Without arguing a possible change in her because of her love for him, John Aldous accepted these things.

He believed that if he told Joanne the truth he would lose her.
His determination not to tell her, to keep from her the secret of the grave and the fact that Mortimer FitzHugh was alive, grew stronger in him with each breath that he drew.

He believed that it was the right thing to do, that it was the honourable and the only thing to do.

Now that the first shock was over, he did not feel that he had lost Joanne, or that there was a very great danger of losing her.

For a moment it occurred to him that he might turn the law upon Culver Rann, and in the same breath he laughed at this absurdity.