She was silent, then exclaimed, in accents of pain:
'Why should you have thought it necessary to be other than yourself? Couldn't you see, at first meeting with us, that we were not bigoted people? Didn't you know that Buckland had accustomed us to understand how common it is nowadays for people to throw off the old religion? Would father have looked coldly on you if he had known that you followed where so many good and thoughtful men were leading?'
He regarded her anxiously.
'I had heard from Buckland that your father was strongly prejudiced; that you also were quite out of sympathy with the new thought.'
'He exaggerated—even then.'
'Exaggerated? But on what plea could I have come to live in this neighbourhood? How could I have kept you in sight—tried to win your interest? I had no means, no position. The very thought of encouraging my love for you demanded some extraordinary step. What course was open to me?'
Sidwell let her head droop.
'I don't know. You might perhaps have discovered a way.'
'But what was the use, when the mere fact of my heresy would have forbidden hope from the outset?'
'Why should it have done so?'