dwell 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 pertur