’To the end her mind kept its clearness and courage.  One day she reminded me of Heine—­how we had talked of that “conversion” on the mattress-grave, and had pitied the noble intellect subdued by disease.  “I shan’t live long enough,” she said, “to incur that danger.  What I have thought ever since I could study, I think now, and shall to the last moment.”  I buried her without forms of any kind, in the cemetery at Kingsmill.  That was what she wished.  I should have despised myself if I had lacked that courage.’

‘It was right,’ muttered Godwin.

’And I wear no mourning, you see.  All that kind of thing is ignoble.  I am robbed of a priceless companionship, but I don’t care to go about inviting people’s pity.  If only I could forget those months of suffering!  Some day I shall, perhaps, and think of her only as she lived.’

‘Were you alone with her all the time?’

‘No.  Our cousin Janet was often with us.’  Christian spoke with averted face.  ’You don’t know, of course, that she has gone in for medical work—­practises at Kingsmill.  The accident was at a village called Lowton, ten miles or more from Kingsmill.  Janet came over very often.’

Godwin mused on this development of the girl whom he remembered so well.  He could not direct his thoughts; a languor had crept over him.

‘Do you recollect, Peak,’ said Christian, presently, ’the talk we had in the fields by Twybridge, when we first met?’

The old friendliness was reappearing in his manner, He was yielding to the impulse to be communicative, confidential, which had always characterised him.

‘I remember,’ Godwin murmured.

’If only my words then had had any weight with you!  And if only I had acted upon my own advice!  Just for those few weeks I was sane; I understood something of life; I saw my true way before me.  You and I have both gone after ruinous ideals, instead of taking the solid good held out to us.  Of course, I know your story in outline.  I don’t ask you to talk about it.  You are independent now, and I hope you can use your freedom.—­Well, and I too am free.’

The last words were in a lower tone.  Godwin glanced at the speaker, whose sadness was not banished, but illumined with a ray of calm hope.

‘Have you ever thought of me and my infatuation?’ Christian asked.

‘Yes.’

’I have outlived that mawkish folly.  I used to drink too much; the two things went well together.  It would shame me to tell you all about it.  But, happily, I have been able to go back about thirteen years—­recover my old sane self—­and with it what I then threw away.’

‘I understand.’

’Do you?  Marcella knew of it, just before her death, and it made her glad.  But the waste of years, the best part of a lifetime!  It’s incredible to me as I look back.  Janet called on us one day in London.  Heaven be thanked that she was forgiving enough to do so!  What would have become of me now?’