Whatever Ruth had
been, she was good, and to be respected as such, now. It did not
follow that Jemima was to preserve the secret always; she doubted
her own power to do so, if Mr. Farquhar came home again, and were
still constant in his admiration of Mrs. Denbigh, and if Mrs.
Denbigh gave him any--the least encouragement. But this last she
thought, from what she knew of Ruth's character, was impossible.
Only, what was impossible after this afternoon's discovery? At
any rate, she would watch and wait. Come what might, Ruth was in
her power. And, strange to say, this last certainty gave Jemima a
kind of protecting, almost pitying, feeling for Ruth. Her horror
at the wrong was not diminished; but, the more she thought of the
struggles that the wrong-doer must have made to extricate
herself, the more she felt how cruel it would be to baffle all by
revealing what had been. But for her sisters' sake she had a duty
to perform; she must watch Ruth. For her lover's sake she could
not have helped watching; but she was too much stunned to
recognise the force of her love, while duty seemed the only
stable thing to cling to. For the present she would neither
meddle nor mar in Ruth's course of life.
CHAPTER XXVI
MR. BRADSHAW'S VIRTUOUS INDIGNATION
So it was that Jemima no longer avoided Ruth, nor manifested by
word or look the dislike which for a long time she had been
scarce concealing.
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