pen in hand. When he had made up the packet for post, he

wrote to Earwaker.

'I had forgotten all about this thing. Proofs have gone to Dolby. I

have not signed; probably he would object to my doing so. As it is, the

paper can be ascribed to anyone, and attention thus excited. We shall

see paragraphs attributing it to men of mark--perhaps scandal will fix

it on a bishop. In any case, don't let out the secret. I beg this

seriously, and for a solid reason. Not a word to anyone, however

intimate. If Dolby betrays _your_ name, grin and bear it. I depend upon

your friendship.'

CHAPTER II

In a by-way which declines from the main thoroughfare of Exeter, and

bears the name of Longbrook Street, is a row of small houses placed

above long strips of sloping garden. They are old and plain, with no

architectural feature calling for mention, unless it be the latticed

porch which gives the doors an awkward quaintness. Just beyond, the

road crosses a hollow, and begins the ascent of a hill here interposed

between the city and the inland-winding valley of Exe. The little

terrace may be regarded as urban or rural, according to the tastes and

occasions of those who dwell there. In one direction, a walk of five

minutes will conduct to the middle of High Street, and in the other it

takes scarcely longer to reach the open country.

On the upper floor of one of these cottages, Godwin Peak had made his

abode. Sitting-room and bedchamber, furnished with homely comfort,

answered to his bachelor needs, and would allow of his receiving

without embarrassment any visitor whom fortune might send him. Of

quietness he was assured, for a widow and her son, alike remarkable for

sobriety of demeanour, were the only persons who shared the house with

him. Mrs. Roots could not compare in grace and skill with the little

Frenchwoman who had sweetened his existence at Peckham Rye, but her

zeal made amends for natural deficiency, and the timorous respect with

which she waited upon him was by no means disagreeable to Godwin. Her

reply to a request or suggestion was always, 'If you please, sir.'

Throughout the day she went so tranquilly about her domestic duties,

that Godwin seldom heard anything except the voice of the cuckoo-clock,

a pleasant sound to him. Her son, employed at a nurseryman's, was a

great sinewy fellow with a face of such ruddiness that it seemed to

diffuse warmth; on Sunday afternoon, whatever the state of the sky, he

sat behind the house in his shirt-sleeves, and smoked a pipe as he

contemplated the hart's-tongue which grew there upon a rockery.

'The gentleman from London'--so Mrs. Roots was wont to style her lodger

in speaking with neighbours--had brought his books with him; they found

place on a few shelves. His microscope had its stand by the window, and

one or two other scientific implements lay about the room. The cabinets

bequeathed to him by Mr. Gunnery he had sent to Twybridge, to remain in

his mother's care. In taking the lodgings, he described himself merely

as a student, and gave his landlady to understand that he hoped to

remain under her roof for at least a year. Of his extreme

respectability, the widow could entertain no doubt, for he dressed with

aristocratic finish, attended services at the Cathedral and elsewhere

very frequently, and made the most punctual payments. Moreover, a

casual remark had informed her that he was on friendly terms with Mr.

Martin Warricombe, whom her son knew as a gentleman of distinction. He

often sat up very late at night, but, doubtless, that was the practice

of Londoners. No lodger could have given less trouble, or have

acknowledged with more courtesy all that was done for his convenience.

No one ever called upon Mr. Peak, but he was often from home for many

hours together, probably on visits to great people in city or country.

It seemed rather strange, however, that the postman so seldom brought

anything for him. Though he had now been more than two months in the

house, he had received only three letters, and those at long intervals.

Noticeable was the improvement in his health since his arrival here.

The pallor of his cheeks was giving place to a wholesome tinge; his eye

was brighter; he showed more disposition to converse, and was readier

with pleasant smiles. Mrs. Roots even heard him singing in his

bedroom--though, oddly enough, it was a secular song on Sunday morning.

The weekly bills for food, which at first had been very modest, grew

richer in items. Godwin had, in fact, never felt so well. He extended

his walks in every direction, sometimes rambling up the valley to

sleepy little towns where he could rest in the parlours of old inns,

sometimes striking across country to this or that point of the

sea-coast, or making his way to the nearer summits of Dartmoor, noble

in their wintry desolation. He marked with delight every promise of

returning spring. When he could only grant himself a walk of an hour or

two in the sunny afternoon, there was many a deep lane within easy

reach, where the gorse gleamed in masses of gold, and the little

oak-trees in the hedges were ruddy with last year's clinging leafage,

and catkins hung from the hazels, and the fresh green of sprouting ivy

crept over bank and wall. Had he now been in London, the morning would

have awakened him to the glow of sunrise, he felt the sweet air

breathing health into fog and slush and misery. As it was, when he

looked out upon his frame and vigour into his mind. There were moments

when he could all but say of himself that he was at peace with the

world.

As on a morning towards the end of March, when a wind from the Atlantic

swept spaces of brightest blue amid the speeding clouds, and sang

joyously as it rushed over hill and dale. It was the very day for an

upland walk, for a putting forth of one's strength in conflict with

boisterous gusts and sudden showers, that give a taste of earth's

nourishment. But Godwin had something else in view. After breakfast, he

sat down to finish a piece of work which had occupied him for two or

three days, a translation from a German periodical. His mind wrought

easily, and he often hummed an air as his pen moved over the paper.

When the task was completed, he rolled his papers and the pamphlet

together, put them into the pocket of his overcoat, and presently went

forth.

Twenty minutes' walk brought him to the Warricombes' house. It was his

second call within the present week, but such assiduity had not

hitherto been his wont. Though already summoned twice or thrice by

express invitation, he was sparing of voluntary visits. Having asked

for Mr. Warricombe, he was forthwith conducted to the study. In the

welcome which greeted his appearance, he could detect no suspicion of

simulated warmth, though his ear had unsurpassable discrimination.

'Have you looked through it?' Martin exclaimed, as he saw the foreign

periodical in his visitor's hand.

'I have written a rough translation'----

'Oh, how could you think of taking such trouble! These things are sent

to me by the dozen--I might say, by the cartload. My curiosity would

have been amply satisfied if you had just told me the drift of the

thing.'

'It seemed to me,' said Peak, modestly, 'that the paper was worth a

little careful thought. I read it rapidly at first, but found myself

drawn to it again. It states the point of view of the average

scientific mind with such remarkable clearness, that I wished to think

it over, and the best way was to do so pen in hand.'

'Well, if you really did it on your own account'----

Mr. Warricombe took the offered sheets and glanced at the first of them.

'My only purpose,' said Godwin 'in calling again so soon was to leave

this with you.'

He made as though he would take his departure.

'You want to get home again? Wait at least till this shower is over. I

enjoy that pelting of spring rain against the window. In a minute or

two we shall have the laurels flashing in the sunshine, as if they were

hung with diamonds.'

They stood together looking out on to the garden. Presently their talk

returned to the German disquisition, which was directed against the

class of quasi-scientific authors attacked by Peak himself in his

_Critical_ article. In the end Godwin sat down and began to read the

translation he had made, Mr. Warricombe listening with a thoughtful

smile. From time to time the reader paused and offered a comment,

endeavouring to show that the arguments were merely plausible; his air

was that of placid security, and he seemed to enjoy the irony which

often fell from his lips. Martin frequently scrutinised him, and always

with a look of interest which betokened grave reflection.

'Here,' said Godwin at one point, 'he has a note citing a passage from

Reusch's book on _The Bible and Nature_. If I am not mistaken, he

misrepresents his author, though perhaps not intentionally.'

'You know the book?'

'I have studied it carefully, but I don't possess it. I thought I

remembered this particular passage very well.'

'Is it a work of authority?'

'Yes; it is very important. Unfortunately, it hasn't yet been

translated. Rather bulky, but I shouldn't mind doing it myself if I

were sure of finding a publisher.'