But it seemed to Nan that her compact with Roger demanded a finer, more closely-knit interpretation of the word honour than would have been necessary in the case of an engagement entered into under different circumstances.

The personal emergency which had driven her into giving Roger her promise weighed heavily upon her, and she felt that nothing less than his own consent would entitle her to break her pledge to him.

When she gave it she had thought she was buying safety for herself and happiness for Penelope--cutting the tangled threads in which she found herself so inextricably involved--and now, as Lord St.
John had reminded her, she could not honourably refuse to pay the price.

She could not plead that she had mistaken her feelings towards him.

She had pledged her word to him, open-eyed, and she was not free, as other women might be, to retract the promise she had given.
Added to this, Roger's sheer, dominant virility had imbued her with a fatalistic sense of her total inability to escape him.