'_The Bible and Nature_,' said Martin, musingly. 'What is his scheme?

How does he go to work?'

Godwin gave a brief but lucid description of the book, and Mr

Warricombe listened gravely. When there had been silence for some

moments, the latter spoke in a tone he had never yet used when

conversing with Peak. He allowed himself, for the first time, to betray

a troubled doubt on the subject under discussion.

'So he makes a stand at Darwinism as it affects man?'

Peak had yet no means of knowing at what point Martin himself 'made a

stand'. Modes of reconcilement between scientific discovery and

religious tradition are so very numerous, and the geologist was only

now beginning to touch upon these topics with his young acquaintance.

That his mind was not perfectly at ease amid the conflicts of the day,

Godwin soon perceived, and by this time he had clear assurance that

Martin would willingly thrash out the whole debate with anyone who

seemed capable of supporting orthodox tenets by reasoning not

unacceptable to a man of broad views. The negativist of course assumed

from the first that Martin, however respectable his knowledge, was far

from possessing the scientific mind, and each conversation had supplied

him with proofs of this defect; it was not at all in the modern spirit

that the man of threescore years pursued his geological and kindred

researches, but with the calm curiosity of a liberal intellect which

has somehow taken this direction instead of devoting itself to literary

study. At bottom, Godwin had no little sympathy with Mr. Warricombe; he

too, in spite of his militant instincts, dwelt by preference amid

purely human interests. He grasped with firm intelligence the modes of

thought which distinguish scientific men, but his nature did not prompt

him to a consistent application of them. Personal liking enabled him to

subdue the impulses of disrespect which, under other circumstances,

would have made it difficult for him to act with perfection his present

part. None the less, his task was one of infinite delicacy. Martin

Warricombe was not the man to unbosom himself on trivial instigation.

It must be a powerful influence which would persuade him to reveal

whatever self-questionings lay beneath his genial good breeding and

long-established acquiescence in a practical philosophy. Godwin guarded

himself against his eager emotions; one false note, one syllable of

indiscretion, and his aims might be hopelessly defeated.

'Yes,' was his reply to the hesitating question. 'He argues strenuously

against the descent of man. If I understand him, he regards the

concession of this point as impossible.'

Martin was deep in thought. He held a paper-knife bent upon his knee,

and his smooth, delicate features wore an unquiet smile.

'Do you know Hebrew, Mr. Peak?'

The question came unexpectedly, and Godwin could not help a momentary

confusion, but he covered it with the tone of self-reproach.

'I am ashamed to say that I am only now taking it up seriously.'

'I don't think you need be ashamed,' said Martin, good-naturedly. 'Even

a mind as active as yours must postpone some studies. Reusch, I

suppose, is sound on that head?'

The inquiry struck Godwin as significant. So Mr. Warricombe attached

importance to the verbal interpretation of the Old Testament.

'Distinctly an authority,' he replied. 'He devotes whole chapters to a

minute examination of the text.'

'If you had more leisure,' Martin began, deliberately, when he had

again reflected, 'I should be disposed to urge you to undertake that

translation.'

Peak appeared to meditate.

'Has the book been used by English writers?' the other inquired.

'A good deal.--It was published in the sixties, but I read it in a new

edition dated a few years ago. Reusch has kept pace with the men of

science. It would be very interesting to compare the first form of the

book with the latest.'

'It would, very.'

Raising his head from the contemplative posture, Godwin exclaimed, with

a laugh of zeal:

'I think I must find time to translate him. At all events, I might

address a proposal to some likely publisher. Yet I don't know how I

should assure him of my competency.'

'Probably a specimen would be the surest testimony.'

'Yes. I might do a few chapters.'

Mr. Warricombe's lapse into silence and brevities intimated to Godwin

that it was time to take leave. He always quitted this room with

reluctance. Its air of luxurious culture affected his senses

deliciously, and he hoped that he might some day be permitted to linger

among the cabinets and the library shelves. There were so many books he

would have liked to take down, some with titles familiar to him, others

which kindled his curiosity when he chanced to observe them. The

library abounded in such works as only a wealthy man can purchase, and

Godwin, who had examined some of them at the British Museum, was filled

with the humaner kind of envy on seeing them in Mr. Warricombe's

possession. Those publications of the Palaeontological Society, one

volume of which (a part of Davidson's superb work on the _Brachiopoda_)

even now lay open within sight--his hand trembled with a desire to

touch them! And those maps of the Geological Surveys, British and

foreign, how he would have enjoyed a day's poring over them!

He rose, but Martin seemed in no haste to bring the conversation to an

end.

'Have you read M'Naughten's much-discussed book?'

'Yes.'

'Did you see the savage attack in _The Critical_ not long ago?'

Godwin smiled, and made quiet answer:

'I should think it was the last word of scientific bitterness and

intolerance.'

'Scientific?' repeated Martin, doubtfully. 'I don't think the writer

was a man of science. I saw it somewhere attributed to Huxley, but that

was preposterous. To begin with, Huxley would have signed his name;

and, again, his English is better. The article seemed to me to be

stamped with literary rancour; it was written by some man who envies

M'Naughten's success.'

Peak kept silence. Martin's censure of the anonymous author's style

stung him to the quick, and he had much ado to command his countenance.

'Still,' pursued the other, 'I felt that much of his satire was only

too well pointed. M'Naughten is suggestive; but one comes across books

of the same purpose which can have no result but to injure their cause

with all thinking people.'

'I have seen many such,' remarked Godwin.

Mr. Warricombe stepped to a bookcase and took down a small volume.

'I wonder whether you know this book of Ampère's, _La Grace, Rome, et

Dante_? Delightful for odd moments!--There came into my mind a passage

here at the beginning, apropos of what we were saying: "_Il faut

souvent un vrai courage pour persister dans une opinion juste en depit

de ses defenseurs_."--Isn't that capital?'

Peak received it with genuine appreciation; for once he was able to

laugh unfeignedly. The aphorism had so many applications from his own

point of view.

'Excellent!--I don't remember to have seen the book.'

'Take it, if you care to.'

This offer seemed a distinct advance in Mr. Warricombe's friendliness.

Godwin felt a thrill of encouragement.

'Then you will let me keep this translation for a day or two?' Martin

added, indicating the sheets of manuscript. 'I am greatly obliged to

you for enabling me to read the thing.'

They shook hands. Godwin had entertained a slight hope that he might be

asked to stay to luncheon; but it could not be much past twelve

o'clock, and on the whole there was every reason for feeling satisfied

with the results of his visit. Before long he would probably receive

another invitation to dine. So with light step he went out into the

hall, where Martin again shook hands with him.

The sky had darkened over, and a shrilling of the wind sounded through

the garden foliage--fir, and cypress, and laurel. Just as Godwin

reached the gate, he was met by Miss Warricombe and Fanny, who were

returning from a walk. They wore the costume appropriate to March

weather in the country, close-fitting, defiant of gusts; and their

cheeks glowed with health. As he exchanged greetings with them, Peak

received a new impression of the sisters. He admired the physical

vigour which enabled them to take delight in such a day as this, when

girls of poorer blood and ignoble nurture would shrink from the sky's

showery tumult, and protect their surface elegance by the fireside.

Impossible for Sidwell and Fanny to be anything but graceful, for at

all times they were perfectly unaffected.

'There'll be another storm in a minute,' said the younger of them,

looking with interest to the quarter whence the wind came. 'How

suddenly they burst! What a rush! And then in five minutes the sky is

clear again.'

Her eyes shone as she turned laughingly to Peak.

'You're not afraid of getting wet? Hadn't you better come under cover?'

'Here it is!' exclaimed Sidwell, with quieter enjoyment. 'Take shelter

for a minute or two, Mr. Peak.'

They led the way to the portico, where Godwin stood with them and

watched the squall. A moment's downpour of furious rain was followed by

heavy hailstones, which drove horizontally before the shrieking wind.

The prospect had wrapped itself in grey gloom. At a hundred yards'

distance, scarcely an object could be distinguished; the storm-cloud

swooped so low that its skirts touched the branches of tall elms, a

streaming, rushing raggedness.

'Don't you enjoy that?' Fanny asked of Godwin.

'Indeed I do.'

'You should be on Dartmoor in such weather,' said Sidwell. 'Father and

I were once caught in storms far worse than this--far better, I ought

to say, for I never knew anything so terrifically grand.'

Already it was over. The gusts diminished in frequency and force, the

hail ceased, the core of blackness was passing over to the eastern sky.

Fanny ran out into the garden, and pointed upward.

'Look where the sunlight is coming!'

An uncloaked patch of heaven shone with colour like that of the girl's

eyes--faint, limpid blue. Reminding himself that to tarry longer in

this company would be imprudent, Godwin bade the sisters good-morning.

The frank heartiness with which Fanny pressed his hand sent him on his

way exultant. Not too strong a word; for, independently of his wider

ambitions, he was moved and gratified by the thought that kindly

feeling towards him had sprung up in such a heart as this. Nor did

conscience so much as whisper a reproach. With unreflecting

ingenuousness he tasted the joy as if it were his right. Thus long he

had waited, through years of hungry manhood, for the look, the tone,

which were in harmony with his native sensibilities. Fanny Warricombe

was but an undeveloped girl, yet he valued her friendship above the

passionate attachment of any woman bred on a lower social plane. Had it

been possible, he would have kissed her fingers with purest reverence.

When out of sight of the house, he paused to regard the sky again. Its

noontide splendour was dazzling; masses of rosy cloud sailed swiftly

from horizon to horizon, the azure deepening about them. Yet before

long the west would again send forth its turbulent spirits, and so the

girls might perhaps be led to think of him.

By night the weather grew more tranquil. There was a full moon, and its

radiance illumined the ever-changing face of heaven with rare grandeur.

Godwin could not shut himself up over his books; he wandered far away

into the country, and let his thoughts have freedom.

He was learning to review with calmness the course by which he had

reached his now steadfast resolve. A revulsion such as he had

experienced after his first day of simulated orthodoxy, half a year

ago, could not be of lasting effect, for it was opposed to the whole

tenor of his mature thought. It spoilt his holiday, but had no chance

of persisting after his return to the atmosphere of Rotherhithe. That

he should have been capable of such emotion was, he said to himself, in

the just order of things; callousness in the first stages of an

undertaking which demanded gross hypocrisy would signify an ignoble

nature--a nature, indeed, which could never have been submitted to

trial of so strange a kind. But he had overcome himself; that phase of

difficulty was outlived, and henceforth he saw only the material

obstacles to be defied by his vindicated will.

What he proposed to himself was a life of deliberate baseness. Godwin

Peak never tried to play the sophist with this fact. But he succeeded

in justifying himself by a consideration of the circumstances which had

compelled him to a vile expedient. Had his project involved conscious

wrong to other persons, he would scarcely even have speculated on its

possibilities. He was convinced that no mortal could suffer harm, even

if he accomplished the uttermost of his desires. Whom was he in danger

of wronging? The conventional moralist would cry: Everyone with whom he

came in slightest contact! But a mind such as Peak's has very little to

do with conventional morality. Injury to himself he foresaw and

accepted; he could never be the man nature designed in him; and he must

frequently submit to a self-contempt which would be very hard to bear.

Those whom he consistently deceived, how would they suffer? Martin

Warricombe to begin with. Martin was a man who had lived his life, and

whose chief care would now be to keep his mind at rest in the faiths

which had served him from youth onwards. In that very purpose, Godwin

believed he could assist him. To see a young man, of strong and trained

intellect, championing the old beliefs, must doubtless be a source of

reassurance to one in Martin's position. Reassurance derived from a

lie?--And what matter, if the outcome were genuine, if it lasted until

the man himself was no more? Did not every form of content result from

illusion? What was truth without the mind of the believer?

Society, then--at all events that part of it likely to be affected by

his activity? Suppose him an ordained priest, performing all the

functions implied in that office. Why, to think only of examples

recognised by the public at large, how would he differ for the worse

from this, that, and the other clergyman who taught Christianity, all

but with blunt avowal, as a scheme of human ethics? No wolf in sheep's

clothing he! He plotted against no man's pocket, no woman's honour; he

had no sinister design of sapping the faith of congregations--a scheme,

by-the-bye, which fanatic liberators might undertake with vast

self-approval. If by a word he could have banished religious dogma from

the minds of the multitude, he would not have cared to utter it.

Wherein lay, indeed, a scruple to be surmounted. The Christian priest

must be a man of humble temper; he must be willing, even eager, to sit

down among the poor in spirit as well as in estate, and impart to them

his unworldly solaces. Yes, but it had always been recognised that some

men who could do the Church good service were personally unfitted for

those meek ministrations. His place was in the hierarchy of intellect;

if he were to be active at all, it must be with the brain. In his

conversation with Buckland Warricombe, last October, he had spoken not

altogether insincerely. Let him once be a member of the Church

militant, and his heart would go with many a stroke against that

democratic movement which desired, among other things, the Church's

abolition. He had power of utterance. Roused to combat by the

proletarian challenge, he could make his voice ring in the ears of men,

even though he used a symbolism which he would not by choice have

adopted.

For it was natural that he should anticipate distinction. Whatever his

lot in life, he would not be able to rest among an inglorious

brotherhood. If he allied himself with the Church, the Church must

assign him leadership, whether titular or not was of small moment. In

days to come, let people, if they would, debate his history, canvass

his convictions. His scornful pride invited any degree of publicity,

when once his position was secure.

But in the meantime he was leaving aside the most powerful of all his

motives, and one which demanded closest scrutiny. Not ambition, in any

ordinary sense; not desire of material luxury; no incentive recognised

by unprincipled schemers first suggested his dishonour. This edifice of

subtle untruth had for its foundation a mere ideal of sexual love. For

the winning of some chosen woman, men have wrought vehemently, have

ruined themselves and others, have achieved triumphs noble or

degrading. But Godwin Peak had for years contemplated the possibility

of baseness at the impulse of a craving for love capable only of a

social (one might say, of a political) definition. The woman throned in

his imagination was no individual, but the type of an order. So

strangely had circumstances moulded him, that he could not brood on a

desire of spiritual affinities, could not, as is natural to most

cultivated men, inflame himself with the ardour of soul reaching to

soul; he was pre-occupied with the contemplation of qualities which

characterise a class. The sense of social distinctions was so burnt

into him, that he could not be affected by any pictured charm of mind

or person in a woman who had not the stamp of gentle birth and

breeding. If once he were admitted to the intimacy of such women, then,

indeed, the canons of selection would have weight with him; no man more

capable of disinterested choice. Till then, the ideal which possessed

him was merely such an assemblage of qualities as would excite the

democrat to disdain or fury.

In Sidwell Warricombe this ideal found an embodiment; but Godwin did

not thereupon come to the conclusion that Sidwell was the wife he

desired. Her influence had the effect of deciding his career, but he

neither imagined himself in love with her, nor tried to believe that he

might win her love if he set himself to the endeavour. For the first

time he was admitted to familiar intercourse with a woman whom he

_could_ make the object of his worship. He thought much of her; day and

night her figure stood before him; and this had continued now for half

a year. Still he neither was, nor dreamt himself, in love with her.

Before long his acquaintance would include many of her like, and at any

moment Sidwell might pale in the splendour of another's loveliness.

But what reasoning could defend the winning of a wife by false

pretences? This, his final aim, could hardly be achieved without grave

wrong to the person whose welfare must in the nature of things be a

prime motive with him. The deception he had practised must sooner or

later be discovered; lifelong hypocrisy was incompatible with perfect

marriage; some day he must either involve his wife in a system of

dishonour, or with her consent relinquish the false career, and find

his happiness in the obscurity to which he would then be relegated.

Admit the wrong. Grant that some woman whom he loved supremely must, on

his account, pass through a harsh trial--would it not be in his power

to compensate her amply? The wife whom he imagined (his idealism in

this matter was of a crudity which made the strangest contrast with his

habits of thought on every other subject) would be ruled by her

emotions, and that part of her nature would be wholly under his

governance. Religious fanaticism could not exist in her, for in that

case she would never have attracted him. Little by little she would

learn to think as he did, and her devotedness must lead her to pardon

his deliberate insincerities. Godwin had absolute faith in his power of

dominating the woman whom he should inspire with tenderness. This was a

feature of his egoism, the explanation of those manifold

inconsistencies inseparable from his tortuous design. He regarded his

love as something so rare, so vehement, so exalting, that its bestowal

must seem an abundant recompense for any pain of which he was the cause.

Thus, with perfect sincerity of argument, did Godwin Peak face the

undertaking to which he was committed. Incidents might perturb him, but

his position was no longer a cause of uneasiness--save, indeed, at

those moments when he feared lest any of his old acquaintances might

hear of him before time was ripe. This was a source of anxiety, but

inevitable; one of the risks he dared.

Had it seemed possible, he would have kept even from his mother the

secret of his residence at Exeter; but this would have necessitated the

establishment of some indirect means of communication with her, a

troublesome and uncertain expedient. He shrank from leaving her in

ignorance of his whereabouts, and from passing a year or two without

knowledge of her condition. And, on the whole, there could not be much

danger in this correspondence. The Moxeys, who alone of his friends had

ever been connected with Twybridge, were now absolutely without

interests in that quarter. From them he had stolen away, only

acquainting Christian at the last moment, in a short letter, with his

departure from London. 'It will be a long time before we again see each

other--at least, I think so. Don't trouble your head about me. I can't

promise to write, and shall be sorry not to hear how things go with

you; but may all happen as you wish!' In the same way he had dealt with

Earwaker, except that his letter to Staple Inn was much longer, and

contained hints which the philosophic journalist might perchance truly

interpret. '"He either fears his fate too much"--you know the old song.

I have set out on my life's adventure. I have gone to seek that without

which life is no longer worth having. Forgive my shabby treatment of

you, old friend. You cannot help me, and your displeasure would be a

hindrance in my path. A last piece of counsel: throw overboard the

weekly rag, and write for people capable of understanding you.'

Earwaker was not at all likely to institute a search; he would accept

the situation, and wait with quiet curiosity for its upshot. No doubt

he and Moxey would discuss the affair together, and any desire

Christian might have to hunt for his vanished comrade would yield

before the journalist's surmises. No one else had any serious reason

for making inquiries. Probably he might dwell in Devonshire, as long as

he chose, without fear of encountering anyone from his old world.

Occasionally--as to-night, under the full moon--he was able to cast off

every form of trouble, and rejoice in his seeming liberty. Though every

step in the life before him was an uncertainty, an appeal to fortune,

his faith in himself grasped strongly at assurance of success. Once

more he felt himself a young man, with unwearied energies; he had

shaken off the burden of those ten frustrate years, and kept only their

harvest of experience. Old in one sense, in another youthful, he had

vast advantages over such men as would henceforth be his

competitors--the complex brain, the fiery heart, passion to desire, and

skill in attempting. If with such endowment he could not win the prize

which most men claim as a mere matter of course, a wife of social

instincts correspondent with his own, he must indeed be luckless. But

he was not doomed to defeat! Foretaste of triumph urged the current of

his blood and inflamed him with exquisite ardour. He sang aloud in the

still lanes the hymns of youth and of love; and, when weariness brought

him back to his lonely dwelling, he laid his head on the pillow, and

slept in dreamless calm.

As for the details of his advance towards the clerical state, he had

decided to resume his career at the point where it was interrupted by

Andrew Peak. Twice had his education received a check from hostile

circumstances: when domestic poverty compelled him to leave school for

Mr. Moxey's service, and when shame drove him from Whitelaw College. In

reflecting upon his own character and his lot he gave much weight to

these irregularities, no doubt with justice. In both cases he was

turned aside from the way of natural development and opportunity. He

would now complete his academic course by taking the London degree at

which he had long ago aimed; the preliminary examination might without

difficulty be passed this summer, and next year he might write himself

Bachelor of Arts. A return to the studies of boyhood probably accounted

in some measure for the frequent gaiety which he attributed to

improving health and revived hopes. Everything he undertook was easy to

him, and by a pleasant self-deception he made the passing of a school

task his augury of success in greater things.

During the spring he was indebted to the Warricombes' friendship for

several new acquaintances. A clergyman named Lilywhite, often at the

Warricombes' house, made friendly overtures to him; the connection

might be a useful one, and Godwin made the most of it. Mr. Lilywhite

was a man of forty well--read, of scientific tastes, an active

pedestrian. Peak had no difficulty in associating with him on amicable

terms. With Mrs. Lilywhite, the mother of six children and possessed of

many virtues, he presently became a favourite,--she saw in him 'a great

deal of quiet moral force'. One or two families of good standing made

him welcome at their houses; society is very kind to those who seek its

benefits with recognised credentials. The more he saw of these wealthy

and tranquil middle-class people, the more fervently did he admire the

gracefulness of their existence. He had not set before himself an

imaginary ideal; the girls and women were sweet, gentle, perfect in

manner, and, within limits, of bright intelligence. He was conscious of

benefiting greatly, and not alone in things extrinsic, by the

atmosphere of such homes.

Nature's progress towards summer kept him in a mood of healthful

enjoyment. From the window of his sitting-room he looked over the

opposite houses to Northernhay, the hill where once stood Rougemont

Castle, its wooded declivities now fashioned into a public garden. He

watched the rooks at their building in the great elms, and was

gladdened when the naked branches began to deck themselves, day by day

the fresh verdure swelling into soft, graceful outline. In his walks he

pried eagerly for the first violet, welcomed the earliest blackthorn

blossom; every common flower of field and hedgerow gave him a new, keen

pleasure. As was to be expected he found the same impulses strong in

Sidwell Warricombe and her sister. Sidwell could tell him of secret

spots where the wood-sorrel made haste to flower, or where the white

violet breathed its fragrance in security from common pilferers. Here

was the safest and pleasantest matter for conversation. He knew that on

such topics he could talk agreeably enough, revealing without stress or

importunity his tastes, his powers, his attainments. And it seemed to

him that Sidwell listened with growing interest. Most certainly her

father encouraged his visits to the house, and Mrs. Warricombe behaved

to him with increase of suavity.

In the meantime he had purchased a copy of Reusch's _Bibel und Natur_,

and had made a translation of some fifty pages. This experiment he

submitted to a London publishing house, with proposals for the

completion of the work; without much delay there came a civil letter of

excuse, and with it the sample returned. Another attempt again met with

rejection. This failure did not trouble him. What he really desired was

to read through his version of Reusch with Martin Warricombe, and

before long he had brought it to pass that Martin requested a perusal

of the manuscript as it advanced, which it did but slowly. Godwin durst

not endanger his success in the examination by encroaching upon hours

of necessary study; his leisure was largely sacrificed to _Bibel und

Natur_, and many an evening of calm golden loveliness, when he longed

to be amid the fields, passed in vexatious imprisonment. The name of

Reusch grew odious to him, and he revenged himself for the hypocrisy of

other hours by fierce scorn, cast audibly at this laborious exegetist.

CHAPTER III

It occasionally happens that a woman whose early life has been directed

by native silliness and social bias, will submit to a tardy education

at the hands of her own children. Thus was it with Mrs Warricombe.

She came of a race long established in squirearchic dignity amid heaths

and woodlands. Her breeding was pure through many generations of the

paternal and maternal lines, representative of a physical type,

fortified in the males by much companionship with horse and hound, and

by the corresponding country pursuits of dowered daughters. At the time

of her marriage she had no charms of person more remarkable than rosy

comeliness and the symmetry of supple limb. As for the nurture of her

mind, it had been intrusted to home-governesses of respectable

incapacity. Martin Warricombe married her because she was one of a

little circle of girls, much alike as to birth and fortune, with whom

he had grown up in familiar communication. Timidity imposed restraints

upon him which made his choice almost a matter of accident. As befalls

often enough, the betrothal became an accomplished fact whilst he was

still doubting whether he desired it or not. When the fervour of early

wedlock was outlived, he had no difficulty in accepting as a matter of

course that his life's companion should be hopelessly illogical and at

heart indifferent to everything but the small graces and substantial

comforts of provincial existence. One of the advantages of wealth is

that it allows husband and wife to keep a great deal apart without any

show of mutual unkindness, a condition essential to happiness in

marriage. Time fostered in them a calm attachment, independent of

spiritual sympathy, satisfied with a common regard for domestic honour.

Not that Mrs. Warricombe remained in complete ignorance of her

husband's pursuits; social forms would scarcely have allowed this,

seeing that she was in constant intercourse, as hostess or guest, with

Martin's scientific friends. Of fossils she necessarily knew something.

Up to a certain point they amused her; she could talk of ammonites, of

brachiopods, and would point a friend's attention to the _Calceola

sandalina_ which Martin prized so much. The significance of

palaeontology she dimly apprehended, for in the early days of their

union her husband had felt it desirable to explain to her what was

meant by geologic time and how he reconciled his views on that subject

with the demands of religious faith. Among the books which he induced

her to read were Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise and the works of Hugh

Miller. The intellectual result was chaotic, and Mrs. Warricombe

settled at last into a comfortable private opinion, that though the

record of geology might be trustworthy that of the Bible was more so.

She would admit that there was no impiety in accepting the evidence of

nature, but held to a secret conviction that it was safer to believe in

Genesis. For anything beyond a quasi-permissible variance from biblical

authority as to the age of the world she was quite unprepared, and

Martin, in his discretion, imparted to her nothing of the graver doubts

which were wont to trouble him.

But as her children grew up, Mrs. Warricombe's mind and temper were

insensibly modified by influences which operated through her maternal

affections, influences no doubt aided by the progressive spirit of the

time. The three boys--Buckland, Maurice, and Louis--were distinctly of

a new generation. It needed some ingenuity to discover their points of

kindred with paternal and maternal grandparents; nor even with father

and mother had they much in common which observation could readily

detect. Sidwell, up to at least her fifteenth year, seemed to present

far less change of type. In her Mrs. Warricombe recognised a daughter,

and not without solace. But Fanny again was a problematical nature,

almost from the cradle. Latest born, she appeared to revive many

characteristics of the youthful Buckland, so far as a girl could

resemble her brother. It was a strange brood to cluster around Mrs.

Warricombe. For many years the mother was kept in alternation between

hopes and fears, pride and disapproval, the old hereditary habits of

mind, and a new order of ideas which could only be admitted with the

utmost slowness. Buckland's Radicalism deeply offended her; she

marvelled how such depravity could display itself in a child of hers.

Yet in the end her ancestral prejudices so far yielded as to allow of

her smiling at sentiments which she once heard with horror. Maurice,

whom she loved more tenderly, all but taught her to see the cogency of

a syllogism--amiably set forth. And Louis, with his indolent

good-nature, laughed her into a tolerance of many things which had

moved her indignation. But it was to Sidwell that in the end she owed

most. Beneath the surface of ordinary and rather backward girlhood,

which discouraged her father's hopes, Sidwell was quietly developing a

personality distinguished by the refinement of its ethical motives. Her

orthodoxy seemed as unimpeachable as Mrs Warricombe could desire, yet

as she grew into womanhood, a curiosity, which in no way disturbed the

tenor of her quietly contented life, led her to examine various forms

of religion, ancient and modern, and even systems of philosophy which

professed to establish a moral code, independent of supernatural faith.

She was not of studious disposition--that is to say, she had never

cared as a schoolgirl to do more mental work than was required of her,

and even now it was seldom that she read for more than an hour or two

in the day. Her habit was to dip into books, and meditate long on the

first points which arrested her thoughts. Of continuous application she

seemed incapable. She could read French, but did not attempt to pursue

the other languages of which her teachers had given her a smattering.

It pleased her best when she could learn from conversation. In this way

she obtained some insight into her father's favourite sciences,

occasionally making suggestions or inquiries which revealed a subtle if

not an acute intelligence.

Little by little Mrs. Warricombe found herself changing places with the

daughter whom she had regarded as wholly subject to her direction.

Sidwell began to exercise an indeterminate control, the proofs of which

were at length manifest in details of her mother's speech and

demeanour. An exquisite social tact, an unfailing insensibly as the

qualities of pure air: these were the points of sincerity of moral

judgment, a gentle force which operated as character to which Mrs.

Warricombe owed the humanisation observable when one compared her in

1885 with what she was, say, in 1874, when the sight of Professor Walsh

moved her to acrimony, and when she conceived a pique against Professor

Gale because the letter P has alphabetical precedence of W. Her

limitations were of course the same as ever, and from her sons she had

only learnt to be ashamed of announcing them too vehemently. Sidwell it

was who had led her to that degree of genuine humility, which is not

satisfied with hiding a fault but strives to amend it.

Martin Warricombe himself was not unaffected by the growth about him of

young men and maidens who looked upon the world with new eyes, whose

world, indeed, was another than that in which he had spent the better

part of his life. In his case contact with the young generation tended

to unsettlement, to a troublesome persistency of speculations which he

would have preferred to dismiss altogether. At the time of his

marriage, and for some years after, he was content to make a broad

distinction between those intellectual pursuits which afforded him

rather a liberal amusement than the pleasures of earnest study and the

questions of metaphysical faith which concerned his heart and

conscience. His native prejudices were almost as strong, and much the

same, as those of his wife; but with the vagueness of emotional logic

natural to his constitution, he satisfied himself that, by conceding a

few inessential points, he left himself at liberty to follow the

scientific movements of the day without damage to his religious

convictions. The tolerant smile so frequently on his countenance was

directed as often in the one quarter as in the other. Now it signified

a gentle reproof of those men of science who, like Professor Walsh,

'went too far', whose zeal for knowledge led them 'to forget the source

of all true enlightenment'; now it expressed a forbearing sympathy with

such as erred in the opposite direction, who were 'too literal in their

interpretation of the sacred volume'. Amiable as the smile was, it

betrayed weakness, and at moments Martin became unpleasantly conscious

of indisposition to examine his own mind on certain points. His life,

indeed, was one of debate postponed. As the realm of science extended,

as his intercourse with men who frankly avowed their 'infidelity' grew

more frequent, he ever and again said to himself that, one of these

days, he must sit down and 'have it out' in a solemn self-searching.

But for the most part he got on very well amid his inconsistencies.

Religious faith has rarely any connection with reasoning. Martin

believed because he believed, and avoided the impact of disagreeable

arguments because he wished to do so.

The bent of his mind was anything but polemical; he cared not to spend

time even over those authors whose attacks on the outposts of science,

or whose elaborate reconcilements of old and new, might have afforded

him some support. On the other hand, he altogether lacked that breadth

of intellect which seeks to comprehend all the results of speculation,

to discern their tendency, to derive from them a consistent theory of

the nature of things. Though a man be well versed in a science such as

palaeontology it does not follow that he will view it in its

philosophical relations. Martin had kept himself informed of all the

facts appertaining to his study which the age brought forth, but

without developing the new modes of mental life requisite for the

recognition of all that such facts involved. The theories of evolution

he did not venture openly to resist, but his acceptance of them was so

half-hearted that practically he made no use of their teaching. He was

no man of science, but an idler among the wonders which science uses

for her own purposes.

He regarded with surprise and anxiety the tendencies early manifested

in his son Buckland. Could he have had his way the lad would have grown

up with an impossible combination of qualities, blending the enthusiasm

of modern research with a spirit of expansive teleology. Whilst

Buckland was still of boyish years, the father treated with bantering

good-humour such outbreaks of irreverence as came immediately under his

notice, weakly abstaining from any attempt at direct argument or

influence. But, at a later time, there took place serious and painful

discussions, and only when the young man had rubbed off his edges in

the world's highways could Martin forget that stage of most unwelcome

conflict.

At the death of his younger boy, Maurice, he suffered a blow which had

results more abiding than the melancholy wherewith for a year or two

his genial nature was overshadowed. From that day onwards he was never

wholly at ease among the pursuits which had been wont to afford him an

unfailing resource against whatever troubles. He could no longer accept

and disregard, in a spirit of cheerful faith, those difficulties

science was perpetually throwing in his way. The old smile of kindly

tolerance had still its twofold meaning, but it was more evidently a

disguise of indecision, and not seldom touched with sadness. Martin's

life was still one of postponed debate, but he could not regard the day

when conclusions would be demanded of him as indefinitely remote.

Desiring to dwell in the familiar temporary abode, his structure of

incongruities and facile reconcilements, he found it no longer

weather-proof. The times were shaking his position with earthquake

after earthquake. His sons (for he suspected that Louis was hardly less

emancipated than Buckland) stood far aloof from him, and must in

private feel contemptuous of his old-fashioned beliefs. In Sidwell,

however, he had a companion more and more indispensable, and he could

not imagine that _her_ faith would ever give way before the invading

spirit of agnosticism. Happily she was no mere pietist. Though he did

not quite understand her attitude towards Christianity, he felt assured

that Sidwell had thought deeply and earnestly of religion in all its

aspects, and it was a solace to know that she found no difficulty in

recognising the large claims of science. For all this, he could not

deliberately seek her confidence, or invite her to a discussion of

religious subjects. Some day, no doubt, a talk of that kind would begin

naturally between them, and so strong was his instinctive faith in

Sidwell that he looked forward to this future communing as to a certain

hope of peace.

That a figure such as Godwin Peak, a young man of vigorous intellect,

preparing to devote his life to the old religion, should excite Mr.

Warricombe's interest was of course to be anticipated; and it seemed

probable enough that Peak, exerting all the force of his character and

aided by circumstances, might before long convert this advantage to a

means of ascendency over the less self-reliant nature. But here was no

instance of a dotard becoming the easy prey of a scientific Tartufe.

Martin's intellect had suffered no decay. His hale features and

dignified bearing expressed the mind which was ripened by sixty years

of pleasurable activity, and which was learning to regard with steadier

view the problems it had hitherto shirked. He could not change the

direction nature had given to his thoughts, and prepossession would in

some degree obscure his judgment where the merits and trustworthiness

of a man in Peak's circumstances called for scrutiny; but self-respect

guarded him against vulgar artifices, and a fine sensibility made it

improbable that he would become the victim of any man in whom base

motives predominated.

Left to his own impulses, he would still have proceeded with all

caution in his offers of friendly services to Peak. A letter of

carefully-worded admonition, which he received from his son, apprising

him of Peak's resolve to transfer himself to Exeter, scarcely affected

his behaviour when the young man appeared. It was but natural--he

argued--that Buckland should look askance on a case of 'conversion';

for his own part, he understood that such a step might be prompted by

interest, but he found it difficult to believe that to a man in Peak's

position, the Church would offer temptation thus coercive. Nor could he

discern in the candidate for a curacy any mark of dishonourable

purpose. Faults, no doubt, were observable, among them a tendency to

spiritual pride--which seemed (Martin could admit) an argument for,

rather than against, his sincerity. The progress of acquaintance

decidedly confirmed his favourable impressions; they were supported by

the remarks of those among his friends to whom Peak presently became

known.

It was not until Whitsuntide of the next year, when the student had

been living nearly five months at Exeter, that Buckland again came down

to visit his relatives. On the evening of his arrival, chancing to be

alone with Sidwell, he asked her if Peak had been to the house lately.

'Not many days ago,' replied his sister, 'he lunched with us, and then

sat with father for some time.'

'Does he come often?'

'Not very often. He is translating a German book which interests father

very much.'

'Oh, what book?'

'I don't know. Father has only mentioned it in that way.'

They were in a little room sacred to the two girls, very daintily

furnished and fragrant of sweet-brier, which Sidwell loved so much

that, when the season allowed it, she often wore a little spray of it

at her girdle. Buckland opened a book on the table, and, on seeing the

title, exclaimed with a disparaging laugh:

'I can't get out of the way of this fellow M'Naughten! Wherever I go,

there he lies about on the tables and chairs. I should have thought he

was thoroughly smashed by an article that came out in _The Critical_

last year.'

Sidwell smiled, evidently in no way offended.

'That article could "smash" nobody,' she made answer. 'It was too

violent; it overshot the mark.'

'Not a bit of it!--So you read it, eh? You're beginning to read, are

you?'

'In my humble way, Buckland.'

'M'Naughten, among other things. Humble enough, that, I admit.'

'I am not a great admirer of M'Naughten,' returned his sister, with a

look of amusement.

'No? I congratulate you.--I wonder what Peak thinks of the book?'

'I really don't know.'

'Then let me ask another question. What do you think of Peak?'

Sidwell regarded him with quiet reflectiveness.

'I feel,' she said, 'that I don't know him very well yet. He is

certainly interesting.'

'Yes, he is. Does he impress you as the kind of man likely to make a

good clergyman?'

'I don't see any reason why he should not.'

Her brother mused, with wrinkles of dissatisfaction on his brow.

'Father gets to like him, you say?'

'Yes, I think father likes him.'

'Well, I suppose it's all right.'

'All right?'

'It's the most astounding thing that ever came under my observation,'

exclaimed Buckland, walking away and then returning.

'That Mr. Peak should be studying for the Church?'

'Yes.'

'But do reflect more modestly!' urged Sidwell, with something that was

not quite archness, though as near it as her habits of tone and feature

would allow. 'Why should you refuse to admit an error in your own way

of looking at things? Wouldn't it be better to take this as a proof

that intellect isn't necessarily at war with Christianity?'

'I never stated it so broadly as that,' returned her brother, with

impatience. 'But I should certainly have maintained that _Peak's_

intellect was necessarily in that position.'

'And you see how wrong you would have been,' remarked the girl, softly.

'Well--I don't know.'

'You don't know?'

'I mean that I can't acknowledge what I can't understand.'

'Then do try to understand, Buckland!--Have you ever put aside your

prejudice for a moment to inquire what our religion really means? Not

once, I think--at all events, not since you reached years of

discretion.'

'Allow me to inform you that I studied the question thoroughly at

Cambridge.'

'Yes, yes; but that was in your boyhood.'

'And when does manhood begin?'

'At different times in different persons. In your case it was late.'

Buckland laughed. He was considering a rejoinder, when they were

interrupted by the appearance of Fanny, who asked at once:

'Shall you go to see Mr. Peak this evening, Buckland?'

'I'm in no hurry,' was the abrupt reply.

The girl hesitated.

'Let us all have a drive together--with Mr. Peak, I mean--like when you

were here last.'

'We'll see about it.'

Buckland went slowly from the room.

Late the same evening he sat with his father in the study. Mr

Warricombe knew not the solace of tobacco, and his son, though never

quite at ease without pipe or cigar, denied himself in this room, with

the result that he shifted frequently upon his chair and fell into many

awkward postures.

'And how does Peak impress you?' he inquired, when the subject he most

wished to converse upon had been postponed to many others. It was clear

that Martin would not himself broach it.

'Not disagreeably,' was the reply, with a look of frankness, perhaps

over-emphasised.

'What is he doing? I have only heard from him once since he came down,

and he had very little to say about himself.'

'I understand that he proposes to take the London B.A.'

'Oh, then, he never did that? Has he unbosomed himself to you about his

affairs of old time?'

'No. Such confidences are hardly called for.'

'Speaking plainly, father, you don't feel any uneasiness?'

Martin deliberated, fingering the while an engraved stone which hung

upon his watch-guard. He was at a disadvantage in this conversation.

Aware that Buckland regarded the circumstances of Peak's sojourn in the

neighbourhood with feelings allied to contempt, he could neither adopt

the tone of easy confidence natural to him on other occasions of

difference in opinion, nor express himself with the coldness which

would have obliged his son to quit the subject.

'Perhaps you had better tell me,' he replied, 'whether _you_ are really

uneasy.'

It was impossible for Buckland to answer as his mind prompted. He could

not without offence declare that no young man of brains now adopted a

clerical career with pure intentions, yet such was his sincere belief.

Made tolerant in many directions by the cultivation of his shrewdness,

he was hopelessly biassed in judgment as soon as his anti-religious

prejudice came into play--a point of strong resemblance between him and

Peak. After fidgeting for a moment, he exclaimed:

'Yes, I am; but I can't be sure that there's any cause for it.'

'Let us come to matters of fact,' said Mr. Warricombe, showing that he

was not sorry to discuss this side of the affair. 'I suppose there is

no doubt that Peak had a position till lately at the place he speaks

of?'

'No doubt whatever. I have taken pains to ascertain that. His account

of himself, so far, is strictly true.'

Martin smiled, with satisfaction he did not care to disguise.

'Have you met some acquaintance of his?'

'Well,' answered Buckland, changing his position, 'I went to work in

rather an underhand way, perhaps--but the results are satisfactory. No,

I haven't come across any of his friends, but I happened to hear not

long ago that he was on intimate terms with some journalists.'

His father laughed.

'Anything compromising in that association, Buckland?'

'I don't say that--though the fellows I speak of are hot Radicals.'

'Though?'

'I mean,' replied the young man, with his shrewder smile, 'that they

are not exactly the companions a theological student would select.'

'I understand. Possibly he has journalised a little himself?'

'That I can't say, though I should have thought it likely enough. I

might, of course, find out much more about him, but it seemed to me

that to have assurance of his truthfulness in that one respect was

enough for the present.'

'Do you mean, Buckland,' asked his father, gravely, 'that you have been

setting secret police at work?'

'Well, yes. I thought it the least objectionable way of getting

information.'

Martin compressed his lips and looked disapproval.

'I really can't see that such extreme measures were demanded. Come,

come; what is all this about? Do you suspect him of planning

burglaries? That was an ill-judged step, Buckland; decidedly

ill-judged. I said just now that Peak impressed me by no means

disagreeably. Now I will add that I am convinced of his good faith--as

sure of it as I am of his remarkable talents and aptitude for the

profession he aims at. In spite of your extraordinary distrust, I can't

feel a moment's doubt of his honour. Why, I could have told you myself

that he has known Radical journalists. He mentioned it the other day,

and explained how far his sympathy went with that kind of thing. No,

no; that was hardly permissible, Buckland.'

The young man had no difficulty in bowing to his father's reproof when

the point at issue was one of gentlemanly behaviour.

'I admit it,' he replied. 'I wish I had gone to Rotherhithe and made

simple inquiries in my own name. That, all things considered, I might

have allowed myself; at all events, I shouldn't have been at ease

without getting that assurance. If Peak had heard, and had said to me,

"What the deuce do you mean?" I should have told him plainly, what I

have strongly hinted to him already, that I don't understand what he is

doing in this galley.'

'And have placed yourself in a position not easy to define.'

'No doubt.'

'All this arises, my boy,' resumed Martin, in a tone of grave kindness,

'from your strange inability to grant that on certain matters you may

be wholly misled.'

'It does.'

'Well, well; that is forbidden ground. But do try to be less narrow.

Are you unable then to meet Peak in a friendly way?'

'Oh, by no means! It seems more than likely that I have wronged him.'

'Well said! Keep your mind open. I marvel at the dogmatism of men who

are set on overthrowing dogma. Such a position is so strangely

unphilosophic that I don't know how a fellow of your brains can hold it

for a moment. If I were not afraid of angering you,' Martin added, in

his pleasantest tone, 'I would quote the Master of Trinity.'

'A capital epigram, but it is repeated too often.'

Mr. Warricombe shook his head, and with a laugh rose to say good-night.

'It's a great pity,' he remarked next day to Sidwell, who had been

saying that her brother seemed less vivacious than usual, 'that

Buckland is defective on the side of humour. For a man who claims to be

philosophical he takes things with a rather obtuse seriousness. I know

nothing better than humour as a protection against the kind of mistake

he is always committing.'

The application of this was not clear to Sidwell.

'Has something happened to depress him?' she asked.

'Not that I know of. I spoke only of his general tendency to

intemperate zeal. That is enough to account for intervals of reaction.

And how much sounder his judgment of men would be if he could only see

through a medium of humour now and then! You know he is going over to

Budleigh Salterton this afternoon?'

Sidwell smiled, and said quietly:

'I thought it likely he would.'

At Budleigh Salterton, a nook on the coast some fifteen miles away,

Sylvia Moorhouse was now dwelling. Her mother, a widow of substantial

means, had recently established herself there, in the proximity of

friends, and the mathematical brother made his home with them. That

Buckland took every opportunity of enjoying Sylvia's conversation was

no secret; whether the predilection was mutual, none of his relatives

could say, for in a matter such as this Buckland was by nature disposed

to reticence. Sidwell's intimacy with Miss Moorhouse put her in no

better position than the others for forming an opinion; she could only

suspect that the irony which flavoured Sylvia's talk with and

concerning the Radical, intimated a lurking kindness. Buckland's

preference was easily understood, and its growth for five or six years

seemed to promise stability.

Immediately after luncheon the young man set forth, and did not

reappear until the evening of the next day. His spirits had not

benefited by the excursion; at dinner he was noticeably silent, and

instead of going to the drawing-room afterwards he betook himself to

the studio up on the roof, and smoked in solitude. There, towards ten

o'clock, Sidwell sought him. Heavy rain was beating upon the glass, and

a high wind blended its bluster with the cheerless sound.

'Don't you find it rather cold here?' she asked, after observing her

brother's countenance of gloom.

'Yes; I'm coming down.--Why don't you keep up your painting?'

'I have lost interest in it, I'm afraid.'

'That's very weak, you know. It seems to me that nothing interests you

permanently.'

Sidwell thought it better to make no reply.

'The characteristic of women,' Buckland pursued, with some asperity,

throwing away the stump of his cigar. 'It comes, I suppose, of their

ridiculous education--their minds are never trained to fixity of

purpose. They never understand themselves, and scarcely ever make an

effort to understand any one else. Their life is a succession of

inconsistencies.'

'This generalising is so easy,' said Sidwell, with a laugh, 'and so

worthless. I wonder you should be so far behind the times.'

'What light have the times thrown on the subject?'

'There's no longer such a thing as _woman_ in the abstract. We are

individuals.'

'Don't imagine it! That may come to pass three or four generations

hence, but as yet the best of you can only vary the type in unimportant

particulars. By the way, what is Peak's address?'

'Longbrook Street; but I don't know the number. Father can give it you,

I think.'

'I shall have to drop him a note. I must get back to town early in the

morning.'

'Really? We hoped to have you for a week.'

'Longer next time.'

They descended together. Now that Louis no longer abode here (he had

decided at length for medicine, and was at work in London), the family

as a rule spent very quiet evenings. By ten o'clock Mrs Warricombe and

Fanny had retired, and Sidwell was left either to talk with her father,

or to pursue the calm meditations which seemed to make her independent

of companionship as often as she chose.

'Are they all gone?' Buckland asked, finding a vacant room.

'Father is no doubt in the study.'

'It occurs to me--. Do you feel satisfied with this dead-alive

existence?'

'Satisfied? No life could suit me better.'

'You really think of living here indefinitely?'

'As far as I am concerned, I hope nothing may ever disturb us.'

'And to the end of your life you will scent yourself with sweetbrier?

Do try a bit of mint for a change.'

'Certainly, if it will please you.'

'Seriously, I think you might all come to town for next winter. You are

rusting, all of you. Father was never so dull, and mother doesn't seem

to know how to pass the days. It wouldn't be bad for Louis to be living

with you instead of in lodgings. Do just think of it. It's ages since

you heard a concert, or saw a picture.'

Sidwell mused, and her brother watched her askance.

'I don't know whether the others would care for it,' she said, 'but I

am not tempted by a winter of fog.'

'Fog? Pooh! Well, there is an occasional fog, just now and then, but

it's much exaggerated. Who ever thinks of the weather in England? Fanny

might have a time at Bedford College or some such place-she learns

nothing here. Think it over. Father would be delighted to get among the

societies, and so on.'

He repeated his arguments in many forms, and Sidwell listened

patiently, until they were joined by Mr. Warricombe, whereupon the

subject dropped; to be resumed, however, in correspondence, with a

persistency which Buckland seldom exhibited in anything which affected

the interests of his relatives. As the summer drew on, Mrs Warricombe

began to lend serious ear to this suggestion of change, and Martin was

at all events moved to discuss the pros and cons of half a year in

London. Sidwell preserved neutrality, seldom making an allusion to the

project; but Fanny supported her brother's proposal with sprightly

zeal, declaring on one occasion that she began distinctly to feel the

need of 'a higher culture', such as London only could supply.

In the meantime there had been occasional interchange of visits between

the family and their friends at Budleigh Salterton. One evening, when

Mrs. Moorhouse and Sylvia were at the Warricombes', three or four

Exeter people came to dine, and among the guests was Godwin Peak--his

invitation being due in this instance to Sylvia's express wish to meet

him again.

'I am studying men,' she had said to Sidwell not long before, when the

latter was at the seaside with her. 'In our day this is the proper

study of womankind. Hitherto we have given serious attention only to

one another. Mr. Peak remains in my memory as a type worth observing;

let me have a chance of talking to him when I come next.'

She did not neglect her opportunity, and Mrs. Moorhouse, who also

conversed with the theologian and found him interesting, was so good as

to hope that he would call upon her if ever his steps turned towards

Budleigh Salterton.

After breakfast next morning, Sidwell found her friend sitting with a

book beneath one of the great trees of the garden. At that moment

Sylvia was overcome with laughter, evidently occasioned by her reading.

'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'if this man isn't a great humorist! I don't think

I ever read anything more irresistible.'

The book was Hugh Miller's _Testimony of the Rocks_, a richly bound

copy belonging to Mrs. Warricombe.

'I daresay you know it very well; it's the chapter in which he

discusses, with perfect gravity, whether it would have been possible

for Noah to collect examples of all living creatures in the ark. He

decides that it wouldn't--that the deluge _must_ have spared a portion

of the earth; but the details of his argument are delicious, especially

this place where he says that all the insects could have been brought

together only "at enormous expense of miracle"! I suspected a secret

smile; but no--that's out of the question. "At enormous expense of

miracle"!'

Sylvia's eyes winked as she laughed, a peculiarity which enhanced the

charm of her frank mirth. Her dark, pure complexion, strongly-marked

eyebrows, subtle lips, were shadowed beneath a great garden hat, and a

loose white gown, with no oppressive moulding at the waist, made her a

refreshing picture in the glare of mid-summer.

'The phrase is ridiculous enough,' assented Sidwell. 'Miracle can be

but miracle, however great or small its extent.'

'Isn't it strange, reading a book of this kind nowadays? What a leap we

have made! I should think there's hardly a country curate who would be

capable of bringing this argument into a sermon.'

'I don't know,' returned Sidwell, smiling. 'One still hears remarkable

sermons.'

'What will Mr. Peak's be like?'

They exchanged glances. Sylvia wore a look of reflective curiosity, and

her friend answered with some hesitation, as if the thought were new to

her:

'They won't deal with Noah, we may take that for granted.'

'Most likely not with miracles, however little expensive.'

'Perhaps not. I suppose he will deal chiefly with the moral teaching of

Christianity.'

'Do you think him strong as a moralist?' inquired Sylvia.

'He has very decided opinions about the present state of our

civilisation.'

'So I find. But is there any distinctly moral force in him?'

'Father thinks so,' Sidwell replied, 'and so do our friends the

Lilywhites.'

Miss Moorhouse pondered awhile.

'He is a great problem to me,' she declared at length, knitting her

brows with a hint of humorous exaggeration. 'I wonder whether he

believes in the dogmas of Christianity.'

Sidwell was startled.

'Would he think of becoming a clergyman?'

'Oh, why not? Don't they recognise nowadays that the spirit is enough?'

There was silence. Sidwell let her eyes wander over the sunny grass to

the red-flowering creeper on the nearest side of the house.

'That would involve a great deal of dissimulation,' she said at length.

'I can't reconcile it with what I know of Mr. Peak.'

'And I can't reconcile anything else,' rejoined the other.

'He impresses you as a rationalist?'

'You not?'

'I confess I have taken his belief for granted. Oh, think! He couldn't

keep up such a pretence. However you justify it, it implies conscious

deception. It would be dishonourable. I am sure _he_ would think it so.'

'How does your brother regard him?' Sylvia asked, smiling very

slightly, but with direct eyes.

'Buckland can't credit anyone with sincerity except an aggressive

agnostic.'

'But I think he allows honest credulity.'

Sidwell had no answer to this. After musing a little, she put a

question which indicated how her thoughts had travelled.

'Have you met many women who declared themselves agnostics?'

'Several.'

Sylvia removed her hat, and began to fan herself gently with the brim.

Here, in the shade, bees were humming; from the house came faint notes

of a piano--Fanny practising a mazurka of Chopin.

'But never, I suppose, one who found a pleasure in attacking

Christianity?'

'A girl who was at school with me in London,' Sylvia replied, with an

air of amused reminiscence. 'Marcella Moxey. Didn't I ever speak to you

of her?'

'I think not.'

'She was bitter against religion of every kind.'

'Because her mother made her learn collects, I dare say?' suggested

Sidwell, in a tone of gentle satire.

'No, no. Marcella was about eighteen then, and had neither father nor

mother.--(How Fanny's touch improves!)--She was a born atheist, in the

fullest sense of the word.'

'And detestable?'

'Not to me--I rather liked her. She was remarkably honest, and I have

sometimes thought that in morals, on the whole, she stood far above

most women. She hated falsehood--hated it with all her heart, and a

story of injustice maddened her. When I think of Marcella it helps me

to picture the Russian girls who propagate Nihilism.'

'You have lost sight of her?'

'She went abroad, I think. I should like to have known her fate. I

rather think there will have to be many like her before women are

civilised.'

'How I should like to ask her,' said Sidwell, 'on what she supported

her morality?'

'Put the problem to Mr. Peak,' suggested the other, gaily. 'I fancy he

wouldn't find it insoluble.'

Mrs. Warricombe and Mrs. Moorhouse appeared in the distance, walking

hither under parasols. The girls rose to meet them, and were presently

engaged in less interesting colloquy.

CHAPTER IV

This summer Peak became a semi-graduate of London University. To avoid

the risk of a casual meeting with acquaintances, he did not go to

London, but sat for his examination at the nearest provincial centre.

The revival of boyish tremors at the successive stages of this business

was anything but agreeable; it reminded him, with humiliating force,

how far he had strayed from the path indicated to his self-respecting

manhood. Defeat would have strengthened in overwhelming revolt all the

impulses which from time to time urged him to abandon his servile

course. But there was no chance of his failing to satisfy the

examiners. With 'Honours' he had now nothing to do; enough for his

purpose that in another year's time he would write himself Bachelor of

Arts, and thus simplify the clerical preliminaries. In what quarter he

was to look for a curacy remained uncertain. Meanwhile his enterprise

seemed to prosper, and success emboldened his hopes.

Hopes which were no longer vague, but had defined themselves in a way

which circumstances made inevitable. Though he had consistently guarded

himself against the obvious suggestions arising out of his intercourse

with the Warricombe family, though he still emphasised every

discouraging fact, and strove to regard it as axiomatic that nothing

could be more perilous to his future than a hint of presumption or

self-interest in word or deed beneath that friendly roof, it was coming

to pass that he thought of Sidwell not only as the type of woman

pursued by his imagination, but as herself the object of his converging

desires. Comparison of her with others had no result but the deepening

of that impression she had at first made upon him. Sidwell exhibited

all the qualities which most appealed to him in her class; in addition,

she had the charms of a personality which he could not think of common

occurrence. He was yet far from understanding her; she exercised his

powers of observation, analysis, conjecture, as no other person had

ever done; each time he saw her (were it but for a moment) he came away

with some new perception of her excellence, some hitherto unmarked

grace of person or mind whereon to meditate. He had never approached a

woman who possessed this power at once of fascinating his senses and

controlling his intellect to a glad reverence. Whether in her presence

or musing upon her in solitude, he found that the unsparing naturalism

of his scrutiny was powerless to degrade that sweet, pure being.

Rare, under any circumstances, is the passionate love which controls

every motive of heart and mind; rarer still that form of it which, with

no assurance of reciprocation, devotes exclusive ardour to an object

only approachable through declared obstacles. Godwin Peak was not

framed for romantic languishment. In general, the more complex a man's

mechanism, and the more pronounced his habit of introspection, the less

capable is he of loving with vehemence and constancy. Heroes of passion

are for the most part primitive natures, nobly tempered; in our time

they tend to extinction. Growing vulgarism on the one hand, and on the

other a development of the psychological conscience, are unfavourable

to any relation between the sexes, save those which originate in pure

animalism, or in reasoning less or more generous. Never having

experienced any feeling which he could dignify with the name of love,

Godwin had no criterion in himself whereby to test the emotions now

besetting him. In a man of his age this was an unusual state of things,

for when the ardour which will bear analysis has at length declared

itself, it is wont to be moderated by the regretful memory of that

fugacious essence which gave to the first frenzy of youth its

irrecoverable delight. He could not say in reply to his impulses: If

that was love which overmastered me, this must be something either more

or less exalted. What he _did_ say was something of this kind: If

desire and tenderness, if frequency of dreaming rapture, if the calmest

approval of the mind and the heart's most exquisite, most painful

throbbing, constitute love,--then assuredly I love Sidwell. But if to

love is to be possessed with madness, to lose all taste of life when

hope refuses itself, to meditate frantic follies, to deem it

inconceivable that this woman should ever lose her dominion over me, or

another reign in her stead,--then my passion falls short of the true

testrum, and I am only dallying with fancies which might spring up as

often as I encountered a charming girl.

All things considered, to encourage this amorous preoccupation was

probably the height of unwisdom. The lover is ready at deluding

himself, but Peak never lost sight of the extreme unlikelihood that he

should ever become Martin Warricombe's son-in-law, of the thousand

respects which forbade his hoping that Sidwell would ever lay her hand

in his. That deep-rooted sense of class which had so much influence on

his speculative and practical life asserted itself, with rigid

consistency, even against his own aspirations; he attributed to the

Warricombes more prejudice on this subject than really existed in them.

He, it was true, belonged to no class whatever, acknowledged no

subordination save that of the hierarchy of intelligence; but this

could not obscure the fact that his brother sold seeds across a

counter, that his sister had married a haberdasher, that his uncle

(notoriously) was somewhere or other supplying the public with cheap

repasts. Girls of Sidwell's delicacy do not misally themselves, for

they take into account the fact that such misalliance is fraught with

elements of unhappiness, affecting husband as much as wife. No need to

dwell upon the scruples suggested by his moral attitude; he would never

be called upon to combat them with reference to Sidwell's future.

What, then, was he about? For what advantage was he playing the

hypocrite? Would he, after all, be satisfied with some such wife as the

average curate may hope to marry?

A hundred times he reviewed the broad question, by the light of his six

months' experience. Was Sidwell Warricombe his ideal woman, absolutely

speaking? Why, no; not with all his glow of feeling could he persuade

himself to declare her that. Satisfied up to a certain point, admitted

to the sphere of wealthy refinement, he now had leisure to think of yet

higher grades, of the women who are not only exquisite creatures by

social comparison but rank by divine right among the foremost of their

race. Sidwell was far from intolerant, and held her faiths in a

sincerely ethical spirit. She judged nobly, she often saw with clear

vision. But must not something of kindly condescension always blend

with his admiring devotedness? Were it but possible to win the love of

a woman who looked forth with eyes thoroughly purged from all mist of

tradition and conventionalism, who was at home among arts and sciences,

who, like himself, acknowledged no class and bowed to no authority but

that of the supreme human mind!

Such women are to be found in every age, but how many of them shine

with the distinctive ray of womanhood? These are so rare that they have

a place in the pages of history. The truly emancipated woman--it was

Godwin's conviction--is almost always asexual; to him, therefore,

utterly repugnant. If, then, he were not content to waste his life in a

vain search for the priceless jewel, which is won and worn only by

fortune's supreme favourites, he must acquiesce in the imperfect

marriage commonly the lot of men whose intellect allows them but little

companionship even among their own sex: for that matter, the lot of

most men, and necessarily so until the new efforts in female education

shall have overcome the vice of wedlock as hitherto sanctioned. Nature

provides the hallucination which flings a lover at his mistress's feet.

For the chill which follows upon attainment she cares nothing--let

society and individuals make their account with that as best they may.

Even with a wife such as Sidwell the process of disillusion would

doubtless have to be faced, however liberal one's allowances in the

forecast.

Reflections of this colour were useful; they helped to keep within

limits the growth of agitating desire. But there were seasons when

Godwin surrendered himself to luxurious reverie, hours of summer

twilight which forbade analysis and listened only to the harmonies of

passion. Then was Sidwell's image glorified, and all the delights

promised by such love as hers fired his imagination to intolerable

ecstasy. O heaven! to see the smile softened by rosy warmth which would

confess that she had given her heart--to feel her supple fingers

intertwined with his that clasped them--to hear the words in which a

mind so admirable, instincts so delicate, would make expression of

their tenderness! To live with Sidwell--to breathe the fragrance of

that flower of womanhood in wedded intimacy--to prove the devotion of a

nature so profoundly chaste! The visionary transport was too poignant;

in the end it drove him to a fierce outbreak of despairing wrath. How

could he dream that such bliss would be the reward of despicable

artifice, of calculated dishonour? Born a rebel, how could his be the

fate of those happy men who are at one with the order of things? The

prophecy of a heart wrung with anguish foretold too surely that for him

was no rapturous love, no joy of noble wedlock. Solitude, now and for

ever, or perchance some base alliance of the flesh, which would involve

his later days in sordid misery.

In moods of discouragement he thought with envy of his old self, his

life in London lodgings, his freedom in obscurity. It belongs to the

pathos of human nature that only in looking back can one appreciate the

true value of those long tracts of monotonous ease which, when we are

living through them, seem of no account save in relation to past or

future; only at a distance do we perceive that the exemption from

painful shock was in itself a happiness, to be rated highly in

comparison with most of those disturbances known as moments of joy. A

wise man would have entertained no wish but that he might grow old in

that same succession of days and weeks and years. Without anxiety

concerning his material needs (certainly the most substantial of

earthly blessings), his leisure not inadequate to the gratification of

a moderate studiousness, with friends who offered him an ever-ready

welcome,--was it not much? If he were condemned to bachelorhood, his

philosophy was surely capable of teaching him that the sorrows and

anxieties he thus escaped made more than an offset against the

satisfactions he must forego. Reason had no part in the fantastic

change to which his life had submitted, nor was he ever supported by a

hope which would bear his cooler investigation.

And yet hope had her periods of control, for there are times when the

mind wearies of rationality, and, as it were in self-defense, in

obedience to the instinct of progressive life, craves a specious

comfort. It seemed undeniable that Mr. Warricombe regarded him with

growth of interest, invited his conversation more unreservedly. He

began to understand Martin's position with regard to religion and

science, and thus could utter himself more securely. At length he

ventured to discourse with some amplitude on his own convictions--the

views, that is to say, which he thought fit to adopt in his character

of a liberal Christian. It was on an afternoon of early August that

this opportunity presented itself. They sat together in the study, and

Martin was in a graver mood than usual, not much disposed to talk, but

a willing listener. There had been mention of a sermon at the

Cathedral, in which the preacher declared his faith that the maturity

of science would dispel all antagonisms between it and revelation.

'The difficulties of the unbeliever,' said Peak, endeavouring to avoid

a sermonising formality, though with indifferent success, 'are, of

course, of two kinds; there's the theory of evolution, and there's

modern biblical criticism. The more I study these objections, the less

able I am to see how they come in conflict with belief in Christianity

as a revealed religion.'

'Yet you probably had your time of doubt?' remarked the other, touching

for the first time on this personal matter.

'Oh, yes; that was inevitable. It only means that one's development is

imperfect. Most men who confirm themselves in agnosticism are kept at

that point by arrested moral activity. They give up the intellectual

question as wearisome, and accept the point of view which flatters

their prejudices: thereupon follows a blunting of the sensibilities on

the religious side.'

'There are men constitutionally unfitted for the reception of spiritual

truth,' said Martin, in a troubled tone. He was playing with a piece of

string, and did not raise his eyes.

'I quite believe that. There's our difficulty when we come to

evidences. The evidences of science are wholly different in _kind_ from

those of religion. Faith cannot spring from any observation of

phenomena, or scrutiny of authorities, but from the declaration made to

us by the spiritual faculty. The man of science can only become a

Christian by the way of humility--and that a kind of humility he finds

it difficult even to conceive. One wishes to impress upon him the

harmony of this faith with the spiritual voice that is in every man. He

replies: I know nothing of that spiritual voice. And if that be true,

one can't help him by argument.'

Peak had constructed for himself, out of his reading, a plausible

system which on demand he could set forth with fluency. The tone of

current apologetics taught him that, by men even of cultivated

intellect, such a position as he was now sketching was deemed tenable;

yet to himself it sounded so futile, so nugatory, that he had to harden

his forehead as he spoke. Trial more severe to his conscience lay in

the perceptible solicitude with which Mr Warricombe weighed these

disingenuous arguments. It was a hateful thing to practise such

deception on one who probably yearned for spiritual support. But he had

committed himself to this course, and must brave it out.

'Christianity,' he was saying presently--appropriating a passage of

which he had once made careful note--'is an organism of such vital

energy that it perforce assimilates whatever is good and true in the

culture of each successive age. To understand this is to learn that we

must depend rather on _constructive_, than on _defensive_, apology.

That is to say, we must draw evidence of our faith from its latent

capacities, its unsuspected affinities, its previsions, its

adaptability, comprehensiveness, sympathy, adequacy to human needs.'

'That puts very well what I have always felt,' replied Mr Warricombe.

'Yet there will remain the objection that such a faith may be of purely

human origin. If evolution and biblical criticism seem to overthrow all

the historic evidences of Christianity, how convince the objectors that

the faith itself was divinely given?'

'But I cannot hold for a moment,' exclaimed Peak, in the words which he

knew his interlocutor desired to hear, 'that all the historic evidences

have been destroyed. That indeed would shake our position.'

He enlarged on the point, with display of learning, yet studiously

avoiding the tone of pedantry.

'Evolution,' he remarked, when the dialogue had again extended its

scope, 'does not touch the evidence of design in the universe; at most

it can correct our imperfect views (handed down from an age which had

no scientific teaching because it was not ripe for it) of the mode in

which that design was executed, or rather is still being executed.

Evolutionists have not succeeded in explaining life; they have merely

discovered a new law relating to life. If we must have an explanation,

there is nothing for it but to accept the notion of a Deity. Indeed,

how can there be religion without a divine author? Religion is based on

the idea of a divine mind which reveals itself to us for moral ends.

The Christian revelation, we hold, has been developed gradually, much

of it in connection with secondary causes and human events. It has come

down to us in anything but absolute purity--like a stream which has

been made turbid by its earthly channel. The lower serves its purpose

as a stage to the higher, then it falls away, the higher surviving.

Hitherto, the final outcome of evolution is the soul in a bodily

tenement. May it not be that the perfected soul alone survives in the

last step of the struggle for existence?'

Peak had been talking for more than a quarter of an hour. Under stress

of shame and intellectual self-criticism (for he could not help

confuting every position as he stated it) his mind often wandered. When

he ceased speaking there came upon him an uncomfortable dreaminess

which he had already once or twice experienced when in colloquy with

Mr. Warricombe; a tormenting metaphysical doubt of his own identity

strangely beset him. With involuntary attempt to recover the familiar

self he grasped his own wrist, and then, before he was aware, a laugh

escaped him, an all but mocking laugh, unsuitable enough to the spirit

of the moment. Mr Warricombe was startled, but looked up with a

friendly smile.

'You fear,' he said, 'that this last speculation may seem rather

fanciful to me?'

Godwin was biting his lip fiercely, and could not command himself to

utterance of a word.

'By no means, I assure you,' added the other. 'It appeals to me very

strongly.'

Peak rose from his chair.

'It struck me,' he said, 'that I had been preaching a sermon rather

than taking part in a conversation. I'm afraid it is the habit of men

who live a good deal alone to indulge in monologues.'

On his return home, the sight of _Bibel und Natur_ and his sheets of

laborious manuscript filled him with disgust. It was two or three days

before he could again apply himself to the translation. Yet this

expedient had undoubtedly been of great service to him in the matter of

his relations with Mr. Warricombe. Without the aid of Reusch he would

have found it difficult to speak naturally on the theme which drew

Martin into confidences and established an intimacy between them.

Already they had discussed in detail the first half of the book. How a

man of Mr. Warricombe's intelligence could take grave interest in an

arid exegesis of the first chapter of Genesis, Godwin strove in vain to

comprehend. Often enough the debates were perilously suggestive of

burlesque, and, when alone, he relieved himself of the laughter he had

scarce restrained. For instance, there was that terrible _thohu wabohu_

of the second verse, a phrase preserved from the original, and tossed

into all the corners of controversy. Was _thohu wabohu_ the first

condition of the earth, or was it merely a period of division between a

previous state of things and creation as established by the Hexaemeron?

Did light exist or not, previous to the _thohu wabohu_? Then, again,

what kind of 'days' were the three which passed before the birth of the

sun? Special interest, of course, attached to the successive theories

of theology on the origin of geologic strata. First came the 'theory of

restitution', which explained unbiblical antiquity by declaring that

the strata belonged to a world before the Hexaemeron, a world which had

been destroyed, and succeeded by the new creation. Less objectionable

was the 'concordistic theory', which interprets the 'six days' as so

many vast periods of creative activity. But Reusch himself gave

preference to the 'ideal theory', the supporters whereof (diligently

adapting themselves to the progress of science) hold that the six days

are not to be understood as consecutive periods at all, but merely as

six phases of the Creator's work.

By the exercise of watchfulness and dexterity, Peak managed for the

most part to avoid expression of definite opinions. His attitude was

that of a reverent (not yet reverend) student. Mr. Warricombe was less

guarded, and sometimes allowed himself to profess that he saw nothing

but vain ingenuity in Reusch's argument: as, for example, where the

theologian, convinced that the patriarchs did really live to an

abnormal age, suggests that man's life was subsequently shortened in

order that 'sin might not flourish with such exuberance'. This passage

caused Martin to smile.

'It won't do, it won't do,' he said, quietly. 'Far better apply his

rationalism here as elsewhere. These are wonderful old stories, not to

be understood literally. Nothing depends upon them, nothing essential.'

Thereupon Peak mused anxiously. Not for the first time there occurred

to him a thought which suited only too well with his ironic habits of

mind. What if this hypocritic comedy were altogether superfluous? What

if Mr. Warricombe would have received him no less cordially had he

avowed his sincere position, and contented himself with guarding

against offensiveness? Buckland, it was true, had suffered in his

father's esteem on account of his unorthodoxy, but that young man had

been too aggressive, too scornful. With prudence, would it not have

been possible to win Martin's regard by fortifying the scientific

rather than the dogmatic side of his intellect? If so, what a hopeless

error had he committed!--But Sidwell? Was _she_ liberal enough to take

a personal interest in one who had renounced faith in revelation? He

could not decide this question, for of Sidwell he knew much less than

of her father. And it was idle to torment himself with such debate of

the irreversible.

And, indeed, there seemed much reason for believing that Martin,

whatever the extent of his secret doubts, was by temperament armed

against agnosticism. Distinctly it comforted him to hear the

unbelievers assailed--the friends of whom he spoke most heartily were

all on the orthodox side; if ever a hint of gentle malice occurred in

his conversation, it was when he spoke of a fallacy, a precipitate

conclusion, detected in works of science. Probably he was too old to

overcome this bias.

His view of the Bible appeared to harmonise with that which Peak put

forth in one of their dialogues. 'The Scriptures were meant to be

literally understood in primitive ages, and spiritually when the growth

of science made it possible. _Genesis_ was never intended to teach the

facts of natural history; it takes phenomena as they appear to

uninstructed people, and uses them only for the inculcation of moral

lessons; it presents to the childhood of the world a few great

elementary truths. And the way in which phenomena are spoken of in the

Old Testament is never really incompatible with the facts as we know

them nowadays. Take the miracle of the sun standing still, which is

supposed to be a safe subject of ridicule. Why, it merely means that

light was miraculously prolonged; the words used are those which common

people would at all times understand.'

(Was it necessary to have admitted the miracle? Godwin asked himself.

At all events Mr. Warricombe nodded approvingly.)

'Then the narrative of the creation of man; that's not at all

incompatible with his slow development through ages. To teach the

scientific fact--if we yet really know it--would have been worse than

useless. The story is meant to express that spirit, and not matter, is

the source of all existence. Indeed, our knowledge of the true meaning

of the Bible has increased with the growth of science, and naturally

that must have been intended from the first. Things which do not

concern man's relation to the spiritual have no place in this book;

they are not within its province. Such things were discoverable by

human reason, and the knowledge which achieves has nothing to do with a

divine revelation.'

To Godwin it was a grinding of the air, but the listener appeared to

think it profitable.

With his clerical friend, Mr. Lilywhite, he rarely touched on matters

of religion. The vicar of St. Ethelreda's was a man well suited to

support the social dignity of his Church. A gentleman before

everything, he seemed incapable of prying into the state of a

parishioner's soul; you saw in him the official representative of a

Divinity characterised by well-bred tolerance. He had written a

pleasant little book on the by-ways of Devon and Cornwall, which

brought about his intimacy with the Warricombe household. Peak liked

him more the better he knew him, and in the course of the summer they

had one or two long walks together, conversing exclusively of the

things of earth. Mr. Lilywhite troubled himself little about evolution;

he spoke of trees and plants, of birds and animals, in a loving spirit,

like the old simple naturalists. Geology did not come within his sphere.

'I'm very sorry,' he said, 'that I could never care much for it. Don't

think I'm afraid of it--not I! I feel the grandeur of its scope, just

as I do in the case of astronomy; but I have never brought myself to

study either science. A narrowness of mind, no doubt. I can't go into

such remote times and regions. I love the sunlight and the green fields

of this little corner of the world--too well, perhaps: yes, perhaps too

well.'

After one of these walks, he remarked to Mrs. Lilywhite:

'It's my impression that Mr. Peak has somehow been misled in his choice

of a vocation. I don't think he'll do as a churchman.'

'Why not, Henry?' asked his wife, with gentle concern, for she still

spoke of Peak's 'quiet moral force'.

'There's something too restless about him. I doubt whether he has

really made up his mind on any subject whatever. Well, it's not easy to

explain what I feel, but I don't think he will take Orders.'

Calling at the vicarage one afternoon in September, Godwin found Mrs

Lilywhite alone. She startled him by saying at once:

'An old acquaintance of yours was with us yesterday, Mr. Peak.'

'Who could that be, I wonder?'

He smiled softly, controlling his impulse to show quite another

expression.

'You remember Mr. Bruno Chilvers?'

'Oh, yes!'

There was a constriction in his throat. Struggling to overcome it, he

added:

'But I should have thought he had no recollection of me.'

'Quite the contrary, I assure you. He is to succeed Mr. Bell of St

Margaret's, at Christmas; he was down here only for a day or two, and

called upon my husband with a message from an old friend of ours. It

appears he used to know the Warricombes, when they lived at Kingsmill,

and he had been to see them before visiting us; it was there your name

was mentioned to him.'

Godwin had seated himself, and leaned forward, his hands grasping the

glove he had drawn off.

'We were contemporaries at Whitelaw College,' he observed.

'So we learnt from him. He spoke of you with the greatest interest; he

was delighted to hear that you contemplated taking Orders. Of course we

knew Mr. Chilvers by reputation, but my husband had no idea that he was

coming to Exeter. What an energetic man he is! In a few hours he seemed

to have met everyone, and to have learnt everything. My husband says he

felt quite rebuked by such a display of vigour!'

Even in his discomposure, graver than any that had affected him since

his talks with Buckland Warricombe, Peak was able to notice that the

Rev. Bruno had not made a wholly favourable impression upon the

Lilywhites. There was an amiable causticity in that mention of his

'display of vigour', such as did not often characterise Mrs Lilywhite's

comments. Finding that the vicar would be away till evening, Godwin

stayed for only a quarter of an hour, and when he had escaped it

irritated and alarmed him to reflect how unusual his behaviour must

have appeared to the good lady.

The blow was aimed at his self-possession from such an unlikely

quarter. In Church papers he had frequently come across Chilvers's

name, and the sight of it caused him a twofold disturbance: it was

hateful to have memories of humiliation revived, and perhaps still more

harassing to be forced upon acknowledgment of the fact that he stood as

an obscure aspirant at the foot of the ladder which his old rival was

triumphantly ascending. Bad enough to be classed in any way with such a

man as Chilvers; but to be regarded as at one with him in religious

faith, to be forbidden the utterance of scorn when Chilvers was

extolled, stung him so keenly that he rushed into any distraction to

elude the thought. When he was suffering shame under the gaze of

Buckland Warricombe he remembered Chilvers, and shrank as before a

merited scoff. But the sensation had not been abiding enough to affect

his conduct. He had said to himself that he should never come in

contact with the fellow, and that, after all, community of religious

profession meant no more, under their respective circumstances, than if

both were following law or physic.

But the unforeseen had happened. In a few months, the Rev. Bruno

Chilvers would be a prominent figure about the streets of Exeter; would

be frequently seen at the Warricombes', at the Lilywhites', at the

houses of their friends. His sermons at St. Margaret's would doubtless

attract, and form a staple topic of conversation. Worse than all, his

expressions of 'interest' and 'delight' made it probable that he would

seek out his College competitor and offer the hand of brotherhood.

These things were not to be avoided--save by abandonment of hopes, save

by retreat, by yielding to a hostile destiny.

That Chilvers might talk here and there of Whitelaw stories was

comparatively unimportant. The Warricombes must already know all that

could be told, and what other people heard did not much matter. It was

the man himself that Peak could not endure. Dissembling had hitherto

been no light task. The burden had more than once pressed so gallingly

that its permanent support seemed impossible; but to stand before Bruno

Chilvers in the attitude of humble emulation, to give respectful ear

whilst the popular cleric advised or encouraged, or bestowed pontifical

praise, was comparable only to a searing of the flesh with red irons.

Even with assured prospect of recompense in the shape of Sidwell

Warricombe's heart and hand, he could hardly submit to such an ordeal.

As it was, reason having so often convinced him that he clung to a

visionary hope, the torture became gratuitous, and its mere suggestion

inspired him with a fierce resentment destructive of all his purposes.

For several days he scarcely left the house. To wrath and dread had

succeeded a wretched torpor, during which his mind kept revolving the

thoughts prompted by his situation, turbidly and to no issue. He tasted

all the bitterness of the solitude to which he had condemned himself;

there was not a living soul with whom he could commune. At moments he

was possessed with the desire of going straightway to London, and

making Earwaker the confidant of all his folly. But that demanded an

exertion of which he was physically incapable. He thought of the old

home at Twybridge, and was tempted also in that direction. His mother

would welcome him with human kindness; beneath her roof he could lie

dormant until fate should again point his course. He even wrote a

letter saying that in all probability he should pay a visit to

Twybridge before long. But the impulse was only of an hour's duration,

for he remembered that to talk with his mother would necessitate all

manner of new falsehoods, a thickening of the atmosphere of lies which

already oppressed him. No; if he quitted Exeter, it must be on a longer

journey. He must resume his purpose of seeking some distant country,

where new conditions of life would allow him to try his fortune at

least as an honest adventurer. In many parts of colonial England his

technical knowledge would have a value, and were there not women to be

won beneath other skies--women perhaps of subtler charm than the old

hidebound civilisation produced? Reminiscences of scenes and figures in

novels he had read nourished the illusion. He pictured some thriving

little town at the ends of the earth, where a young Englishman of good

manners and unusual culture would easily be admitted to the intimacy of

the richest families; he saw the ideal colonist (a man of good birth,

but a sower of wild oats in his youth) with two or three daughters

about him--beautiful girls, wondrously self-instructed--living amid

romantic dreams of the old world, and of the lover who would some day

carry them off (with a substantial share of papa's wealth) to Europe

and the scenes of their imagination.

The mind has marvellous methods of self-defence against creeping

lethargy of despair. At the point to which he had been reduced by

several days of blank despondency, Peak was able to find genuine

encouragement in visions such as this. He indulged his fancy until the

vital force began to stir once more within him, and then, with one

angry sweep, all his theological books and manuscripts were flung out

of sight. Away with this detestable mummery! Now let Bruno Chilvers

pour his eloquence from the pulpit of St. Margaret's, and rear to what

heights he could the edifice of his social glory; men of that stamp

were alone fitted to thrive in England. Was not _he_ almost certainly a

hypocrite, masking his brains (for brains he had) under a show of

broadest Anglicanism? But his career was throughout consistent. He trod

in the footsteps of his father, and with inherited aptitude moulded

antique traditions into harmony with the taste of the times. Compared

with such a man, Peak felt himself a bungler. The wonder was that his

clumsy lying had escaped detection.

Another day, and he had done nothing whatever, but was still buoyed up

by the reaction of visionary hope. His need now was of communicating

his change of purpose to some friendly hearer. A week had passed since

he had exchanged a word with anyone but Mrs. Roots, and converse he

must. Why not with Mr. Warricombe? That was plainly the next step: to

see Martin and make known to him that after all he could not become a

clergyman. No need of hinting a conscientious reason. At all events,

nothing more definite than a sense of personal unfitness, a growing

perception of difficulties inherent in his character. It would be very

interesting to hear Mr. Warricombe's replies.

A few minutes after this decision was taken, he set off towards the Old

Tiverton Road, walking at great speed, flourishing his stick--symptoms

of the nervous cramp (so to speak) which he was dispelling. He reached

the house, and his hand was on the bell, when an unexpected opening of

the door presented Louis Warricombe just coming forth for a walk. They

exchanged amiabilities, and Louis made known that his father and mother

were away on a visit to friends in Cornwall.

'But pray come in,' he added, offering to re-enter.

Peak excused himself, for it was evident that Louis made a sacrifice to

courtesy. But at that moment there approached from the garden Fanny

Warricombe and her friend Bertha Lilywhite, eldest daughter of the

genial vicar; they shook hands with Godwin, Fanny exclaiming:

'Don't go away, Mr. Peak. Have a cup of tea with us--Sidwell is at

home. I want to show you a strange sort of spleenwort that I gathered

this morning.'

'In that case,' said her brother, smiling, 'I may confess that I have

an appointment. Pray forgive me for hurrying off, Mr. Peak.'

Godwin was embarrassed, but the sprightly girl repeated her summons,

and he followed into the house.

CHAPTER V

Having led the way to the drawing-room, Fanny retired again for a few

moments, to fetch the fern of which she had spoken, leaving Peak in

conversation with little Miss Lilywhite. Bertha was a rather shy girl

of fifteen, not easily induced, under circumstances such as these, to

utter more than monosyllables, and Godwin, occupied with the unforeseen

results of his call, talked about the weather. With half-conscious

absurdity he had begun to sketch a theory of his own regarding

rain-clouds and estuaries (Bertha listening with an air of the gravest

attention) when Fanny reappeared, followed by Sidwell. Peak searched

the latter's face for indications of her mood, but could discover

nothing save a spirit of gracious welcome. Such aspect was a matter of

course, and he knew it. None the less, his nervousness and the state of

mind engendered by a week's miserable solitude, tempted him to believe

that Sidwell did not always wear that smile in greeting a casual

caller. This was the first time that she had received him without the

countenance of Mrs. Warricombe. Observing her perfect manner, as she

sat down and began to talk, he asked himself what her age really was.

The question had never engaged his thoughts. Eleven years ago, when he

saw her at the house near Kingsmill and again at Whitelaw College, she

looked a very young girl, but whether of thirteen or sixteen he could

not at the time have determined, and such a margin of possibility

allowed her now to have reached--it might be--her twenty-seventh

summer. But twenty-seven drew perilously near to thirty; no, no,

Sidwell could not be more than twenty-five. Her eyes still had the dewy

freshness of flowering maidenhood; her cheek, her throat, were so

exquisitely young----

In how divine a calm must this girl have lived to show, even at

five-and-twenty, features as little marked by inward perturbation as

those of an infant! Her position in the world considered, one could

forgive her for having borne so lightly the inevitable sorrows of life,

for having dismissed so readily the spiritual doubts which were the

heritage of her time; but was she a total stranger to passion? Did not

the fact of her still remaining unmarried make probable such a

deficiency in her nature? Had she a place among the women whom coldness

of temperament preserves in a bloom like that of youth, until fading

hair and sinking cheek betray them----?

Whilst he thought thus, Godwin was in appearance busy with the fern

Fanny had brought for his inspection. He talked about it, but in

snatches, with intervals of abstractedness.

Yet might he not be altogether wrong? Last year, when he observed

Sidwell in the Cathedral and subsequently at home, his impression had

been that her face was of rather pallid and dreamy cast; he recollected

that distinctly. Had she changed, or did familiarity make him less

sensible of her finer traits? Possibly she enjoyed better health

nowadays, and, if so, it might result from influences other than

physical. Her air of quiet happiness seemed to him especially

noticeable this afternoon, and as he brooded there came upon him a

dread which, under the circumstances, was quite irrational, but for all

that troubled his views. Perhaps Sidwell was betrothed to some one? He

knew of but one likely person--Miss Moorhouse's brother. About a month

ago the Warricombes had been on a visit at Budleigh Salterton, and

something might then have happened. Pangs of jealousy smote him, nor

could he assuage them by reminding himself that he had no concern

whatever in Sidwell's future.

'Will Mr. Warricombe be long away?' he asked, coldly.

'A day or two. I hope you didn't wish particularly to see him to-day?'

'Oh, no.'

'Do you know, Mr. Peak,' put in Fanny, 'that we are all going to London

next month, to live there for half a year?'

Godwin exhibited surprise. He looked from the speaker to her sister,

and Sidwell, as she smiled confirmation, bent very slightly towards him.

'We have made up our minds, after much uncertainty,' she said. 'My

brother Buckland seems to think that we are falling behind in

civilisation.'

'So we are,' affirmed Fanny, 'as Mr. Peak would admit, if only he could

be sincere.'

'Am I never sincere then, Miss Fanny?' Godwin asked.

'I only meant to say that nobody can be when the rules of politeness

interfere. Don't you think it's a pity? We might tell one another the

truth in a pleasant way.'

'I agree with you. But then we must be civilised indeed. How do you

think of London, Miss Warricombe? Which of its aspects most impresses

you?'

Sidwell answered rather indefinitely, and ended by mentioning that in

_Villette_, which she had just re-read, Charlotte Brontë makes a

contrast between the City and the West End, and greatly prefers the

former.

'Do you agree with her, Mr. Peak?'

'No, I can't. One understands the mood in which she wrote that; but a

little more experience would have led her to see the contrast in a

different light. That term, the West End, includes much that is

despicable, but it means also the best results of civilisation. The

City is hateful to me, and for a reason which I only understood after

many an hour of depression in walking about its streets. It represents

the ascendency of the average man.'

Sidwell waited for fuller explanation.

'A liberal mind,' Peak continued, 'is revolted by the triumphal

procession that roars perpetually through the City highways. With

myriad voices the City bellows its brutal scorn of everything but

material advantage. There every humanising influence is contemptuously

disregarded. I know, of course, that the trader may have his quiet

home, where art and science and humanity are the first considerations;

but the _mass_ of traders, corporate and victorious, crush all such

things beneath their heels. Take your stand (or try to do so) anywhere

near the Exchange; the hustling and jolting to which you are exposed

represents the very spirit of the life about you. Whatever is gentle

and kindly and meditative must here go to the wall--trampled,

spattered, ridiculed. Here the average man has it all his own way--a

gross utilitarian power.'

'Yes, I can see that,' Sidwell replied, thoughtfully. 'And perhaps it

also represents the triumphant forces of our time.'

He looked keenly at her, with a smile of delight.

'That also! The power which centres in the world's

money-markets--plutocracy.'

In conversing with Sidwell, he had never before found an opportunity of

uttering his vehement prejudices. The gentler side of his character had

sometimes expressed itself, but those impulses which were vastly more

significant lay hidden beneath the dissimulation he consistently

practised. For the first time he was able to look into Sidwell's face

with honest directness, and what he saw there strengthened his

determination to talk on with the same freedom.

'You don't believe, then,' said Sidwell, 'that democracy is the proper

name for the state into which we are passing?'

'Only if one can understand democracy as the opening of social

privileges to free competition amongst men of trade. And social

privilege is everything; home politics refer to nothing else.'

Fanny, true to the ingenuous principle of her years, put a direct

question:

'Do you approve of real democracy, Mr. Peak?'

He answered with another question:

'Have you read the "Life of Phokion" in Plutarch?'

'No, I'm sorry to say.'

'There's a story about him which I have enjoyed since I was your age.

Phokion was once delivering a public speech, and at a certain point the

majority of his hearers broke into applause; whereupon he turned to

certain of his friends who stood near and asked, "What have I said

amiss?"'

Fanny laughed.

'Then you despise public opinion?'

'With heart and soul!'

It was to Sidwell that he directed the reply. Though overcome by the

joy of such an utterance, he felt that, considering the opinions and

position of Buckland Warricombe, he was perhaps guilty of ill manners.

But Sidwell manifested no disapproval.

'Did you know that story?' Fanny asked of her.

'It's quite new to me.'

'Then I'm sure you'll read the "Life of Phokion" as soon as possible.

He will just suit you, Sidwell.'

Peak heard this with a shock of surprise which thrilled in him

deliciously. He had the strongest desire to look again at Sidwell but

refrained. As no one spoke, he turned to Bertha Lilywhite and put a

commonplace question.

A servant entered with the tea-tray, and placed it on a small table

near Fanny. Godwin looked at the younger girl; it seemed to him that

there was an excess of colour in her cheeks. Had a glance from Sidwell

rebuked her? With his usual rapidity of observation and inference he

made much of this trifle.

Contrary to what he expected, Sidwell's next remark was in a tone of

cheerfulness, almost of gaiety.

'One advantage of our stay in London will be that home will seem more

delightful than ever when we return.'

'I suppose you won't be back till next summer?'

'I am afraid not.'

'Shall you be living here then?' Fanny inquired.

'It's very doubtful.'

He wished to answer with a decided negative, but his tongue refused.

Sidwell was regarding him with calm but earnest eyes, and he knew,

without caring to reflect, that his latest projects were crumbling.

'Have you been to see our friends at Budleigh Salterton yet?' she asked.

'Not yet. I hope to in a few days.'

Pursuing the subject, he was able to examine her face as she spoke of

Mr. Moorhouse. His conjecture was assuredly baseless.

Fanny and Bertha began to talk together of domestic affairs, and

presently, when tea-cups were laid aside, the two girls went to another

part of the room; then they withdrew altogether. Peak was monologising

on English art as represented at the Academy, but finding himself alone

with Sidwell (it had never before happened) he became silent. Ought he

to take his leave? He must already have been sitting here more than

half-an-hour. But the temptation of _tête-à-tête_ was irresistible.

'You had a visit from Mr. Chilvers the other day?' he remarked,

abruptly.

'Yes; did he call to see you?'

Her tone gave evidence that she would not have introduced this topic.

'No; I heard from Mrs. Lilywhite. He had been to the vicarage. Has he

changed much since he was at Whitelaw?'

'So many years must make a difference at that time of life,' Sidwell

answered, smiling.

'But does he show the same peculiarities of manner?'

He tried to put the question without insistency, in a tone quite

compatible with friendliness. Her answer, given with a look of

amusement, satisfied him that there was no fear of her taking Mr

Chilvers too seriously.

'Yes. I think he speaks in much the same way.'

'Have you read any of his publications?'

'One or two. We have his lecture on _Altruism_.'

'I happen to know it. There are good things in it, I think. But I

dislike his modern interpretation of old principles.'

'You think it dangerous?'

He no longer regarded her frankly, and in the consciousness of her look

upon him he knit his brows.

'I think it both dangerous and offensive. Not a few clergymen nowadays,

who imagine themselves free from the letter and wholly devoted to

spirit, are doing their best in the cause of materialism. They

surrender the very points at issue between religion and worldliness.

They are so blinded by a vague humanitarian impulse as to make the New

Testament an oracle of popular Radicalism.'

Sidwell looked up.

'I never quite understood, Mr. Peak, how you regard Radicalism. You

think it opposed to all true progress?'

'Utterly, as concerns any reasonable limit of time.'

'Buckland, as you know, maintains that spiritual progress is only

possible by this way.'

'I can't venture to contradict him,' said Godwin; 'for it may be that

advance is destined only to come after long retrogression and anarchy.

Perhaps the way _does_ lie through such miseries. But we can't foresee

that with certainty, and those of us who hate the present tendency of

things must needs assert their hatred as strongly as possible, seeing

that we _may_ have a more hopeful part to play than seems likely.'

'I like that view,' replied Sidwell, in an undertone.

'My belief,' pursued Godwin, with an earnestness very agreeable to

himself, for he had reached the subject on which he could speak

honestly, 'is that an instructed man can only hold views such as your

brother's--hopeful views of the immediate future--if he has never been

brought into close contact with the lower classes. Buckland doesn't

know the people for whom he pleads.'

'You think them so degraded?'

'It is impossible, without seeming inhumanly scornful, to give a just

account of their ignorance and baseness. The two things, speaking

generally, go together. Of the ignorant, there are very few indeed who

can think purely or aspiringly. You, of course, object the teaching of

Christianity; but the lowly and the humble of whom it speaks scarcely

exist, scarcely can exist, in our day and country. A ludicrous pretence

of education is banishing every form of native simplicity. In the large

towns, the populace sink deeper and deeper into a vicious vulgarity,

and every rural district is being affected by the spread of contagion.

To flatter the proletariat is to fight against all the good that still

characterises educated England--against reverence for the beautiful,

against magnanimity, against enthusiasm of mind, heart, and soul.'

He quivered with vehemence of feeling, and the flush which rose to his

hearer's cheek, the swimming brightness of her eye, proved that a

strong sympathy stirred within her.

'I know nothing of the uneducated in towns,' she said, 'but the little

I have seen of them in country places certainly supports your opinion.

I could point to two or three families who have suffered distinct

degradation owing to what most people call an improvement in their

circumstances. Father often speaks of such instances, comparing the

state of things now with what he can remember.'