 responsibility would be too great. He has
told him distinctly that everything's at an end - everything that might have
happened.«
    She just looked at him, then dropped her eyes on her sewing.
    »Now, as your father, Janey, I know it's right that you should be told of
this. I feel you're being very cruelly treated, my child. And I wish to goodness
I could only see any way out of it for you both. Of course I'm powerless either
for acting or speaking: you can understand that. But I want you to think of me
as your truest friend, my love.«
    More still he said, but Jane had no ears for it. When he left her, she bade
him good-bye mechanically, and stood on the same spot by the door, without
thought, stunned by what she had learnt.
    That Sidney would be impelled to such a decision as this she had never
imagined. His reserve whilst yet she was in ignorance of her true position she
could understand: also his delaying for a while even after everything had been
explained to her. But that he should draw away from her altogether seemed
inexplicable, for it implied a change in him which nothing had prepared her to
think possible. Unaltered in his love, he refused to share the task of her life,
to aid in the work which he regarded with such fervent sympathy. Her mind was
not subtle enough to conceive those objections to Michael's idea which had
weighed with Sidney almost from the first, for though she had herself shrunk
from the great undertaking, it was merely in weakness - a reason she never
dreamt of attributing to him. Nor had she caught as much as a glimpse of those
base, scheming interests, contact with which had aroused Sidney's vehement
disgust. Was her father to be trusted? This was the first question that shaped
itself in her mind. He did not like Sidney; that she had felt all along, as well
as the reciprocal coldness on Sidney's part. But did his unfriendliness go so
far as to prompt him to intervene with untruths? »Of course you can't say a word
to him« - that remark would bear an evil interpretation, which her tormented
mind did not fail to suggest. Moreover, he had seemed so anxious that she should
not broach the subject with her grandfather. But what constrained her to
silence? If, indeed, he had nothing but her happiness at heart, he could not
take it ill that she should seek to understand the whole
