Only one quick sob, but it had been wrung from her by the premonition suddenly come that the brother--he was brother more than nephew--over whom her heart had yearned had, indeed, come to the cross-roads, and that their ways would henceforth divide.

The punishment or banishment now to be meted out to him was as nothing.

It meant a few weeks of disgrace, of ban, of what, in effect, was self-immolation, of that commanding justice of the Society which no one yet save the late Earl of Eglington had defied.
David could refuse to bear punishment, but such a possibility had never occurred to her or to any one present.

She saw him taking his punishment as surely as though the law of the land had him in its grasp.

It was not that which she was fearing.