The fret and sting of his hopeless quest had marked John Bamsey, and now he was come to the knowledge that no hope remained. His dream dissolved. Until now he had defied reason and lived on shadows spun of desire. He had sunk beneath his old pride and returned to Dinah's hand. He had not grovelled; but he assumed an attitude, after the passing of the first storm, that astonished his family. And Dinah it astonished also, filling her with fresh pain. He had hung on; he had asked her to forgive his words upon the bridge; he had returned into the atmosphere of her and gone and come from home as before. Dominated by his own passion, he had endured even the wonder in his mother's eyes, the doubt in Jane's. Dinah could not be explicit to him, since he had been careful not to give her any opportunity for the present. But, under his humility, he had bullied her. The very humility was a sort of bullying, and she felt first distracted and then indignant that he should persist. To him she could not speak, but to Faith Bamsey and Jane she could speak; and to the former she did.
Mrs. Bamsey therefore knew that Dinah was not going to marry John, and in her heart she was thankful for it; while none the less indignant that John's perfections should have failed of fruition for Dinah. She resented Dinah's blindness and obstinacy, and felt thankful, for John's sake, that the girl would never be his wife. As for Jane she had never shared her brother's whispered hope that Dinah would return to him. She hated Dinah, and while hot with sympathy for her brother, rejoiced that, sooner or later, her father's foster-daughter must disappear and never be linked to a Bamsey.
Johnny's present attitude, however, she did not know; and it was left for this hour amid the tree girt rocks of Hazel Tor to teach her. She longed to learn what he would say if any other man were hinted of in connection with Dinah. She much wanted Johnny to share her opinion of Dinah, and now, ripened for mischief by the recent sight of Maynard, she prepared to sound Johnny. Jerry suspected what was in her mind and hoped that she would change it. They spoke first of their own secret, and informed John, after exacting from him promises of silence.
He was moody and his expression had changed. Care had come into his face and its confidence had abated. He had always liked to talk, and possessed with his own wrongs, of late, began to weary other ears. To his few intimate friends he had already spoken unwisely and salved the wounds of pride by assuring them that the rupture was not permanent. He had even hinted that he was responsible for it—to give the woman he designed to wed a lesson. He had affected confidence in the future; and now this was not the least of his annoyances, that when the truth came in sight, certain people would laugh behind his back. Upon such a temper it was easy to see how any mention of another man in connection with Dinah must fall; and had Jane really known all that was tormenting her brother's mind, at the moment when it began to feel the truth, even she might have hesitated; but she did not.
John considered their dreams of a shop without much sympathy and doubted their wisdom.
"You're a woodman and only a woodman—bred to it," he declared. "What the mischief should you make messing about among shops and houses in a town? You know you'd hate it, just so much as I should myself, and you know well he would, if he don't, Jane."
"You forget his feeling for me, Johnny," explained his sister. "It wouldn't be natural to him I grant; but there's me; and what's my good be Jerry's good when we'm married."
"You ought to think of his good, too, however. I shouldn't hide this up. You'd do well to talk to mother before you do anything."
"You don't think father will change about the five hundred pound?" asked Jane. "'Twas fear of that kept us quiet."
"No; he won't change. I was to have had the same."