s success in ridding Exeter of my objectionable presence.'

'Christian hasn't seen him again, nor have I.'

'I only wish to assure you that I have suffered no injury. My
experiment was doomed to failure. What led me to it, how I regarded it,
we won't discuss; I am as little prepared to do so now as when we
talked at Exeter. That chapter in my life is happily over. As soon as I
am established again in a place like that I had at Rotherhithe, I shall
be quite contented.'

'Contented?' She smiled incredulously. 'For how long?'

'Who can say? I have lost the habit of looking far forward.'

Marcella kept silence so long that he concluded she had nothing more to
say to him. It was an opportunity for taking leave without emotional
stress, and he rose from his chair.

'Don't go yet,' she said at once. 'It wasn't only this that I'----

Her voice was checked.

'Can I be of any use to you in Bristol?' Peak asked, determined to
avoid the trial he saw approaching.

'There is something more I wanted to say,' she pursued, seeming not to
hear him. 'You pretend to be contented, but I know that is impossible.
You talk of going back to a dull routine of toil, when what you most
desire is freedom. I want--if I can--to help you.'

Again she failed to command her voice. Godwin raised his eyes, and was
astonished at the transformation she had suddenly undergone. Her face,
instead of being colourless and darkly vehement, had changed to a
bright warmth, a smiling radiance such as would have become a happy
girl. His look seemed to give her courage.

'Only hear me patiently. We are such old friends--are we not? We have
so often proclaimed our scorn of conventionality, and why should a
conventional fear hinder what I want to say? You know--don't you?--that
I have far more money than I need or am ever likely to. I want only a
few hundreds a year, and I have more than a thousand.' She spoke more
and more quickly, fearful of being interrupted. 'Why shouldn't I give
you some of my superfluity? Let me help you in this way. Money can do
so much. Take some from me, and use it as you will--just as you will.
It is useless to _me_. Why shouldn't someone whom I wish well benefit
by it?'

Godwin was not so much surprised as disconcerted. He knew that
Marcella's nature was of large mould, and that whether she acted for
good or evil its promptings would be anything but commonplace. The
ardour with which she pleaded, and the magnitude of the benefac