me to hope that.
With you at my side--Silwell grant me this chance, that I may know the
joy of satisfied love! I am past the me to hope that. With you at my
side--Sidwell, grant me this age which is misled by vain fancies. I
have suffered unspeakably, longed for the calm strength, the pure,
steady purpose which would result to me from a happy marriage. There is
no fatal divergence between our minds; did you not tell me that? You
said that if I had been truthful from the first, you might have loved
me with no misgiving. Forget the madness into which I was betrayed.
There is no soil upon my spirit. I offer you love as noble as any man
is capable of. Think--think well--before replying to me; let your true
self prevail. You _did_ love me, dearest.----

Yours ever, Godwin Peak.'

At first he wrote slowly, as though engaged on a literary composition,
with erasions, insertions. Facts once stated, he allowed himself to
forget how Sidwell would most likely view them, and thereafter his pen
hastened: fervour inspired the last paragraph. Sidwell's image had
become present to him, and exercised all--or nearly all--its old
influence.

The letter must be copied, because of that laboured beginning. Copying
one's own words is at all times a disenchanting drudgery, and when the
end was reached Godwin signed his name with hasty contempt. What answer
could he expect to such an appeal? How vast an improbability that
Sidwell would consent to profit by the gift of Marcella Moxey!

Yet how otherwise could he write? With what show of sincerity could he
_offer_ to refuse the bequest? Nay, in that case he must not offer to
do so, but simply state the fact that his refusal was beyond recall.
Logically, he had chosen the only course open to him,--for to refuse
independence was impossible.

A wheezy clock in his landlady's kitchen was striking two. For very
fear of having to revise his letter in the morning, he put it into its
envelope, and went out to the nearest pillar-post.

That was done. Whether Sidwell answered with 'Yes' or with 'No', he was
a free man.

On the morrow he went to his work as usual, and on the day after that.
The third morning might bring a reply--but did not. On the evening of
the fifth day, when he came home, there lay the expected letter. He
felt it; it was light and thin. That hideous choking of suspense--Well,
it ran thus:

'I cannot. It is not that I am troubled by your accepting the legacy.
You have every ri