tion she
desired to bestow upon him, so affected his imagination that for the
moment he stood as if doubting what reply to make. The doubt really in
his mind was whether Marcella had calculated upon his weakness, and
hoped to draw him within her power by the force of such an obligation,
or if in truth she sought only to appease her heart with the exercise
of generosity.

'You will let me?' she panted forth, watching him with brilliant eyes.
'This shall be a secret for ever between you and me. It imposes no debt
of gratitude--how I despise the thought! I give you what is worthless
to me,--except that it can do _you_ good. But you can thank me if you
will. I am not above being thanked.' She laughed unnaturally. 'Go and
travel at first, as you wished to. Write me a short letter every
month--every two months, just that I may know you are enjoying your
life. It is agreed, isn't it?'

She held her hand to him, but Peak drew away, his face averted.

'How can you give me the pain of refusing such an offer?' he exclaimed,
with remonstrance which was all but anger. 'You know the thing is
utterly impossible. I should be ridiculous if I argued about it for a
moment.'

'I can't see that it is impossible.'

'Then you must take my word for it. But I have no right to speak to you
in that way,' he added, more kindly, seeing the profound humiliation
which fell upon her. 'You meant to come to my aid at a time when I
seemed to you lonely and miserable. It was a generous impulse, and I do
indeed thank you. I shall always remember it and be grateful to you.'

Marcella's face was again in shadow. Its lineaments hardened to an
expression of cold, stern dignity.

'I have made a mistake,' she said. 'I thought you above common ways of
thinking.'

'Yes, you put me on too high a pedestal,' Peak answered, trying to
speak humorously. 'One of my faults is that I am apt to mistake my own
position in the same way.'

'You think yourself ambitious. Oh, if you knew really great ambition!
Go back to your laboratory, and work for wages. I would have saved you
from that.'

The tone was not vehement, but the words bit all the deeper for their
unimpassioned accent. Godwin could make no reply.

'I hope,' she continued, 'we may meet a few years hence. By that time
you will have learnt that what I offered was not impossible. You will
wish you had dared to accept it. I know what your _ambition_ is. Wait
till you are old enough to see it in its true l