You see, it must be mentioned."
"I'm afraid there was a miscarriage of justice," said Winston quietly.
"Still, though it is a difficult subject, the deposition of the man I
supplanted went a long way, and the police did not seem desirous of
pressing a charge against me. Perhaps I should have insisted on
implicating myself, but you would scarcely have looked for that after
what you now know of me."
Maud Barrington braced herself for an effort, though she was outwardly
very calm. "No," she said, "no one would have looked for it from any
man placed as you were, and you are purposing to do more than is
required of you. Why will you go away?"
"I am a poor man," said Winston. "One must have means to live at
Silverdale!"
"Then," said the girl with a soft laugh which cost her a good deal, "it
is because you prefer poverty, and you have at least one opportunity at
Silverdale. Courthorne's land was mine to all intents and purposes
before it was his, and now it reverts to me. I owe him nothing, and he
did not give it me. Will you stay and farm it on whatever arrangement
Dane and Macdonald may consider equitable? My uncle's hands are too
full for him to attempt it."
"No," said Winston, and his voice trembled a little. "Your friends
would resent it."
"Then," said the girl, "why have they urged you to stay?"
"A generous impulse. They would repent of it by and by. I am not one
of them, and they know it, now, as I did at the beginning.
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