d her when
she read it on its first appearance, how her father had spoken of it.
Buckland's manifold evidence was irresistible. Why should Peak have
concealed his authorship? Why had he disappeared from among the people
who thoroughly knew him?

She had loved a dream. What a task would it be to distinguish between
those parts of Peak's conversation which represented his real thoughts,
and those which were mockery of his listeners! The plan of a retired
life which he had sketched to her--was it all falsehood? Impossible,
for his love was inextricably blended with the details. Did he imagine
that the secret of his unbelief could be preserved for a lifetime, and
that it would have no effect whatever upon his happiness as a man? This
seemed a likely reading of the problem. But what a multitude of moral
and intellectual obscurities remained! The character which had seemed
to her nobly simple was become a dark and dread enigma.

She knew so little of his life. If only it could all be laid bare to
her, the secret of his position would be revealed. Buckland's violence
altogether missed its mark; the dishonour of such a man as Godwin Peak
was due to no gross incentive.

It was probable that, in talk with her father, he had been guilty of
more deliberate misrepresentation than had marked his intercourse with
the rest of the family. Her father, she felt sure, had come to regard
him as a valuable source of argument in the battle against materialism.
Doubtless the German book, which Peak was translating, bore upon that
debate, and consequently was used as an aid to dissimulation. Thinking
of this, she all but shared her brother's vehement feeling. It pained
her to the inmost heart that her father's generous and candid nature
should thus have been played upon. The deceit, as it concerned herself
alone, she could forgive; at least she could suspend judgment until the
accused had offered his defence--feeling that the psychology of the
case must till then be beyond her powers of analysis. But the wrong
done to her father revolted her.

A tap at the door caused her to rise, trembling. She remembered that by
this time her mother must be aware of the extraordinary disclosure, and
that a new scene of wretched agitation had to be gone through.

'Sidwell!'

It was Mrs. Warricombe's voice, and the door opened.

'Sidwell!--What _does_ all this mean? I don't understand half that
Buckland has been telling me.'

The speaker's face was mo