They were now quitting the town, and Peak, unwilling to appear before strangers in a state of profuse perspiration, again moderated his friend’s speed.  They began to talk about the surrounding country, a theme which occupied them until the house was reached.  With quick-beating heart, Godwin found himself at the gate by which he had already twice passed.  Secure in the decency of his apparel, and no longer oppressed by bashfulness, he would have gone joyously forward but for the dread of a possible ridiculous association which his name might revive in the thoughts of Mr. and Mrs. Warricombe.  Yet Buckland—­who had no lack of kindly feeling—­would hardly have brought him here had the reception which awaited him been at all dubious.

‘If we don’t come across anyone,’ said Warricombe, ’we’ll go straight up to my room.’

But the way was not clear.  Within the beautiful old porch sat Sidwell Warricombe and her friend of the striking countenance, whom Godwin now knew as Miss Moorhouse.  Buckland addressed his sister in a tone of lively pleasure.

’Whom do you think I have met and brought home with me?  Here is my old friend, Godwin Peak.’

Under the two pairs of female eyes, Godwin kept a calm, if rather stern, face.

‘I should have had no difficulty in recognising Mr. Peak,’ said Sidwell, holding out her hand.  ’But was the meeting quite by chance?’

To Godwin himself the question was of course directed, with a look of smiling interest—­such welcome as could not have been improved upon; she listened to his reply, then presented him to Miss Moorhouse.  A slight languor in her movements and her voice, together with the beautiful coldness of her complexion, made it probable that she did not share the exuberant health manifest in her two brothers.  She conversed with mature self-possession, yet showed a slight tendency to abstractedness.  On being addressed, she regarded the speaker steadily for an instant before shaping her answer, which always, however trifling the subject, seemed carefully worded.  In these few moments of dialogue, Godwin reached the conclusion that Sidwell had not much sense of humour, but that the delicacy of her mind was unsurpassable.

In Miss Moorhouse there was no defect of refinement, but her conversation struck a note of sprightliness at once more energetic and more subtle than is often found in English girls.  Thus, though at times she looked so young that it might be doubted whether she had long been out of her teens, at others one suspected her older than Sidwell.  The friends happened to be as nearly as possible of an age, which was verging to twenty-six.

When he spoke to Miss Moorhouse, Buckland’s frank tone subdued itself.  He watched her face with reverent attention, smiled when she smiled, and joined in her laughter with less than his usual volume of sound.  In acuteness he was obviously inferior to her, and there were moments when he betrayed some nervousness under her rejoinders.  All this was matter of observation for Peak, who had learnt to exercise his discernment even whilst attending to the proprieties.