'I must leave myself free,' she repeated, with shaking voice. 'In any case I shall be back in London to-morrow evening—that is, if—but I am sure mother will wish to go. Grant me this one kindness; say nothing here or there till I am back and have seen you again.'
He turned a deaf ear, for the persistency with which she resisted proof of Peak's dishonour had begun to alarm him. Who could say what miserable folly she might commit in the next four-and-twenty hours? The unavoidable necessity of his own return exasperated him; he wished to see her safe back in London, and under her father's care.
'No,' he exclaimed, with a gesture of determination; 'I can't keep such a thing as this secret for another hour. Mother must know at once—especially as you mean to invite that fellow into the house again.—I have half a mind to telegraph to Godolphin that I can't possibly be with him to-night.'
Sidwell regarded him and spoke with forced composure.
'Do as seems right to you, Buckland. But don't think that by remaining here you would prevent me from seeing Mr. Peak, if I wish to do so. That is treating me too much like a child. You have done your part—doubtless your duty; now I must reflect and judge for myself. Neither you nor anyone else has authority over me in such circumstances.'
'Very well. I have no authority, as you say, but common sense bids me let mother know how the case stands.'
And angrily he left the room.
The Critical still lay where it had fallen. When Sidwell had stood a while in confused thought, her eye turned to it, and she went hurriedly to take it up. Yes, that was the first thing to be done, to read those pages with close care. For this she must have privacy. She ran upstairs and shut herself in her bedroom.
But did not at once begin to read. It concerned her deeply to know whether Peak had so expressed himself in this paper, that no room was left for doubt as to his convictions; but another question pressed upon her with even more urgency—could it be true that he did not love her? If Buckland were wholly right, then it mattered little in what degree she had been misled by intellectual hypocrisy.
It was impossible to believe that Peak had made love to her in cold blood, with none but sordid impulses. The thought was so humiliating that her mind resolutely rejected it; and she had no difficulty in recalling numberless minutiae of behaviour—nuances of look and tone such as abide in a woman's memory—any one of which would have sufficed to persuade her that he felt genuine emotion. How had it come to pass that a feeling of friendly interest, which did not for a moment threaten her peace, changed all at once to an agitation only the more persistent the more she tried to subdue it,—how, if it were not that her heart responded to a passionate appeal, effectual as only the sincerest love can prove? Prior to that long talk with Godwin, on the eve of her departure for London, she had not imagined that he loved her; when they said good-bye to each other, she knew by her own sensations all that the parting meant to him. She felt glad, instead of sorry, that they were not to meet again for several months; for she wished to think of him calmly and prudently, now that he presented himself to her imagination in so new an aspect. The hand-clasp was a mutual assurance of fidelity.