She endeavoured to understand the smile which rose to his lips.  ’Now it is clear to me,’ he said.  ’Yes, I suppose that was inevitable, sooner or later.’

‘You knew that he had become acquainted with the Moxeys?’

Her tone was more reserved than hitherto.

’Yes, I knew he had.  He met Miss Moxey by chance at Budleigh Salterton, and I happened to be there—­at the Moorhouses’—­on the same day.’

Sidwell glanced at him inquiringly, and waited for something more.

‘I saw Miss Moxey in private,’ he added, speaking more quickly, ’and asked her to keep my secret.  I ought to be ashamed to tell you this, but it is better you should know how far my humiliation has gone.’

He saw that she was moved with strong feeling.  The low tone in which she answered had peculiar significance.

‘Did you speak of me to Miss Moxey?’

‘I must forgive you for asking that,’ Peak replied, coldly.  ’It may well seem to you that I have neither honour nor delicacy left.’

There had come a flush on her cheeks.  For some moments she was absorbed in thought.

‘It seems strange to you,’ he continued at length, ’that I could ask Miss Moxey to share such a secret.  But you must understand on what terms we were—­she and I. We have known each other for several years.  She has a man’s mind, and I have always thought of her in much the same way as of my male companions.—­Your brother has told you about her, perhaps?’

‘I have met her in London.’

‘Then that will make my explanation easier,’ said Godwin, disregarding the anxious questions that at once suggested themselves to him.  ’Well, I misled her, or tried to do so.  I allowed her to suppose that I was sincere in my new undertakings, and that I didn’t wish—­Oh!’ he exclaimed, suddenly breaking off, ’Why need I go any further in confession?  It must be as miserable for you to hear as for me to speak.  Let us make an end of it.  I can’t understand how I have escaped detection so long.’

Remembering every detail of Buckland’s story, Sidwell felt that she had possibly been unjust in representing the Moxeys as her brother’s authority; in strictness, she ought to mention that a friend of theirs was the actual source of information.  But she could not pursue the subject; like Godwin, she wished to put it out of her mind.  What question could there be of honour or dishonour in the case of a person such as Miss Moxey, who had consented to be party to a shameful deceit?  Strangely, it was a relief to her to have heard this.  The moral repugnance which threatened to estrange her from Godwin, was now directed in another quarter; unduly restrained by love, it found scope under the guidance of jealousy.

‘You have been trying to adapt yourself,’ she said, ’to a world for which you are by nature unfitted.  Your place is in the new order; by turning back to the old, you condemned yourself to a wasted life.  Since we have been in London, I have come to understand better the great difference between modern intellectual life and that which we lead in these far-away corners.  You must go out among your equals, go and take your part with men who are working for the future.’