'There is none,' said she in a low voice.
'Bah!' exclaimed Jack. 'There is no tangle that cannot be unravelled with patience. We are both young. We must not set our noses against a wall and say that is the world's end.'
Thus they parted.
And thenceforth every evening he was at the gate, and every evening she was there also.
In vain did she torture her mind to find a way out of the difficulties that obstructed her. Sometimes she was tempted to confess everything—she knew that he suspected the worst. He was so generous that he would forgive her mother, and the story would never become public. Everything would be arranged between them. But the secret was not her own. She had promised her mother to be silent, and she could not endure to admit the fault of a mother who had loved her so dearly, and who had sinned only out of love for her. It was at the same time intolerable to her to know that Jack suspected the truth, and to be unable to speak in extenuation of her mother's conduct.
Moreover, she felt that some of her mother's guilt adhered to her. She was so far a participator in the wrong done that she profited by it. To what extent her expenses at Bath were defrayed by her father, and to what extent they were paid for out of Captain Rattenbury's savings, she did not know, but she could not free herself from the consciousness that some of this stolen money had been expended on herself.
The hopelessness of their love weighed on both their hearts. Love was sweet, and yet was bitter, like the little book which the prophet ate.
Of the two Winefred was the more unhappy, for she did not possess the sanguine temperament of Jack. She felt an unutterable joy at having his love, and yet it was a joy that turned to despair.
How was this to end?