‘You are going?’ she said.

’Yes; but surely there is no reason why we shouldn’t say good-bye in a natural and friendly way?’

‘Can you forgive me for that deceit I practised?’

Peak laughed.

’What does it matter?  We should in any case have met at Budleigh Salterton.’

‘No.  I had no serious thought of accepting their invitation.’

She stood looking away from him, endeavouring to speak as though the denial had but slight significance.  Godwin stirred impatiently.

‘I should never have gone to Twybridge,’ Marcella continued, ’but for Mr. Malkin’s story.’

He turned to her.

‘You mean that his story had a disagreeable sound?’

Marcella kept silence, her fingers working together.

‘And is your mind relieved?’ he added.

’I wish you were back in London.  I wish this change had never come to pass.’

’I wish that several things in my life had never come to pass.  But I am here, and my resolve is unalterable.  One thing I must ask you—­ how shall you represent my position to your brother?’

For a moment Marcella hesitated.  Then, meeting his look, she answered with nervous haste: 

‘I shall not mention you to him.’

Ashamed to give any sign of satisfaction, and oppressed by the feeling that he owed her gratitude, Peak stood gazing towards the windows with an air of half-indifferent abstractedness.  It was better to let the interview end thus, without comment or further question; so he turned abruptly, and offered his hand.

‘Good-bye.  You will hear of me, or from me.’

‘Good-bye!’

He tried to smile; but Marcella had a cold face, expressive of more dignity than she had hitherto shown.  As he closed the door she was still looking towards him.

He knew what the look meant.  In his position, a man of ordinary fibre would long ago have nursed the flattering conviction that Marcella loved him.  Godwin had suspected it, but in a vague, unemotional way, never attaching importance to the matter.  What he had clearly understood was, that Christian wished to inspire him with interest in Marcella, and on that account, when in her company, he sometimes set himself to display a deliberate negligence.  No difficult undertaking, for he was distinctly repelled by the thought of any relations with her more intimate than had been brought about by his cold intellectual sympathy.  Her person was still as disagreeable to him as when he first met her in her uncle’s house at Twybridge.  If a man sincerely hopes that a woman does not love him (which can seldom be the case where a suggestion of such feeling ever arises), he will find it easy to believe that she does not.  Peak not only had the benefit of this principle; the constitution of his mind made it the opposite of natural for him to credit himself with having inspired affection.  That his male friends held him in any warm esteem