And then—oh, it was a terrible half-hour!
They had been afraid, and they had talked it over. He didn't tell me all they'd said, but I could imagine most of it: how they had seen that my marrying Viola was the one way out for them, the one way out for her, and how it had occurred to them that perhaps I didn't know what I was doing, and how they had decided—dear, simple, honourable people—that it would be very wrong to deceive me, and that in any case they had no right to accept so great a sacrifice, even if it was the one way out. I daresay they said to each other that they couldn't put such a burden on an innocent young man; it was their child's doing and they must bear the whole ghastly ruin and shame of it themselves. They even went further. What Jevons had done to Viola (they'd made up their minds about him) was devil's work. What Viola had done to them was in some way the expression—the very singular and unintelligible and bizarre expression—of God's will. It was the cross they had to bear. God, I suppose, knew the kind of cross that would hurt them most.
A great deal of this he did say to me. He said it very simply, without phrases.
Nothing, he said, would have pleased them better than that I should marry Viola. But—he didn't think that he could let me do it. If I had only come to him three weeks ago—
He hadn't been able—naturally—to talk about it last night. He had hoped he wouldn't have to say anything about it at all, but I had forced him.
It couldn't have been worse if I'd seen him about to put a knife into his breast. I tried to stop him, but he would do it, he would put the knife in.
"We don't know," he said, "what may have occurred at Bruges."
"Nothing occurred," I said, "nothing that you need mind."
He said, "That's what the child tells me."
And I, "Surely, sir, you believe her word?"