‘M—­m—­m,’ muttered Earwaker, slowly.  ’Then you have never been troubled with a twinge of conscience?’

’With a thousand!  I have been racked, martyred.  What has that to do with it?  Do you suppose I attach any final significance to those torments?  Conscience is the same in my view as an inherited disease which may possibly break out on any most innocent physical indulgence.—­What end have I been pursuing?  Is it criminal?  Is it mean?  I wanted to win the love of a woman—­nothing more.  To do that, I have had to behave like the grovelling villain who has no desire but to fill his pockets.  And with success!—­You understand that, Earwaker?  I have succeeded!  What respect can I have for the common morality, after this?’

‘You have succeeded?’ the other asked, thoughtfully.  ’I could have imagined that you had been in appearance successful’——­

He paused, and Peak resumed with vehemence: 

’No, not in appearance only.  I can’t tell you the story’——­

’I don’t wish you to’——­

’But what I have won is won for ever.  The triumph no longer rests on deceit.  What I insist upon is that by deceit only was it rendered possible.  If a starving man succeeds in stealing a loaf of bread, the food will benefit him no less than if he had purchased it; it is good, true sustenance, no matter how he got it.  To be sure, the man may prefer starvation; he may have so strong a metaphysical faith that death is welcome in comparison with what he calls dishonour.  I —­I have no such faith; and millions of other men in this country would tell the blunt truth if they said the same.  I have used means, that’s all.  The old way of candour led me to bitterness and cursing; by dissimulation I have won something more glorious than tongue can tell.’

It was in the endeavour to expel the subtlest enemy of his peace that Godwin dwelt so defiantly upon this view of the temptation to which he had yielded.  Since his farewell interview with Sidwell, he knew no rest from the torment of a mocking voice which bade him bear in mind that all his dishonour had been superfluous, seeing that whilst he played the part of a zealous Christian, Sidwell herself was drifting further and further from the old religion.  This voice mingled with his dreams, and left not a waking hour untroubled.  He refused to believe it, strove against the suggestion as a half-despairing man does against the persistent thought of suicide.  If only he could obtain Earwaker’s assent to the plan he put forward, it would support him in disregard of idle regrets.

‘It is impossible,’ said the journalist, ’for anyone to determine whether that is true or not—­for you, as much as for anyone else.  Be glad that you have shaken off the evil and retained the good, no use in saying more than that.’

‘Yes,’ declared the other, stubbornly, ’there is good in exposing false views of life.  I ought to have come utterly to grief and shame, and instead’——­