'I cannot.'
'Till that be done, he and I remain apart.'
'If for that alone—I will not do it.'
Then Winefred caught her mother's arm, and drawing her round so that they faced each other, she said, in muffled, quivering tones, 'Mother, I have held up my head, and scorned and flouted the folk at Axmouth, because I believed that what they said was a lie. I did not, I would not, suppose that you could commit such a wickedness. I was proud of you. I believed in you. I held it to be a false accusation. I thought you too good, too noble, too upright to be—to be——' She hesitated.
'Say the word, to be a thief.'
'You gave way to temptation out of love for me. Out of love for me restore what you took.' She panted for breath. She was white with the deadly earnestness with which she pleaded.
'And you—to be brought up as a lady,' muttered Jane, scowling, 'and to throw yourself away on a village lout—one, too, who has not the manhood in him to take to the sea and be what his fathers have been.'
'I do not desire to be a lady.'
'I do—it is my one thought, my only ambition.'
'And at Bath,' pursued Winefred, 'everything about me is false. I am expected to pass as one who has lost her mother. You are supposed to be only a nurse! I hate it, I will not bear it any longer. No—not although my father—no, not although you join with him to force me to this deception. I will have the truth. I will not be false and deceitful. Let all be honest and clear as sea-water, and nothing be held back and muffled up in lies. I have hated it throughout. I have felt like a fly tangled in a cobweb, like a fish in a draw-net. I will not go back unless it be as your daughter. I was so proud of my dear mother, she was poor but honest, and now——' She burst into tears.