She tried to go on with her letter, but failed.  As Buckland smoked in silence, she at length rose and said she would go upstairs.

‘All right!  Shall see you at breakfast.  Good-night!’

At nine next morning Mrs. Warricombe sent a message to Buckland that she wished to see him in her bedroom.  He entered hurriedly.

’Cold better, mother?  I have only just time to drink a cup of coffee.  I want to catch Peak before he can have left home.’

‘Mr. Peak?  Why?  I was going to speak about him.’

‘What were you going to say?’ Buckland asked, anxiously.

His mother began in a roundabout way which threatened long detention.  In a minute or two Buckland had gathered enough to interrupt her with the direct inquiry: 

‘You don’t mean that there’s anything between him and Sidwell?’

’I do hope not; but I can’t imagine why she should—­really, almost make a private appointment.  I am very uneasy, Buckland.  I have hardly slept.  Sidwell is rather—­you know’——­

’The deuce!  I can’t stop now.  Wait an hour or two, and I shall have seen the fellow.  You needn’t alarm yourself.  He will probably have disappeared in a few days.’

‘What do you mean?’ Mrs. Warricombe asked, with nervous eagerness.

‘I’ll explain afterwards.’

He hurried away.  Sidwell was at the breakfast-table.  Her eyes seemed to declare that she had not slept well.  With an insignificant word or two, the young man swallowed his cup of coffee, and had soon left the house.

CHAPTER III

The wrath which illumined Buckland’s countenance as he strode rapidly towards Longbrook Street was not unmingled with joy.  In the deep pocket of his ulster lay something heavy which kept striking against his leg, and every such contact spurred him with a sense of satisfaction.  All his suspicions were abundantly justified.  Not only would his father and Sidwell be obliged to confess that his insight had been profounder than theirs, but he had the pleasure of standing justified before his own conscience.  The philosophy by which he lived was strikingly illustrated and confirmed.

He sniffed the morning air, enjoyed the firmness of the frozen ground, on which his boots made a pleasant thud.  To be sure, the interview before him would have its disagreeableness, but Buckland was not one of those over-civilised men who shrink from every scene of painful explanation.  The detection of a harmful lie was decidedly congenial to him—­especially when he and his had been made its victims.  He was now at liberty to indulge that antipathetic feeling towards Godwin Peak which sundry considerations had hitherto urged him to repress.  Whatever might have passed between Peak and Sidwell, he could not doubt that his sister’s peace was gravely endangered; the adventurer (with however much or little sincerity) had been making subtle love to her.  Such a thought was intolerable.  Buckland’s class-prejudice asserted itself with brutal vigour now that it had moral indignation for an ally.