For some moments he busied himself with the reins, loosening them from where they were caught in the harness; then he bent his head and said slowly, and with the tone of the physician in consultation: 

“Your protest will do no good, Jane, and your trip abroad will only be a waste of time and money.  If Lucy has not changed, and this letter shows that she has not, she will laugh at your objections and end by doing as she pleases.  She has always been a law unto herself, and this new move of hers is part of her life-plan.  Take my advice:  stay where you are; write her a loving, sweet letter and tell her how happy you hope she will be, and send her your congratulations.  She will not listen to your objections, and your opposition might lose you her love.”

Before dark they were both on their way back to Yardley.  Burton’s boy had not been hurt as badly as his father thought; but one leg was broken, and this was soon in splints, and without Jane’s assistance.

Before they had reached her door her mind was made up.

The doctor’s words, as they always did, had gone down deep into her mind, and all thoughts of going abroad, or of even protesting against Lucy’s marriage, were given up.  Only the spectre remained.  That the doctor knew nothing of, and that she must meet alone.

Martha took Jane’s answer to the post-office herself.  She had talked its contents over with the old nurse, and the two had put their hearts into every line.

“Tell him everything,” Jane wrote.  “Don’t begin a new life with an old lie.  With me it is different.  I saved you, my sister, because I loved you, and because I could not bear that your sweet girlhood should be marred.  I shall live my life out in this duty.  It came to me, and I could not put it from me, and would not now if I could, but I know the tyranny of a secret you cannot share with the man who loves you.  I know, too, the cruelty of it all.  For years I have answered kindly meant inquiry with discourteous silence, bearing insinuations, calumny, insults—­and all because I cannot speak.  Don’t, I beseech you, begin your new life in this slavery.  But whatever the outcome, take him into your confidence.  Better have him leave you now than after you are married.  Remember, too, that if by this declaration you should lose his love you will at least gain his respect.  Perhaps, if his heart is tender and he feels for the suffering and wronged, you may keep both.  Forgive me, dear, but I have only your happiness at heart, and I love you too dearly not to warn you against any danger which would threaten you.  Martha agrees with me in the above, and knows you will do right by him.”

When Lucy’s answer arrived weeks afterward—­ after her marriage, in fact—­Jane read it with a clutching at her throat she had not known since that fatal afternoon when Martha returned from Trenton.