first time that she had received him without the countenance of Mrs. Warricombe.  Observing her perfect manner, as she sat down and began to talk, he asked himself what her age really was.  The question had never engaged his thoughts.  Eleven years ago, when he saw her at the house near Kingsmill and again at Whitelaw College, she looked a very young girl, but whether of thirteen or sixteen he could not at the time have determined, and such a margin of possibility allowed her now to have reached—­it might be—­her twenty-seventh summer.  But twenty-seven drew perilously near to thirty; no, no, Sidwell could not be more than twenty-five.  Her eyes still had the dewy freshness of flowering maidenhood; her cheek, her throat, were so exquisitely young——­

In how divine a calm must this girl have lived to show, even at five-and-twenty, features as little marked by inward perturbation as those of an infant!  Her position in the world considered, one could forgive her for having borne so lightly the inevitable sorrows of life, for having dismissed so readily the spiritual doubts which were the heritage of her time; but was she a total stranger to passion?  Did not the fact of her still remaining unmarried make probable such a deficiency in her nature?  Had she a place among the women whom coldness of temperament preserves in a bloom like that of youth, until fading hair and sinking cheek betray them——?

Whilst he thought thus, Godwin was in appearance busy with the fern Fanny had brought for his inspection.  He talked about it, but in snatches, with intervals of abstractedness.

Yet might he not be altogether wrong?  Last year, when he observed Sidwell in the Cathedral and subsequently at home, his impression had been that her face was of rather pallid and dreamy cast; he recollected that distinctly.  Had she changed, or did familiarity make him less sensible of her finer traits?  Possibly she enjoyed better health nowadays, and, if so, it might result from influences other than physical.  Her air of quiet happiness seemed to him especially noticeable this afternoon, and as he brooded there came upon him a dread which, under the circumstances, was quite irrational, but for all that troubled his views.  Perhaps Sidwell was betrothed to some one?  He knew of but one likely person—­Miss Moorhouse’s brother.  About a month ago the Warricombes had been on a visit at Budleigh Salterton, and something might then have happened.  Pangs of jealousy smote him, nor could he assuage them by reminding himself that he had no concern whatever in Sidwell’s future.

‘Will Mr. Warricombe be long away?’ he asked, coldly.

’A day or two.  I hope you didn’t wish particularly to see him to-day?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Do you know, Mr. Peak,’ put in Fanny, ’that we are all going to London next month, to live there for half a year?’

Godwin exhibited surprise.  He looked from the speaker to her sister, and Sidwell, as she smiled confirmation, bent very slightly towards him.