But the double shock in the revelation of Miss Craven's precarious state and Gillian's delicacy had been staggering. He had not been prepared for a contingency that seemed to cut the ground from under his feet. With all the will in the world his aunt was powerless to further the plan he proposed, any day might bring the Great Summons. And Gillian! The little persistent cough rang in his ears always. Gillian and poverty--by day it haunted him, he woke in the night sweating at the very thought. It was intolerable. And yet there appeared no means of escaping it--save one. For a moment, with a fierce joy, he saw fate aiding him, forcing into his hands what he yearned to gather to himself, then he recoiled from even the thought of her purity linked with the stain of his past. He had racked his brain to discover an alternative. To force upon her an adequate income that would put her beyond want and the necessity of work would be easy.
To induce her to use the money thus provided he divined would be impossible, he seemed to know intuitively that her will would not give way to his. During these last weeks he had looked at her with new understanding, it seemed incredible that he had never before recognised the determination that underlay her shy gentleness. Character shone in the frank brown eyes, there was a firmness that was unmistakable in the arched lips that were the only patch of colour in her delicate face. From his wealth she would accept nothing. Would she accept him--all that he dared offer? It was no new idea, the thought had been in his mind often but always he resolutely put it from him with a feeling of abhorrence. It was an insult to her womanhood, an expedient that nothing could justify. And yet step by step he was forced back upon it--there seemed no other way to save her from herself. Days of harrassing indecision, his only thought she, brought him no nearer to a conclusion. And time was passing. He had reached a point when further deliberation was beyond his power; when all his strength seemed to turn into hopeless longing that, to the exclusion of all else, craved even the mockery of possession; when days were torment and nights a sleepless horror. Then change of scene had aided final determination.
The factor of the Scotch estate had written of a sudden and unexpected difficulty for which he asked personal advice. A telegram had stopped his proposed visit to the Towers and Craven had himself gone instead to Scotland. And in the solitude of his northern home he had decided on the only course that seemed open to him. He would go to her with his poor offer, the poorest surely that ever a man made to a woman, and the rest would lie with her. But how would she receive it? He had a vision of the soft brown eyes blazing with scorn, of the slender figure he ached to hold in his arms turning from him in cold disgust, and he clenched his hands until the nails bit deep into his wet palms.