Earwaker related the story he had heard from Malkin, adding:

'You must remember that they met only once in London; Malkin might very
well mistake another man for Peak.'

'Yes,' replied the other musingly. 'Yet it isn't impossible that Peak
has gone over there. If so, what on earth can he be up to? Why _should_
he hide from his friends?'

'_Cherchez la femme_,' said the journalist, with a smile. 'I can devise
no other explanation.'

'But I can't see that it would be an explanation at all. Grant
even--something unavowable, you know--are we Puritans? How could it
harm him, at all events, to let us know his whereabouts? No such
mystery ever came into my experience. It is too bad of Peak; it's
confoundedly unkind.'

'Suppose he has found it necessary to assume a character wholly
fictitious--or, let us say, quite inconsistent with his life and
opinions as known to us?'

This was a fruitful suggestion, long in Earwaker's mind, but not
hitherto communicated. Christian did not at once grasp its significance.

'How could that be necessary? Peak is no swindler. You don't imply that
he is engaged in some fraud?'

'Not in the ordinary sense, decidedly. But picture some girl or woman
of conventional opinions and surroundings. What if he resolved to win
such a wife, at the expense of disguising his true self?'

'But what an extraordinary idea!' cried Moxey. 'Why Peak is all but a
woman-hater!'

The journalist uttered croaking laughter.

'Have I totally misunderstood him?' asked Christian, confused and
abashed.

'I think it not impossible.'

'You amaze me!--But no, no; you are wrong, Earwaker. Wrong in your
suggestion, I mean. Peak could never sink to that. He is too
uncompromising'----

'Well, it will be explained some day, I suppose.'

And with a shrug of impatience, the journalist turned to another
subject. He, too, regretted his old friend's disappearance, and in a
measure resented it. Godwin Peak was not a man to slip out of one's
life and leave no appreciable vacancy. Neither of these men admired
him, in the true sense of the word, yet had his voice sounded at the
door both would have sprung up with eager welcome. He was a force--and
how many such beings does one encounter in a lifetime?

CHAPTER II

In different ways, Christian and Marcella Moxey had both been lonely
since their childhood. As a schoolgirl, Marcella seemed to her
companions conceited and repellent; only as the result of reflect