ever, what could justify him in
writing love-letters to a girl who, even if willing to marry him, must
not do so until he had a suitable home to offer her?

Since his maturity, he had never known so long a freedom from passion.
One day he wrote to Earwaker: 'I begin to your independence with regard
to women. It would be a strange thing if I became a convert to that way
of thinking, but once or twice of late I have imagined that it was
happening. My mind has all but recovered its tone, and I am able to
read, to think--I mean really to _think_, not to muse. I get through
big and solid books. Presently, if your offer still hold good, I shall
send you a scrap of writing on something or other. The pestilent
atmosphere of this place seems to invigorate me. Last Saturday evening
I took train, got away into the hills, and spent the Sunday
geologising. And a curious experience befell me,--one I had long, long
ago, in the Whitelaw days. Sitting down before some interesting strata,
I lost myself in something like nirvana, grew so subject to the idea of
vastness in geological time that all human desires and purposes
shrivelled to ridiculous unimportance. Awaking for a minute, I tried to
realise the passion which not long ago rent and racked me, but I was
flatly incapable of understanding it. Will this philosophic state
endure? Perhaps I have used up all my emotional energy? I hardly know
whether to hope or fear it.'

About midsummer, when his short holiday (he would only be released for
a fortnight) drew near, he was surprised by another letter from Sidwell.

'I am anxious [she wrote] to hear that you are well. It is more than
half a year since your last letter, and of late I have been constantly
expecting a few lines. The spring has been a time of trouble with us. A
distant relative, an old and feeble lady who has passed her life in a
little Dorsetshire village, came to see us in April, and in less than a
fortnight she was seized with illness and died. Then Fanny had an
attack of bronchitis, from which even now she is not altogether
recovered. On her account we are all going to Royat, and I think we
shall be away until the end of September. Will you let me hear from you
before I leave England, which will be in a week's time? Don't refrain
from writing because you think you have no news to send. Anything that
interests you is of interest to me. If it is only to tell me what you
have been reading, I shall be glad of a letter.'