Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/137

Rh 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 shore 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