Alison’s struggles that night were like those of a bird that is caught in a net. The bird cannot free itself, not altogether for want of strength, but because it does not understand the nature of nets. And thus it was with Alison. The meshes, not of her own will or seeking, were all round and about her; so slight, so thread-like they seemed, yet they had entangled her, and the more she strove to cast them off the more they clung. Her lover was offended—justly offended. Alison’s straight inward eye saw that at once. She had deceived him, though bitterly against her will. She had connived, and still connived, at his deception by another. That other was her friend and benefactress whose bread she ate, who had loaded her with kindness. She could not unravel the deception. She could not seek forgiveness from her lover by confession without betraying Nancy. ’I see that it is wrong ever to hide anything,’ was one of her thoughts that night. ’’Twould have been far better to have told Nancy at once that we loved each other.’ And yet that deception, if, indeed, it could be called one, had seemed so innocent. It had arisen, not from ideas of expediency, but from sheer strength of feeling—the feeling of reserved and silent natures that longed for privacy in a sacred moment. Had they not a perfect right to keep their happiness to themselves—a happiness that injured or robbed no one—that concerned no one but their two selves? That night it had been in her to tell Nancy, but what would she have gained by such a telling? Was it conceivable that Nancy, even though knowing all, would put matters straight by a full confession to Herries, exposing herself, her passion, her duplicity, and then, renouncing all her misdeeds, sit calmly down to a benignant contemplation of Herries’s happiness? Alison almost laughed as she thought of it. No, that was not conceivable. It seemed to her—and Alison was very clear-headed—that a full knowledge of the facts—of the facts that bound her and Herries together—would merely drive Nancy into further and fiercer deceit. She would simply regard them both as enemies leagued together against her, and deceive both, whereas, as yet, she deceived only the one. Not only was there no help, but there might be danger in telling Nancy now.