Every day that he is kept in the dark is an injury to you." "I am doing nothing.

What harm can come?
It is not as though I were seeing him every day." "This harm will come; your father of course will know that you became engaged to Mr.Tregear in Italy, and that a fact so important to him has been kept back from him." "If there is anything in that, the evil has been done already.

Of course poor mamma did mean to tell him." "She cannot tell him now, and therefore you ought to do what she would have done." "I cannot break my promise to him." "Him" always meant Mr.Tregear.
"I have told him that I would not do so till I had his consent, and I will not." This was very dreadful to Mrs.Finn, and yet she was most unwilling to take upon herself the part of a stern elder, and declare that under the circumstances she must tell the tale.

The story had been told to her under the supposition that she was not a stern elder, that she was regarded as the special friend of the dear mother who was gone, that she might be trusted to assist against the terrible weight of parental authority.

She could not endure to be regarded at once as a traitor by this young friend who had sweetly inherited the affection with which the Duchess had regarded her.