In less than ten minutes he offered to take leave, and no one urged him to stay longer.  Mr. Moxey made sober expression of good wishes, and hoped he might hear that the removal to London had proved ‘advantageous’.  This word sufficed to convert Godwin’s irritation into wrath; he said an abrupt ‘good-evening’, raised his hat as awkwardly as usual, and stalked away.

A few paces from the garden gate, he encountered Miss Janet Moxey, just coming home from walk or visit.  Another grab at his hat, and he would have passed without a word, but the girl stopped him.

‘We hear that you are going to London, Mr. Peak.’

‘Yes, I am, Miss Moxey.’

She examined his face, and seemed to hesitate.

‘Perhaps you have just been to say good-bye to father?’

‘Yes.’

Janet paused, looked away, again turned her eyes upon him.

‘You have friends there, I hope?’ she ventured.

‘No, I have none.’

’My cousin—­Christian, you remember—­would, I am sure, be very glad to help you in any way.’  Her voice sank, and at the same time she coloured just perceptibly under Godwin’s gaze.

‘So he assured me,’ was the reply.  ’But I must learn to be independent, Miss Moxey.’

Whereupon Godwin performed a salute, and marched forward.

His boxes were packed, and now he had but one more evening in the old home.  It was made less pleasant than it might have been by a piece of information upon which he by chance alighted in a newspaper.  The result of the Honours examination for the First B.A. at London had just been made known, and in two subjects a high place was assigned to Bruno Leathwaite Chilvers—­not the first place happily, but it was disagreeable enough.

Pooh! what matter?  What are academic successes?  Ten years hence, which name would have wider recognition—­Bruno Chilvers or Godwin Peak?  He laughed with scornful superiority.

No one was to accompany him to the station; on that he insisted.  He had decided for as early a train as possible, that the dolours of leave-taking might be abridged.  At a quarter to eight the cab drove up to the door.  Out with the trunks labelled ‘London’!

‘Take care of the cabinets!’ were his last words to his mother.  ’I may want to have them sent before long.’

He implied, what he had not ventured to say plainly, that he was leaving Twybridge for good, and henceforth would not think of it as home.  In these moments of parting, he resented the natural feeling which brought moisture to his eyes.  He hardened himself against the ties of blood, and kept repeating to himself a phrase in which of late he had summed his miseries:  ’I was born in exile—­born in exile.’  Now at length had he set forth on a voyage of discovery, to end perchance in some unknown land among his spiritual kith and kin.

Part II