is?'

'Yes, I promise.'

There was danger even in the exchange of these hurried sentences. Miss
Walworth had glanced back, and might possibly have caught a phrase that
aroused curiosity. Having accompanied the girls to within view of their
destination, Peak said good-night, and went home to spend the rest of
the evening in thought which was sufficiently absorbing.

The next day he had no sight of Marcella. At luncheon the Moorhouses
were alone. Afterwards Godwin accepted a proposal of the mathematician
(who was generally invisible amid his formulae) for a walk up the Otter
valley. Naturally they talked of Coleridge, whose metaphysical side
appealed to Moorhouse. Peak dwelt on the human and poetical, and was
led by that peculiar recklessness of mood, which at times relieved his
nervous tension, to defend opium eating, as a source of pleasurable
experience.

'You will hardly venture on that paradox in the pulpit,' remarked his
companion, with laughter.

'Perhaps not. But I have heard arguments from that place decidedly more
immoral.'

'No doubt.'

Godwin corrected the impression he perhaps had made by turning with
sudden seriousness to another subject. The ironic temptation was
terribly strong in him just now. One is occasionally possessed by a
desire to shout in the midst of a silent assembly; and impulse of the
same kind kept urging him to utter words which would irretrievably ruin
his prospects. The sense that life is an intolerable mummery can with
difficulty be controlled by certain minds, even when circumstances
offer no keen incitement to rebellion. But Peak's position to-day
demanded an incessant effort to refrain from self-betrayal. What a joy
to declare himself a hypocrite, and snap mocking fingers in the world's
face! As a safeguard, he fixed his mind upon Sidwell, recalled her
features and her voice as clearly as possible, stamped into his heart
the conviction that she half loved him.

When he was alone again, he of a sudden determined to go to Exeter. He
could no longer endure uncertainty as to the contents of Marcella's
letter. As it was too late for the coach, he set off and walked five
miles to Exmouth, where he caught a train.

The letter lay on his table, and with it one on which he recognised his
mother's handwriting.

Marcella wrote in the simplest way, quite as if their intercourse had
never been disturbed. As she happened to be staying with friends at
Budleigh Salterton, it seemed possi