Jeremy exploited the ethical objections.
"You see, Margery, it's quite as difficult for me as for you. As a matter of fact you're putting a great charge on my conscience, because I've got to go contrary to mother and behind her back—a thing I've never yet done—and feeling as I do that she is right——"
"You've promised," interrupted Jane. "You promised to lend Margery a hand if she helped you; and she did help you. And it's humbug to say you never hid anything behind your mother's back, my dear man. What about it when you married me?"
"I'm talking to Margery, not you," he replied, "and I was going to say that somebody else might help her in the details much better than I could. You see some think she's right, and such as them would do this with a much better appetite than I shall. How if I was to drop a hint and get another man to do it, Margery? It would be just the same to you and a good bit pleasanter for me."
"There's nobody but you," she answered, "and it's properly unkind if you're going back on your promise."
"He isn't," declared Jane with diplomacy. "He's a lot too fearless and a lot too good a brother for that."
"I wouldn't say I promised; but of course if you feel I did——" continued Jeremy. "However I've got rather a bright idea, and since you're firm about this, and nobody will thank God better than your husband if you do go back, then why not let him do it? That would be a natural seemly arrangement since you both think alike. I'm perfectly willing to go to him and tell him."
"No," said Margery. "That would upset everything I've planned. My return must be a surprise for a thousand reasons. I want to go back as I came out. In plain words, I've got to escape mother to go at all. Set like steel as she is against any truck with Jacob, I have no choice but to deceive her. I'm too weak to carry it off with a high hand, and she'd stop me if she guessed I was thinking of it. Only I can't, of course, walk to Red House, and so I must be drove; and you must drive me."
"If you're a man, you will, Jeremy," added Jane. "You promised."
"I bargain, then, that my part never comes out," said Jeremy, much perturbed. "I consider this is something of a trap I'm in, and I don't think much the better of you for it, Margery. And I believe you're courting a pack of trouble, not to speak of Everlasting punishment if you go back to such a man. But since you won't let me out, I'll do as you wish on the one understanding, that my name's never whispered."