"You'd be happier. And, what's more, you'd be well, too. Perfectly well."
"This is not the advice I should give you," he went on, addressing her silence, "if you were an unmarried woman. I urge my unmarried patients to work—to use their brains all they can—and married ones, too, when they've no children. If poor Mabel had done something it would have been far better. But in your case it's disastrous."
Jane remained silent. She herself had a premonition of disaster. Her restlessness was on her. Her nerves and blood were troubled again by the ungovernable, tyrannous impulse of her power. It was not the year she should have chosen, but because she had no choice she was working through everything, secretly, in defiance of Henry's orders. She wondered if he knew. He was looking at her keenly, as if he had at any rate a shrewd suspicion.
"I hardly think," he said, "it's fair to Hugh."
Henry was sure of his facts, and her silence made him surer. She was at it again, and the question was how to stop her?
The question was laid that night before the family committee. It met in the library at Moor Grange almost by Brodrick's invitation. Brodrick was worried. He had gone so far as to confess that he was worried about Jane. She wanted to write another book, he said, and he didn't know whether she was fit.
"Of course she isn't fit," said the Doctor. "It must be stopped. She must be made to give it up—altogether."
Brodrick inquired who was to make her? and was told that he was. He must put his foot down. He should have put it down before.
But Brodrick, being a Brodrick, took an unexpected line.
"I don't know," he said slowly, "that we've any right to dictate to her. It's a big question, and I think she ought to be allowed to decide it for herself."