Peak, on reaching home about eleven, was surprised to see a light in his sitting-room window.  As he entered, his landlady informed him that Mr. Moxey had been waiting upstairs for an hour or two.  Christian was reading.  He laid down the book and rose languidly.  His face was flushed, and he spoke with a laugh which suggested that a fit of despondency (as occasionally happened) had tempted him to excess in cordials.  Godwin understood these signs.  He knew that his friend’s intellect was rather brightened than impaired by such stimulus, and he affected not to be conscious of any peculiarity.

‘As you wouldn’t come to me,’ Christian began, ’I had no choice but to come to you.  My visit isn’t unwelcome, I hope?’

’Certainly not.  But how are you going to get home?  You know the time?’

’Don’t trouble.  I shan’t go to bed to-night.  Let me sit here and read, will you?  If I feel tired I can lie down on the sofa.  What a delightful book this is!  I must get it.’

It was a history of the Italian Renaissance, recently published.

‘Where does this phrase come from?’ he continued, pointing to a scrap of paper, used as a book-mark, on which Godwin had pencilled a note.  The words were:  ‘Foris ut moris, intus ut libet.’

‘It’s mentioned there,’ Peak replied, ’as the motto of those humanists who outwardly conformed to the common faith.’

’I see.  All very well when the Inquisition was flourishing, but sounds ignoble nowadays.’

’Do you think so?  In a half-civilised age, whether the sixteenth or the nineteenth century, a wise man may do worse than adopt it.’

‘Better be honest, surely?’

Peak stood for a moment as if in doubt, then exclaimed irritably: 

’Honest?  Honest?  Who is or can be honest?  Who truly declares himself?  When a man has learnt that truth is indeterminable, how is it more moral to go about crying that you don’t believe a certain dogma than to concede that the dogma may possibly be true?  This new morality of the agnostics is mere paltry conceit.  Why must I make solemn declaration that I don’t believe in absolute knowledge?  I might as well be called upon to inform all my acquaintances how I stand with regard to the theories of chemical affinity.  One’s philosophy has nothing to do with the business of life.  If I chose to become a Church of England clergyman, what moral objection could be made?’

This illustration was so amusing to Moxey, that his surprise at what preceded gave way to laughter.

‘I wonder,’ he exclaimed, ’that you never seriously thought of a profession for which you are so evidently cut out.’

Godwin kept silence; his face had darkened, and he seated himself with sullen weariness.

‘Tell me what you’ve been doing,’ resumed Moxey.  ’Why haven’t I heard from you?’

’I should have come in a day or two.  I thought you were probably out of town.’