Had she chosen, Mrs. Damerel could have explained the mystery.  She knew that, several years ago, Winifred’s name had been blighted by a scandal, and that the girl’s shrinking from every proposal of marriage was due, in part perhaps, to the memory of love betrayed, in part to a sense of honour, and to the suspicion that men, knowing her disgrace, condoned it for the sake of her wealth.  Interest made Mrs. Damerel generous; she admitted every excuse for Winifred, and persuaded herself that in procuring Horace such a wife she was doing him only a nominal wrong.  The young people could live apart from that corner of Society in which Miss.  Chittle’s name gave occasion to smiles or looks of perfunctory censure.  If Winifred, after marriage, chose to make confession, why, that was her own affair, and Horace would be wise enough, all advantages considered, to take the matter philosophically.

That was the view of a practical-minded observer.  To read Winifred perfectly, there needed a much more subtle and sympathetic intelligence.  The girl had, in truth, conceived a liking for Horace Lord, and it grew stronger when she learnt that neither by birth nor present circumstances did he belong to her own world.  To please her mother she was willing to take a husband, but the husband must be of her own choice.  She wished to enter upon a wholly new life, remote from the social conditions which of late years had crushed her spirit.  From the men who had hitherto approached her, she shrank in fear.  Horace Lord, good-looking and not uneducated, yet so far from formidable, suggested a new hope; even though he might be actuated by the ordinary motives, she discerned in him a softness, a pliability of nature, which would harmonise with her own timid disposition.  To the thought of deceiving him on the subject of her past, she was reconciled by a resolve to make his happiness the sole object of her existence in the future.  Horace was amiability itself, and seemed, if not to love her ardently (which, perhaps, she did not even desire), at least to regard her with an increasing affection.

Nothing was said about the condition of the prospective bridegroom’s health, though Horace had confided to Mrs. Damerel that he suffered from a troublesome cough, accompanied now and then by an alarming symptom.  In her boundless exultation at the end achieved, Mrs. Damerel made light of this complaint.  Horace was not free to marry until nearly the end of the year; for, though money would henceforth be no matter of anxiety, he might as well secure the small inheritance presently due to him.  November and December he should spend at Bournemouth under the best medical care, and after that, if needful, his wife would go with him to Madeira or some such place.