A wheezy clock in his landlady’s kitchen was striking two.  For very fear of having to revise his letter in the morning, he put it into its envelope, and went out to the nearest pillar-post.

That was done.  Whether Sidwell answered with ‘Yes’ or with ‘No’, he was a free man.

On the morrow he went to his work as usual, and on the day after that.  The third morning might bring a reply—­but did not.  On the evening of the fifth day, when he came home, there lay the expected letter.  He felt it; it was light and thin.  That hideous choking of suspense—­Well, it ran thus: 

’I cannot.  It is not that I am troubled by your accepting the legacy.  You have every right to do so, and I know that your life will justify the hopes of her who thus befriended you.  But I am too weak to take this step.  To ask you to wait yet longer, would only be a fresh cowardice.  You cannot know how it shames me to write this.  In my very heart I believe I love you, but what is such love worth?  You must despise me, and you will forget me.  I live in a little world; in the greater world where your place is, you will win a love very different.

S. W.’

Godwin laughed aloud as the paper dropped from his hand.

Well, she was not the heroine of a romance.  Had he expected her to leave home and kindred—­the ‘little world’ so infinitely dear to her—­and go forth with a man deeply dishonoured?  Very young girls have been known to do such a thing; but a thoughtful mature woman ——!  Present, his passion had dominated her:  and perhaps her nerves only.  But she had had time to recover from that weakness.

A woman, like most women of cool blood, temperate fancies.  A domestic woman; the ornament of a typical English home.

Most likely it was true that the matter of the legacy did not trouble her.  In any case she would not have consented to marry him, and therefore she knew no jealousy.  Her love! why, truly, what was it worth?

(Much, much! of no less than infinite value.  He knew it, but this was not the moment for such a truth.)

A cup of tea to steady the nerves.  Then thoughts, planning, world-building.

He was awake all night, and Sidwell’s letter lay within reach.—­ Did she sleep calmly?  Had she never stretched out her hand for his letter, when all was silent?  There were men who would not take such a refusal.  A scheme to meet her once more—­the appeal of passion, face to face, heart to heart—­the means of escape ready —­and then the ’greater world’——­

But neither was he cast in heroic mould.  He had not the self-confidence, he had not the hot, youthful blood.  A critic of life, an analyst of moods and motives; not the man who dares and acts.  The only important resolve he had ever carried through was a scheme of ignoble trickery—­to end in frustration.

‘The greater world’.  It was a phrase that had been in his own mind once or twice since Moxey’s visit.  To point him thither was doubtless the one service Sidwell could render him.  And in a day or two, that phrase was all that remained to him of her letter.