The journalist gave a brief account of his affairs, and Peak brightened with pleasure. 'This is good news. I knew you would shake off the ragamuffins before long. Give me some of your back numbers, will you? I shall be curious to examine your new style.' 'And you?--Come to live in London?' 'No; I am at Bristol, but only waiting. There's a chance of an analyst's place in Lancashire; but I may give the preference to an opening I have heard of in Belgium. Better to go abroad, I think.' 'Perhaps so.' 'I have a question to ask you. I suppose you talked about that _Critical_ article of mine _before_ you received my request for silence?' 'That's how it was,' Earwaker replied, calmly. 'Yes; I understood. It doesn't matter.' The other puffed at his pipe, and moved uneasily. 'I am taking for granted,' Peak continued, 'that you know how I have spent my time down in Devonshire.' 'In outline. Need we trouble about the details?' 'No. But don't suppose that I should feel any shame in talking to you about them. That would be a confession of base motive. You and I have studied each other, and we can exchange thoughts on most subjects with mutual understanding. You know that I have only followed my convictions to their logical issue. An opportunity offered of achieving the supreme end to which my life is directed, and what scruple could stand in my way? We have nothing to do with names and epithets. _Here_ are the facts of life as I had known it; _there_ is the existence promised as the reward of successful artifice. To live was to pursue the object of my being. I could not feel otherwise; therefore, could not act otherwise. You imagine me defeated, flung back into the gutter.' His words came more quickly, and the muscles of his face worked under emotion. 'It isn't so. I have a great and reasonable hope. Perhaps I have gained everything I really desired. I could tell you the strangest story, but there a scruple _does_ interpose. If we live another twenty years--but now I can only talk about myself.' 'And this hope of which you speak,' said Earwaker, with a grave smile, 'points you at present to sober work among your retorts and test-tubes?' 'Yes, it does.' 'Good. Then I can put faith in the result.'