When he went forth into the street again, Godwin felt his heart sink.  His solitude was the more complete for this hour of friendly dialogue.  No other companionship offered itself; if he lingered here, it must be as one of the drifting crowd, as an idle and envious spectator of the business and pleasure rife about him.  He durst not approach that quarter of the town where Sidwell was living —­if indeed she still remained here.  Happily, the vastness of London enabled him to think of her as at a great distance; by keeping to the district in which he now wandered he was practically as remote from her as when he walked the streets of Bristol.

Yet there was one person who would welcome him eagerly if he chose to visit her.  And, after all, might it not be as well if he heard what Marcella had to say to him?  He could not go to the house, for it would be disagreeable to encounter Moxey; but, if he wrote, Marcella would speedily make an appointment.  After an hour or two of purposeless rambling, he decided to ask for an interview.  He might learn something that really concerned him; in any case, it was a final meeting with Marcella, to whom he perhaps owed this much courtesy.

The reply was as prompt as that from Earwaker.  By the morning post came a letter inviting him to call upon Miss Moxey as soon as possible before noon.  She added, ’My brother is away in the country; you will meet no one here.’

By eleven o’clock he was at Notting Hill; in the drawing-room, he sat alone for two or three minutes.  Marcella entered silently, and came towards him without a smile; he saw that she read his face eagerly, if not with a light of triumph in her eyes.  The expression might signify that she rejoiced at having been an instrument of his discomfiture; perhaps it was nothing more than gladness at seeing him again.

‘Have you come to live in London?’ she asked, when they had shaken hands without a word.

‘I am only here for a day or two.’

‘My letter reached you without delay?’

’Yes.  It was sent from Twybridge to Bristol.  I didn’t reply then, as I had no prospect of being in London.’

‘Will you sit down?  You can stay for a few minutes?’

He seated himself awkwardly.  Now that he was in Marcella’s presence, he felt that he had acted unaccountably in giving occasion for another scene between them which could only end as painfully as that at Exeter.  Her emotion grew evident; he could not bear to meet the look she had fixed upon him.

’I want to speak of what happened in this house about Christmas time,’ she resumed.  ‘But I must know first what you have been told.’

‘What have you been told?’ he replied, with an uneasy smile.  ’How do you know that anything which happened here had any importance for me?’

’I don’t know that it had.  But I felt sure that Mr. Warricombe meant to speak to you about it.’

‘Yes, he did.’