ently on the evil which had borne such fruit.

Godwin had begun to speak again.

'This is quite in keeping with the tenor of my whole life. Whatever I
undertake ends in frustration at a point where success seems to have
just come within my reach. Great things and trifles--it's all the same.
My course at College was broken off at the moment when I might have
assured my future. Later, I made many an effort to succeed in
literature, and when at length something of mine was printed in a
leading review, I could not even sign it, and had no profit from the
attention it excited. Now--well, you see. Laughable, isn't it?'

Sidwell scarcely withheld herself from bending forward and giving him
her hand.

'What shall you do?' she asked.

'Oh, I am not afraid. I have still enough money left to support me
until I can find some occupation of the old kind. Fortunately, I am not
one of those men whose brains have no marketable value.'

'If you knew how it pains me to hear you!'

'If I didn't believe that, I couldn't speak to you like this. I never
thought you would let me see you again, and if you hadn't asked me to
come, I could never have brought myself to face you. But it would have
been a miserable thing to go off without even knowing what you thought
of me.'

'Should you never have written to me?'

'I think not. You find it hard to imagine that I have any pride, no
doubt; but it is there, explain it how one may.'

'It would have been wrong to leave me in such uncertainty.'

'Uncertainty?'

'About you--about your future.'

'Did you quite mean that? Hadn't your brother made you doubt whether I
loved you at all?'

'Yes. But no, I didn't doubt. Indeed, indeed, I didn't doubt! But I
felt such a need of hearing from your own lips that--Oh, I can't
explain myself!'

Godwin smiled sadly.

'I think I understand. But there was every reason for my believing that
_your_ love could not bear such a test. You must regard me as quite a
different man--one utterly unknown to you.'

He had resolved to speak not a word that could sound like an appeal to
her emotions. When he entered the room he felt a sincere indifference
as to what would result from the interview, for to his mind the story
was ended, and he had only to retire with the dignity still possible to
a dishonoured man. To touch the note of pathos would be unworthy; to
exert what influence might be left to him, a wanton cruelty. But he had
heard such unexpected things,