“I suppose now the nephew, Edwin Harlow, will be heir to the title and estate?”

“Yes, and Uncle and Aunt so heartily dislike him.  Uncle has spent so many, many years in economizing and restoring the fortune of the House of Harlow, and now it will all go to—­Edwin Harlow.  I am sorry to trouble you with this bad news, when you have so much anxiety of your own.”

“Listen, dearest—­I must—­shut—­the mill—­tomorrow—­some time.”

“O John!”

“There is no more cotton to be got—­and if there was, I have not the money to buy it.  Would you like to go to London and see your uncle and aunt?  A change might do you good.”

“Do you think I would leave you alone in your sorrow?  No, no, John!  The only place for me is here at your side.  I should be miserable anywhere else.”

John was much moved at this proof of her affection, but he did not say so.  He clasped her hand a little tighter, drew her closer to his side, and kissed her, but the subject dropped between them into a silence filled with emotion.  John could not think of anything but the trial of the coming day.  Jane was pondering two circumstances that seemed to have changed her point of view.  Do as she would, she could not regard things as she had done.  Of a stubborn race and family, she had hitherto regarded her word as inviolable, her resolves, if once declared, as beyond recall.  She quite understood Lord and Lady Harlow’s long resentment against their son, and she knew instinctively that her uncle’s extreme self-denial for the purpose of improving the Harlow estate was to say to his heir, “See how I have loved you, in spite of my silence.”

Now Jane had declared her mind positively to John on certain questions between them, and it never occurred to her that retraction was possible.  Or if it did occur, she considered it a weakness to be instantly conquered.  Neither Jane Harlow nor Jane Hatton could say and then unsay.  And she was proud of this racial and family characteristic, and frequently recalled it in the motto of her house—­"I say!  I do!"

It is evident then that some strong antagonistic feeling would be necessary to break down this barrier raised by a false definition of honor and yet the circumstances that initially assailed it were of ordinary character.  The first happened a few weeks previously.  Jane had gone out early to do some household shopping and was standing just within the open door of the shop where she had made her purchases.  Suddenly she heard John’s clear, joyous laugh mingling with the clatter of horses’ feet.  The sound was coming near and nearer and in a moment or two John passed on his favorite riding-horse and with him was his nephew Stephen Hatton on a pretty pony suitable to his size.  John was happy, Stephen was happy, and she!  She had absolutely no share in their pleasure.  They were not thinking of her.  She was outside their present life.