'Your address at Exeter.'
'But how did you know it?'
'I'll explain afterwards.'
'When can I see you?'
'Not here. It's impossible. I shall go to Exeter, and there write to you again.'
'Very well. You promise to do this?'
'Yes, I promise.'
There was danger even in the exchange of these hurried sentences. Miss Walworth had glanced back, and might possibly have caught a phrase that aroused curiosity. Having accompanied the girls to within view of their destination, Peak said good-night, and went home to spend the rest of the evening in thought which was sufficiently absorbing.
The next day he had no sight of Marcella. At luncheon the Moorhouses were alone. Afterwards Godwin accepted a proposal of the mathematician (who was generally invisible amid his formulae) for a walk up the Otter valley. Naturally they talked of Coleridge, whose metaphysical side appealed to Moorhouse. Peak dwelt on the human and poetical, and was led by that peculiar recklessness of mood, which at times relieved his nervous tension, to defend opium eating, as a source of pleasurable experience.
'You will hardly venture on that paradox in the pulpit,' remarked his companion, with laughter.