 point
that afforded subject for jest.
    »Malkin seems to have come across my Doppelgänger. One mustn't pretend to
certainty in anything, but I am disposed to think I never was in Boston.«
    »He was of course mistaken.«
    Marcella's voice had an indistinctness very unlike her ordinary tone. As a
rule she spoke with that clearness and decision which corresponds to qualities
of mind not commonly found in women. But confidence seemed to have utterly
deserted her; she had lost her individuality, and was weakly feminine.
    »I have been here since last Christmas,« said Godwin, after a pause.
    »Yes. I know.«
    Their eyes met.
    »No doubt your friends have told you as much as they know of me?«
    »Yes - they have spoken of you.«
    »And what does it amount to?«
    He regarded her steadily, with a smile of indifference.
    »They say« - she gazed at him as if constrained to do so - »that you are
going into the Church.« And as soon as she uttered the last word, a painful
laugh escaped her.
    »Nothing else? No comments?«
    »I think Miss Moorhouse finds it difficult to understand.«
    »Miss Moorhouse?« He reflected, still smiling. »I shouldn't wonder. She has
a sceptical mind, and she doesn't know me well enough to understand me.«
    »Doesn't know you well enough?«
    She repeated the words mechanically. Peak gave her a keen glance.
    »Has she led you to suppose,« he asked, »that we are on intimate terms?«
    »No.« The word fell from her, absently, despondently.
    »Miss Moxey, would anything be gained by our discussing my position? If you
think it a mystery, hadn't we better leave it so?«
    She made no answer.
    »But perhaps,« he went on, »you have told them - the Walworths and the
Moorhouses - that I owe my friends an explanation? When I see them again,
perhaps I shall be confronted with cold, questioning faces?«
    »I haven't said a word that could injure you,« Marcella replied, with
something of her usual self-possession, passing her eyes distantly over his face
as she spoke.
    »I knew the suggestion was unjust, when I made it.«
    »Then why should you refuse me your confidence?«
    She bent forward slightly, but with her eyes cast down. Tone and features
intimated a sense of
