“I should have told her, if I had felt equal to speaking!”
“Father, you must not try. I will tell her and Nessie.”
Then a deep silence, broken at length by Joan.
“Father, you would never give me up—even if others wished it? Mrs. Brooke has no right over me—and I don’t think mother will wish me to go, even when she knows. You would never give me up.”
Not the answer she expected came, but only a clasping hand and continued silence.
“Say you would not,” entreated Joan.
George spoke slowly, as if he had a difficulty in utterance. “If it were right—if it should be our duty—” and Joan looked up, to see the signs of suffering which she too well knew.
“I cannot weigh the matter yet. It is all confusion,” he said.
“No, not a word more. I have been wrong to let you talk,” Joan said calmly. “Lie still, dear father, and try not even to think.”