Godwin mused on this development of the girl whom he remembered so well. He could not direct his thoughts; a languor had crept over him.
'Do you recollect, Peak,' said Christian, presently, 'the talk we had in the fields by Twybridge, when we first met?'
The old friendliness was reappearing in his manner, He was yielding to the impulse to be communicative, confidential, which had always characterised him.
'I remember,' Godwin murmured.
'If only my words then had had any weight with you! And if only I had acted upon my own advice! Just for those few weeks I was sane; I understood something of life; I saw my true way before me. You and I have both gone after ruinous ideals, instead of taking the solid good held out to us. Of course, I know your story in outline. I don't ask you to talk about it. You are independent now, and I hope you can use your freedom.—Well, and I too am free.'
The last words were in a lower tone. Godwin glanced at the speaker, whose sadness was not banished, but illumined with a ray of calm hope.
'Have you ever thought of me and my infatuation?' Christian asked.
'Yes.'
'I have outlived that mawkish folly. I used to drink too much; the two things went well together. It would shame me to tell you all about it. But, happily, I have been able to go back about thirteen years—recover my old sane self—and with it what I then threw away.'
'I understand.'