‘Her husband is ill,’ said the other, by way of reply.  He leaned forward with his arms upon the table, and gazed at Godwin with eyes of peculiar brightness.

‘Ill, is he?’ returned Godwin, with slow interest.  ’In the same way as before?’

‘Yes, but much worse.’

Christian paused; and when he again spoke it was hurriedly, confusedly.

’How can I help getting excited about it?  How can I behave decently?  You’re the only man I ever speak to on the subject, and no doubt I both weary and disgust you; but I must speak to some one.  My nerves are strung beyond endurance; it’s only by speaking that I can ease myself from the intolerable strain.’

‘Have you seen her lately?’

’Yesterday, for a moment, in the street.  It’s ten months since the last meeting.’

‘Well,’ remarked Godwin, abruptly, ’it’s probable the man will die one of these days, then your trials will have a happy end.  I see no harm in hoping that his life may be short—­that’s a conventional feeling.  If two people can be benefited by the death of a single person, why shouldn’t we be glad in the prospect of his dying?  Not of his suffering—­that’s quite another thing.  But die he must; and to curtail the life of a being who at length wholly ceases to exist is no injury.  You can’t injure a nonentity.  Do you think I should take it ill if I knew that some persons were wishing my death?  Why, look, if ever I crush a little green fly that crawls upon me in the fields, at once I am filled with envy of its fate—­sincerest envy.  To have passed so suddenly from being into nothingness—­how blessed an extinction!  To feel in that way, instinctively, in the very depths of your soul, is to be a true pessimist.  If I had ever doubted my sincerity in pessimism, this experience, several times repeated, would have reassured me.’

Christian covered his face, and brooded for a long time, whilst Godwin sat with his eyes on vacancy.

‘Come and see us to-morrow,’ said the former, at length.

‘Perhaps.’;

‘Why do you keep away?’

‘I’m in no mood for society.’

‘We’ll have no one.  Only Marcella and I.’

Again a long silence.

‘Marcella is going in for comparative philology,’ Christian resumed, with the gentle tone in which he invariably spoke of his sister.  ’What a mind that girl has!  I never knew any woman of half her powers.’

Godwin said nothing.

‘No,’ continued the other fervently, ’nor of half her goodness.  I sometimes think that no mortal could come nearer to our ideal of moral justice and purity.  If it were not for her, I should long ago have gone to perdition, in one way or another.  It’s her strength, not my own, that has saved me.  I daresay you know this?’

‘There’s some truth in it, I believe,’ Peak answered, his eye wandering.

’See how circumstances can affect one’s judgment.  If, just about the time I first knew you, I had abandoned myself to a life of sottish despair, of course I should have charged Constance with the blame of it.  Now that I have struggled on, I can see that she has been a blessing to me instead of a curse.  If Marcella has given me strength, I have to thank Constance for the spiritual joy which otherwise I should never have known.’