ith which he was obliged to answer her
questions all but destroyed the pleasure he would otherwise have found
in being affectionately tended. His sister, Mrs Cusse, was happy in her
husband, her children, and a flourishing business. Oliver was making
money, and enjoyed distinction among the shopkeeping community. His
aunt still dealt in millinery, and kept up her acquaintance with
respectable families. To Godwin all was like a dream dreamt for the
second time. He could not acknowledge any actual connection between
these people and himself. But their characteristics no longer gravely
offended him, and he willingly recognised the homespun worth which
their lives displayed. It was clear to him that by no possible agency
of circumstances could he have been held in normal relations with his
kinsfolk. However smooth his career, it must have wafted him to an
immeasurable distance from Twybridge. Nature had decreed that he was to
resemble the animals which, once reared, go forth in complete
independence of birthplace and the ties of blood. It was a harsh fate,
but in what had not fate been harsh to him? The one consolation was
that he alone suffered. His mother was no doubt occasionally troubled
by solicitude on his account, but she could not divine his inward
miseries, and an assurance that he had no material cares sufficed to
set her mind at ease.

'You are very like your father, Godwin,' she said, with a sigh. 'He
couldn't rest, however well he seemed to be getting on. There was
always something he wanted, and yet he didn't know what it was.'

'Yes, I must be like him,' Godwin replied, smiling.

He stayed five days, then returned to Bristol. A week after that, his
mother forwarded to him a letter which had come to Twybridge. He at
once recognised the writing, and broke the envelope with curiosity.

'If you should be in London [the note began], I beg you to let me see
you. There is something I have to say. To speak to you for a few
minutes I would come any distance. Don't accuse me of behaving
treacherously; it was not my fault. I know you would rather avoid me,
but do consent to hear what I have to say. If you have no intention of
coming to London, will you write and let me know where you are living?

What could Marcella have to say to him? Nothing surely that he at all
cared to hear. No doubt she imagined that he might be in ignorance of
the circumstances which had led to Buckland Warricombe's discovery; she
wished to