‘How are you going to live, then?’ Godwin asked, absently.

’How?  My income is sufficient’——­

‘No, no; I mean, where and how will you live in your married life?’

’That’s still uncertain.  Janet mustn’t go on with professional work.  In any case, I don’t think she could for long; her strength isn’t equal to it.  But I shouldn’t wonder if we settle in Kingsmill.  To you it would seem intolerable?  But why should we live in London?  At Kingsmill Janet has a large circle of friends; in London we know scarcely half-a-dozen people—­of the kind it would give us any pleasure to live with.  We shall have no lack of intellectual society; Janet knows some of the Whitelaw professors.  The atmosphere of Kingsmill isn’t illiberal, you know; we shan’t be fought shy of because we object to pass Sundays in a state of coma.  But the years that I have lost!  The irrecoverable years!’

‘There’s nothing so idle as regretting the past,’ said Godwin, with some impatience.  ’Why groan over what couldn’t be otherwise?  The probability is, Janet and you are far better suited to each other now than you ever would have been if you had married long ago.’

‘You think that?’ exclaimed the other, eagerly.  ’I have tried to see it in that light.  If I didn’t feel so despicable!’

‘She, I take it, doesn’t think you so,’ Godwin muttered.

’But how can she understand?  I have tried to tell her everything, but she refused to listen.  Perhaps Marcella told her all she cared to know.’

‘No doubt.’

Each brooded for a while over his own affairs, then Christian reverted to the subject which concerned them both.

’Let us speak frankly.  You will take this gift of Marcella’s as it was meant?’

How was it meant?  Critic and analyst as ever, Godwin could not be content to see in it the simple benefaction of a woman who died loving him.  Was it not rather the last subtle device of jealousy?  Marcella knew that the legacy would be a temptation he could scarcely resist—­and knew at the same time that, if he accepted it, he practically renounced his hope of marrying Sidwell Warricombe.  Doubtless she had learned as much as she needed to know of Sidwell’s position.  Refusing this bequest, he was as far as ever from the possibility of asking Sidwell to marry him.  Profiting by it, he stood for ever indebted to Marcella, must needs be grateful to her, and some day, assuredly, would reveal the truth to whatever woman became his wife.  Conflict of reasonings and emotions made it difficult to answer Moxey’s question.

‘I must take time to think of it,’ he said, at length.

’Well, I suppose that is right.  But—­well, I know so little of your circumstances’——­

‘Is that strictly true?’ Peak asked.

’Yes.  I have only the vaguest idea of what you have been doing since you left us.  Of course I have tried to find out.’

Godwin smiled, rather gloomily.