Anna wondered why she put up with it. Common sense said she should have walked away a long time ago. He knew she loved him, and although he never actually said it, he'd made it clear he loved her; but he never did anything to change the ever-multiplying reasons keeping them apart. And who knew what dark secret from his past would pop up next. She should move on and look for someone with whom she could have a future. At some point you just had to be practical, even if it broke your heart.
At first he just didn't say anything. He was a quiet-spoken, honorable man and they got along so well. Even as they grew closer, allies, then friends, then more, he refused to acknowledge the feelings between them. He was so hard to read sometimes, and when she tried to get him to say anything she was met by silence or subtle refusals to answer. When she had pushed harder, he had intimated that there was some circumstance keeping him from saying out loud what he felt. Eventually, she just told him she loved him. All he did was tell her plainly he couldn't explain what kept them apart. Yet she persisted. She would have told anyone else in her position to cut their losses and walk away. Perhaps she wasn t as level-headed as she thought she was.
Still, she knew he loved her. That was the crux of her trouble. If she doubted his feelings, it would be far easier to walk away from him. But why was he so resigned to letting circumstances keep them apart? Some sort of penance for his previous failures was all well and good, but it could be taken too far. He never tried to clear his name, not even to keep his job. Certainly not for her sake. She was torn between admiration and frustration at his obstinacy.
Once she found out about the prison sentence and all its anomalies-that he refused to explain, much less defend himself-she set about clearing that up. She wouldn't let that keep them apart. She thought it was worth the effort to keep him around, even if he didn't. But now there was his wife. The wife was, apparently, a thief. He had, apparently, been cruel to her. He never gave her a straight answer to any questions she asked, though. Was he still married? Where was his wife? He wouldn't tell her. Naturally. Blast his sense of honor. She should let it go, let it all go.