Though he spoke from the depths of his conviction, and was so moved that his voice rose and fell in tones such as a drawing-room seldom hears, he yet kept anxious watch upon Sidwell’s countenance.  That hint afforded him by Fanny was invaluable; it had enabled him to appeal to Sidwell’s nature by the ardent expression of what was sincerest in his own.  She too, he at length understood, had the aristocratic temperament.  This explained her to him, supplied the key of doubts and difficulties which had troubled him in her presence.  It justified, moreover, the feelings with which she had inspired him—­feelings which this hour of intimate converse had exalted to passion.  His heart thrilled with hope.  Where sympathies so profound existed, what did it matter that there was variance on a few points between his intellect and hers?  He felt the power to win her, and to defy every passing humiliation that lay in his course.

Sidwell raised her eyes with a look which signified that she was shaping a question diffidently.

‘Have you always thought so hopelessly of our times?’

‘Oh, I had my stage of optimism,’ he answered, smiling.  ’Though I never put faith in the masses, I once believed that the conversion of the educated to a purely human religion would set things moving in the right way.  It was ignorance of the world.’

He paused a moment, then added: 

’In youth one marvels that men remain at so low a stage of civilisation.  Later in life, one is astonished that they have advanced so far.’

Sidwell met his look with appreciative intelligence and murmured: 

‘In spite of myself, I believe that expresses a truth.’

Peak was about to reply, when Fanny and her friend reappeared.  Bertha approached for the purpose of taking leave, and for a minute or two Sidwell talked with her.  The young girls withdrew again together.

By the clock on the mantelpiece it was nearly six.  Godwin did not resume his seat, though Sidwell had done so.  He looked towards the window, and was all but lost in abstraction, when the soft voice again addressed him: 

’But you have not chosen your life’s work without some hope of doing good?’

‘Do you think,’ he asked, gently, ’that I shall be out of place in the Christian Church?’

’No—­no, I certainly don’t think that.  But will you tell me what you have set before yourself?’

He drew nearer and leaned upon the back of a chair.

’I hope for what I shall perhaps never attain.  Whatever my first steps may be—­I am not independent; I must take the work that offers—­it is my ambition to become the teacher of some rural parish which is still unpolluted by the influences of which we have been speaking—­or, at all events, is still capable of being rescued.  For work in crowded centres, I am altogether unfit; my prejudices are too strong; I should do far more harm than good.  But among a few simple people I think