and how natural it is for you
to accept it. If only I could have come to know you well, your opinions
would not have stood between us.'

Peak made a slight gesture, and smiled incredulously.

'You think so now.'

'And I have such good reason for my thought,' rejoined Sidwell,
earnestly, 'that when you said you loved me, my only regret in looking
to the future was--that you had resolved to be a clergyman.'

He leaned back in the chair, and let a hand fall on his knee. The
gesture seemed to signify a weary relinquishment of concern in what
they were discussing.

'How could I foresee that?' he uttered, in a corresponding tone.

Sidwell was made uneasy by the course upon which she had entered. To
what did her words tend? If only to a demonstration that fate had used
him as the plaything of its irony--if, after all, she had nothing to
say to him but 'See how your own folly has ruined you', then she had
better have kept silence. She not only appeared to be offering him
encouragement, but was in truth doing so. She wished him to understand
that his way of thinking was no obstacle to her love, and with that
purpose she was even guilty of a slight misrepresentation. For it was
only since the shock of this disaster that she had clearly recognised
the change in her own mind. True, the regret of which she spoke had for
an instant visited her, but it represented a mundane solicitude rather
than an intellectual scruple. It had occurred to her how much brighter
would be their prospect if Peak were but an active man of the world,
with a career before him distinctly suited to his powers.

His contention was undeniably just. The influence to which she had from
the first submitted was the same that her father felt so strongly.
Godwin interested her as a self-reliant champion of the old faiths, and
his personal characteristics would never have awakened such sympathy in
her but for that initial recommendation. Natural prejudice would have
prevented her from perceiving the points of kindred between his
temperament and her own. His low origin, the ridiculous stories
connected with his youth--why had she, in spite of likelihood, been
able to disregard these things? Only because of what she then deemed
his spiritual value.

But for the dishonourable part he had played, this bond of love would
never have been formed between them. The thought was a new apology for
his transgression; she could not but defy her conscience, and look
indulg