Inez did not understand and kept silence while it lasted.
It was only a word to say, but it was the word which would be repeated against her as long as she lived, and which nothing she could ever say or do afterwards could take back when it had once been spoken--it would leave the mark that a lifetime could not efface.

But she meant to speak it.

She could not see what her father would see, that he would rather die, justly or unjustly, than let his daughter be dishonoured before the world.

That was a part of a man's code, perhaps, but it should not hinder her from saving her father's life, or trying to, at whatever cost.

What she was fighting against was something much harder to understand in herself.