Godwin tried to discover the implication of this remark.  Had it any reference to Miss Janet Moxey?  Whilst he stood in embarrassed silence, Christian looked about with a peculiar smile, and seemed on the point of indulging in further self-revelation; but Godwin of a sudden held out his hand for good-bye, and with friendly smiles they parted.

Peak was older than his years, and he saw in Christian one who might prove a very congenial associate, did but circumstances favour their intercourse.  That was not very likely to happen, but the meeting at all events turned his thoughts to London once more.

His attempts to ‘read’ were still unfruitful.  For one thing, the stress and excitement of the Whitelaw examinations had wearied him; it was characteristic of the educational system in which he had become involved that studious effort should be called for immediately after that frenzy of college competition.  He ought now to have been ‘sweating’ at his London subjects.  Instead of that, he procured works of general literature from a Twybridge library, and shut himself up with them in the garret bedroom.

A letter from Mr. Gunnery informed him that the writer would be home in a day or two.  This return took place late one evening, and on the morrow Godwin set forth to visit his friend.  On reaching the house, he learnt that Mr. Gunnery had suffered an accident which threatened serious results.  Walking barefoot in his bedroom the night before, he had stepped upon the point of a large nail, and was now prostrate, enduring much pain.  Two days elapsed before Godwin could be admitted; he then found the old man a mere shadow of his familiar self—­bloodless, hollow-eyed.

’This is the kind of practical joke that Fate likes to play upon us!’ the sufferer growled in a harsh, quaking voice, his countenance divided between genial welcome and surly wrath.  ’It’ll be the end of me.  Pooh! who doesn’t know that such a thing is fatal at my age?  Blood-poisoning has fairly begun.  I’d a good deal rather have broken my neck among honest lumps of old red sandstone.  A nail!  A damned Brummagem nail!—­So you collared the first prize in geology, eh?  I take that as a kindness, Godwin.  You’ve got a bit beyond Figuier and his Deluge, eh?  His Deluge, bah!’

And he laughed discordantly.  On the other side of the bed sat Mrs Gunnery, grizzled and feeble dame.  Shaken into the last stage of senility by this alarm, she wiped tears from her flaccid cheeks, and moaned a few unintelligible words.

The geologist’s forecast of doom was speedily justified.  Another day bereft him of consciousness, and when, for a short while, he had rambled among memories of his youth, the end came.  It was found that he had made a will, bequeathing his collections and scientific instruments to Godwin Peak:  his books were to be sold for the benefit of the widow, who would enjoy an annuity purchased out of her husband’s savings.  The poor old woman, as it proved, had little need of income; on the thirteenth day after Mr. Gunnery’s funeral, she too was borne forth from the house, and the faithful couple slept together.