the impulse constrained him. After all, he
could not get a place that allowed him to see Sidwell. Her companion, however,
the one who seemed to be of much the same age, was well in view. Sisters they
could not be; nothing of the Warricombe countenance revealed itself in those
handsome but strongly-marked features. A beautiful girl, she also, yet of a type
that made slight appeal to him. Sidwell was all he could imagine of sweet and
dignified; more modest in bearing, more gracile, more -
    Monday at noon, and he still walked the streets of Exeter. Early this
morning he had been out to the Old Tiverton Road, and there, on the lawn amid
the laurels, had caught brief glimpse of two female figures, in one of which he
merely divined Sidwell. Why he tarried thus he did not pretend to explain to
himself. Rain had just come on, and the lowering sky made him low-spirited; he
mooned about the street under his umbrella.
    And at this rate, might vapour away his holiday. Exeter was tedious, but he
could not make up his mind to set forth for the sea-shore, where only his own
thoughts awaited him. Packed away in his wallet lay geological hammer, azimuth
compass, clinometer, miniature microscope, - why should he drag all that lumber
about with him? What to him were the bygone millions of ages, the hoary records
of unimaginable time? One touch of a girl's hand, one syllable of musical
speech, - was it not that whereof his life had truly need?
    As remote from him, however, as the age of the pterodactyl. How often was it
necessary to repeat this? On a long voyage, such as he had all but resolved to
take, one might perchance form acquaintances. He had heard of such things; not
impossibly, a social circle might open to him at Buenos Ayres. But here in
England his poor origin, his lack of means, would for ever bar him from the
intimacy of people like the Warricombes.
    He loitered towards the South-Western station, dimly conscious of a purpose
to look for trains. Instead of seeking the time-tables he stood before the
bookstall and ran his eye along the titles of new novels; he had half a mind to
buy one of Hardy's and read himself into the temper which suited summer rambles.
But just as his hand was stretched forth, a full voice, speaking beside him,
made demand for a London weekly paper. Instantly he turned. The tones had
carried him