the waste of years, the best part of a lifetime! It's
incredible to me as I look back. Janet called on us one day in London.
Heaven be thanked that she was forgiving enough to do so! What would
have become of me now?'

'How are you going to live, then?' Godwin asked, absently.

'How? My income is sufficient'----

'No, no; I mean, where and how will you live in your married life?'

'That's still uncertain. Janet mustn't go on with professional work. In
any case, I don't think she could for long; her strength isn't equal to
it. But I shouldn't wonder if we settle in Kingsmill. To you it would
seem intolerable? But why should we live in London? At Kingsmill Janet
has a large circle of friends; in London we know scarcely half-a-dozen
people--of the kind it would give us any pleasure to live with. We
shall have no lack of intellectual society; Janet knows some of the
Whitelaw professors. The atmosphere of Kingsmill isn't illiberal, you
know; we shan't be fought shy of because we object to pass Sundays in a
state of coma. But the years that I have lost! The irrecoverable years!'

'There's nothing so idle as regretting the past,' said Godwin, with
some impatience. 'Why groan over what couldn't be otherwise? The
probability is, Janet and you are far better suited to each other now
than you ever would have been if you had married long ago.'

'You think that?' exclaimed the other, eagerly. 'I have tried to see it
in that light. If I didn't feel so despicable!'

'She, I take it, doesn't think you so,' Godwin muttered.

'But how can she understand? I have tried to tell her everything, but
she refused to listen. Perhaps Marcella told her all she cared to know.'

'No doubt.'

Each brooded for a while over his own affairs, then Christian reverted
to the subject which concerned them both.

'Let us speak frankly. You will take this gift of Marcella's as it was
meant?'

How _was_ it meant? Critic and analyst as ever, Godwin could not be
content to see in it the simple benefaction of a woman who died loving
him. Was it not rather the last subtle device of jealousy? Marcella
knew that the legacy would be a temptation he could scarcely
resist--and knew at the same time that, if he accepted it, he
practically renounced his hope of marrying Sidwell Warricombe.
Doubtless she had learned as much as she needed to know of Sidwell's
position. Refusing this bequest, he was as far as ever from the
possibility of asking Sidwell to marr