he _did_ love me. There has never since
been anything like a scene of emotion between us--_that_ her conscience
couldn't allow. She is a noble-minded woman, and has done her duty. But
if she is free'--

He quivered with passionate feeling.

'And you are content,' said Godwin, drily, 'to have wasted ten years of
your life for such a possibility?'

'Wasted!' Christian exclaimed. 'Come, come, Peak; why _will_ you affect
this wretched cynicism? Is it waste of years to have lived with the
highest and purest ideal perpetually before one's mind? What can a man
do better than, having found an admirable woman, to worship her
thenceforth, and defy every temptation that could lead him astray? I
don't like to seem boastful, but I _have_ lived purely and devotedly.
And if the test endured to the end of my life, I could sustain it. Is
the consciousness of my love nothing to Constance? Has it not helped
her?'

Such profound sincerity was astonishing to Peak. He did not admire it,
for it seemed to him, in this case at all events, the fatal weakness of
a character it was impossible not to love. Though he could not declare
his doubts, he thought it more than probable that this Laura of the
voiceless Petrarch was unworthy of such constancy, and that she had no
intention whatever of rewarding it, even if the opportunity arrived.
But this was the mere speculation of a pessimist; he might be
altogether wrong, for he had never denied the existence of high virtue,
in man or woman.

'There goes midnight!' he remarked, turning from the subject. 'You
can't sleep, neither can I. Why shouldn't we walk into town?'

'By all means; on condition that you will come home with me, and spend
to-morrow there.'

'Very well.'

They set forth, and with varied talk, often broken by long silences,
made their way through sleeping suburbs to the dark valley of Thames.

There passed another month, during which Peak was neither seen nor
heard of by his friends. One evening in October, as he sat studying at
the British Museum, a friendly voice claimed his attention. He rose
nervously and met the searching eye of Buckland Warricombe.

'I had it in mind to write to you,' said the latter. 'Since we parted
down yonder I have been running about a good deal, with few days in
town. Do you often read here?'

'Generally on Saturday afternoon.'

Buckland glanced at the open volume, and caught a heading, 'Apologetic
Theology.'

'Still at the works?'

'Yes; I