’But I don’t quite understand, father.  What do you mean about Mr. Kirkwood?  Why should he—­’

The impulse failed her.  A fear which she had harboured for many weary days was being confirmed and she could not ask directly for the word that would kill hope.

‘Have I a right to tell you?  I thought perhaps you understood.’

’As you have gone So far, I think you must explain.  I don’t see how you can be doing wrong.’

’Poor Kirkwood!  You see, he’s in such a delicate position, my dear.  I think myself that he’s acting rather strangely, after everything; but it’s—­it’s your money, Jane.  He doesn’t think he ought to ask you to marry him, under the circumstances.’

She trembled.

’Now who should stand by you, in a case like this, if not your own father?  Of course he can’t say a word to you himself; and of course you can’t say a word to him; and altogether it’s a pitiful business.’

Jane shrank from discussing such a topic with her father.  Her next words were uttered with difficulty.

’But the money isn’t my own—­it’ll never be my own.  He—­Mr. Kirkwood knows that.’

’He does, to be sure.  But it makes no difference.  He has told your grandfather, my love, that—­that the responsibility would be too great.  He has told him distinctly that everything’s at an end—­ everything that might have happened.’

She just looked at him, then dropped her eyes on her sewing.

’Now, as your father, Janey, I know it’s right that you should be told of this.  I feel you’re being very cruelly treated, my child.  And I wish to goodness I could only see any way out of it for you both.  Of course I’m powerless either for acting or speaking:  you can understand that.  But I want you to think of me as your truest friend, my love.’

More still he said, but Jane had no ears for it.  When he left her, she bade him good-bye mechanically, and stood on the same spot by the door, without thought, stunned by what she had learnt.

That Sidney would be impelled to such a decision as this she had never imagined.  His reserve whilst yet she was in ignorance of her true position she could understand:  also his delaying for a while even after everything had been explained to her.  But that he should draw away from her altogether seemed inexplicable, for it implied a change in him which nothing had prepared her to think possible.  Unaltered in his love, he refused to share the task of her life, to aid in. the work which he regarded with such fervent sympathy.  Her mind was not subtle enough to conceive those objections to Michael’s idea which had weighed with Sidney almost from the first, for though she had herself shrunk from the great undertaking, it was merely in weakness—­a reason she never dreamt of attributing to him.  Nor had she caught as much as a glimpse of those base, scheming interests, contact with which had aroused Sidney’s