'Do you think so? Just drop a line to father, and warn him that we may kept here for some time.'
'Shall I send for Dr Endacott?'
'Just as you like, dear.'
But Mrs. Warricombe had eaten such an excellent lunch, that Sidwell could not feel uneasy.
'We'll see how you are this evening. At all events, it will be safer for you not to go downstairs. If you lie quiet for an hour or two, I can look for those pamphlets that father wants.'
'Just as you like, dear.'
By three o'clock the invalid was calmly slumbering. Having entered the bedroom on tiptoe and heard regular breathing, Sidwell went down and for a few minutes lingered about the hall. A servant came to her for instructions on some domestic matter; when this was dismissed she mentioned that, if anyone called, she would be found in the library.
The pamphlets of which her father had spoken were soon discovered. She laid them aside, and seated herself by the fire, but without leaning back. At any sound within or outside the house she moved her head to listen. Her look was anxious, but the gleam of her eyes expressed pleasurable agitation.
At half-past three she went into the drawing-room, where all the furniture was draped, and the floor bare. Standing where she could look from a distance through one of the windows, at which the blind had been raised, she waited for a quarter of an hour. Then the chill atmosphere drove her back to the fireside. In the study, evidences of temporary desertion were less oppressive, but the windows looked only upon a sequestered part of the garden. Sidwell desired to watch the approach from the high-road, and in a few minutes she was again in the drawing-room. But scarcely had she closed the door behind her when a ringing of the visitors' bell sounded with unfamiliar distinctness. She started, hastened from the room, fled into the library, and had time to seat herself before she heard the footsteps of a servant moving in answer to the summons.
The door opened, and Peak was announced.
Sidwell had never known what it was to be thus overcome with emotion. Shame at her inability to command the calm features with which she would naturally receive a caller flushed her cheeks and neck; she stepped forward with downcast eyes, and only in offering her hand could at length look at him who stood before her. She saw at once that Peak was unlike himself; he too had unusual warmth in his countenance, and his eyes seemed strangely large, luminous. On his forehead were drops of moisture.
This sight restored her self-control, or such measure of it as permitted her to speak in the conventional way.
'I am sorry that mother can't leave her room. She had a slight cold this morning, but I didn't think it would give her any trouble.'
Peak was delighted, and betrayed the feeling even whilst he constrained his face into a look of exaggerated anxiety.
'It won't be anything serious, I hope? The railway journey, I'm afraid.'
'Yes, the journey. She has a slight hoarseness, but I think we shall prevent it from'----
Their eyes kept meeting, and with more steadfastness. They were conscious of mutual scrutiny, and, on both sides, of changes since they last met. When two people have devoted intense study to each other's features, a three months' absence not only revives the old impressions but subjects them to sudden modification which engrosses thought and feeling. Sidwell continued to utter commonplaces, simply as a means of disguising the thoughts that occupied her; she was saying to herself that Peak's face had a purer outline than she had believed, and that his eyes had gained in expressiveness. In the same way Godwin said and replied he knew not what, just to give himself time to observe and enjoy the something new--the increased animation or subtler facial movements--which struck him as often as he looked at his companion. Each wondered what the other had been doing, whether the time had seemed long or short.
'I hope you have kept well?' Sidwell asked.
Godwin hastened to respond with civil inquiries.
'I was very glad to hear from Mr. Warricombe a few days ago, he continued. Sidwell was not aware that her father had written, but her pleased smile seemed to signify the contrary.
'She looks younger,' Peak said in his mind. 'Perhaps that London dress and the new way of arranging her hair have something to do with it. But no, she looks younger in herself. She must have been enjoying the pleasures of town.'
'You have been constantly occupied, no doubt,' he added aloud, feeling at the same time that this was a clumsy expression of what he meant. Though he had unbuttoned his overcoat, and seated himself as easily as he could, the absurd tall hat which he held embarrassed him; to deposit it on the floor demanded an effort of which he was yet incapable.
'I have seen many things and heard much talk,' Sidwell was replying, in a gay tone. It irritated him; he would have preferred her to speak with more of the old pensiveness. Yet perhaps she was glad simply because she found herself again talking with him?
'And you?' she went on. 'It has not been all work, I hope?'
'Oh no! I have had many pleasant intervals.'
This was in imitation of her vivacity. He felt the words and the manner to be ridiculous, but could not restrain himself. Every moment increased his uneasiness; the hat weighed in his hands like a lump of lead, and he was convinced that he had never looked so clownish. Did her smile signify criticism of his attitude?
With a decision which came he knew not how, he let his hat drop to the floor and pushed it aside. There, that was better; he felt less of a bumpkin.
Sidwell glanced at the glossy grotesque, but instantly averted her eyes, and asked rather more gravely:
'Have you been in Exeter all the time?'
'Yes.'
'But you didn't spend your Christmas alone, I hope?'
'Oh, I had my books.'
Was there not a touch of natural pathos in this? He hoped so; then mocked at himself for calculating such effects.
'I think you don't care much for ordinary social pleasures, Mr Peak?'
He smiled bitterly.
'I have never known much of them,--and you remember that I look forward to a life in which they will have little part. Such a life,' he continued, after a pause, 'seems to you unendurably dull? I noticed that, when I spoke of it before.'
'You misunderstood me.' She said it so undecidedly that he gazed at her with puzzled look. Her eyes fell.
'But you like society?'
'If you use the word in its narrowest meaning,' she answered, 'then I not only dislike society, but despise it.'
She had raised her eyebrows, and was looking coldly at him. Did she mean to rebuke him for the tone he had adopted? Indeed, he seemed to himself presumptuous. But if they were still on terms such as these, was it not better to know it, even at the cost of humiliation? One moment he believed that he could read Sidwell's thoughts, and that they were wholly favourable to him; at another he felt absolutely ignorant of all that was passing in her, and disposed to interpret her face as that of a conventional woman who had never regarded him as on her own social plane. These uncertainties, these frequent reversions to a state of mind which at other times he seemed to have long outgrown, were a singular feature of his relations with Sidwell. Could such experiences consist with genuine love? Never had he felt more willing to answer the question with a negative. He felt that he was come here to act a part, and that the end of the interview, be it what it might, would only affect him superficially.
'No,' he replied, with deliberation; 'I never supposed that you had any interest in