always appeared to him improbable, and as regards women his modesty was profound.  The simplest explanation, that he was himself incapable of pure devotedness, perhaps hits the truth.  Unsympathetic, however, he could with no justice be called, and now that the reality of Marcella’s love was forced upon his consciousness he thought of her with sincere pity,—­the emotion which had already possessed him (though he did not then analyse it) when he unsuspectingly looked into her troubled face a few days ago.

It was so hard to believe, that, on reaching home, he sat for a long time occupied with the thought of it, to the exclusion of his own anxieties.  What! this woman had made of him an ideal such as he himself sought among the most exquisite of her sex?  How was that possible?  What quality of his, personal, psychical, had such magnetic force?  What sort of being was he in Marcella’s eyes?  Reflective men must often enough marvel at the success of whiskered and trousered mortals in wooing the women of their desire, for only by a specific imagination can a person of one sex assume the emotions of the other.  Godwin had neither that endowment nor the peculiar self-esteem which makes love-winning a matter of course to some intelligent males.  His native arrogance signified a low estimate of mankind at large, rather than an overweening appreciation of his own qualities, and in his most presumptuous moments he had never claimed the sexual refulgence which many a commonplace fellow so gloriously exhibits.  At most, he had hoped that some woman might find him interesting, and so be led on to like him well enough for the venture of matrimony.  Passion at length constrained him to believe that his ardour might be genuinely reciprocated, but even now it was only in paroxysms that he held this assurance; the hours of ordinary life still exposed him to the familiar self-criticism, sometimes more scathing than ever.  He dreaded the looking-glass, consciously avoided it; and a like disparagement of his inner being tortured him through the endless labyrinths of erotic reverie.

Yet here was a woman who so loved him that not even a proud temper and his candid indifference could impose restraint upon her emotions.  As he listened to the most significant of her words he was distressed with shame, and now, in recalling them, he felt that he should have said something, done something, to disillusion her.  Could he not easily show himself in a contemptible light?  But reflection taught him that the shame he had experienced on Marcella’s behalf was blended with a gratification which forbade him at the moment to be altogether unamiable.  It was not self-interest alone that prompted his use of her familiar name.  In the secret places of his heart he was thankful to her for a most effective encouragement.  She had confirmed him in the hope that he was loved by Sidwell.

And now that he no longer feared her, Marcella was gradually dismissed from mind.  For a day or two he avoided the main streets of the town, lest a chance meeting with her should revive disquietude; but, by the time that Mrs. Warricombe’s invitation permitted him once more to follow his desire, he felt assured that Marcella was back in London, and the sense of distance helped to banish her among unrealities.