to go forth as I am now going!' Godwin resumed, after
a long pause. 'Nothing to hide, no shams, no pretences. Let who will
inquire about me. I am an independent Englishman, with so and so much a
year. In England I have one friend only--that is you. The result, you
see, of all these years savage striving to knit myself into the social
fabric.'

'Well, you will invite me some day to your villa at Sorrento,' said
Earwaker, encouragingly.

'That I shall!' Godwin's eyes flashed with imaginative delight. 'And
before very long. Never to a home in England!'

'By-the-bye, a request. I have never had your portrait. Sit before you
leave London.'

'No. I'll send you one from Paris--it will be better done.'

'But I am serious. You promise?'

'You shall have the thing in less than a fortnight.'

The promise was kept. Earwaker received an admirable photograph, which
he inserted in his album with a curious sense of satisfaction. A face
by which every intelligent eye must be arrested; which no two observers
would interpret in the same way.

'His mate must be somewhere,' thought the man of letters, 'but he will
never find her.'

CHAPTER II

In his acceptance of Sidwell's reply, Peak did not care to ask himself
whether the delay of its arrival had any meaning one way or another.
Decency would hardly have permitted her to answer such a letter by
return of post; of course she waited a day or so.

But the interval meant more than this.

Sylvia Moorhouse was staying with her friend. The death of Mrs
Moorhouse, and the marriage of the mathematical brother, had left
Sylvia homeless, though not in any distressing sense; her inclination
was to wander for a year or two, and she remained in England only until
the needful arrangements could be concluded.

'You had better come with me,' she said to Sidwell, as they walked
together on the lawn after luncheon.

The other shook her head.

'Indeed, you had better.--What are you doing here? What are you going
to make of your life?'

'I don't know.'

'Precisely. Yet one ought to live on some kind of plan. I think it is
time you got away from Exeter; it seems to me you are finding its
atmosphere _morbific_.'

Sidwell laughed at the allusion.

'You know,' she said, 'that the reverend gentleman is shortly to be
married?'

'Oh yes, I have heard all about it. But is he forsaking the Church?'

'Retiring only for a time, they say.'

'Forgive the question, Sidwell--did he hono