In that story of those meetings and partings, as told by Egremont, there had now and then been a word, a tone, that seemed to bear meaning yet incredible to her.

By degrees she was realising all that her flight had entailed upon those she left, things undreamt of hitherto.

But the last word of explanation was still to come.

She did not dare to anticipate it, yet her life seemed to depend upon his saying something more.
'Have you made efforts to find her ?' Mrs.Ormonde at length asked.
'Every possible effort.' 'With what purpose ?' 'Need I tell you?
'You think it is your duty to offer her reparation for what she has suffered, because you were unwillingly the cause of it ?' 'Yes, if that is the same thing as saying that I love her, and that I wish to make her my wife.' 'In a sense I suppose it is the same thing.

You have been compelled to think so much of her, that pity and a desire to do your best for an unhappy girl have come to seem love.