"I did mean it, Knight. My love will help me to understand."
"You make me believe in a God, for surely only God could have sent such an angel as you into my life.... In a way, I haven't deceived you about myself, for I warned you I was a bad man. But when I think of the night we met and the trick I played on you, it makes me sick! I thought you'd loathe me if you ever found out. But I didn't intend to let you find out. It was to be a dead secret forever, like the rest. Yet if I tell you what my life has been you'll have to know that part, too. If I kept it back you might think it worse than it was."
"A trick?" echoed Annesley.
"Yes. A trick to interest you—to make you like and want to help me. Besides, it was to be a test of your courage and presence of mind. If you hadn't those qualities you'd have been a failure from my point of view. You see, I hadn't had time to fall in love with you then. And I wanted you for a 'help-mate' in the literal sense of the word. It seems a pretty sordid sense, looking back from where we've got to now. But that was my scheme. A mean, cowardly scheme! And it's thanks to you and your blessed dearness I see it in its true light.... Do you begin to understand, Anita—knowing something of what my life has been, or must I explain?"
"I—I'm afraid you must explain," she answered in a small voice, like a child's. She felt suddenly weak and sick, as if she might collapse in the man's arms. It was as if some terrible weapon wrapped round and half hidden in folds of velvet were lifted above her head to strike her down.
She shrank from the blow, yet asked for it. Already she guessed dimly that Knight's confession was to be very different from and far more terrible than anything she had expected.
"I was the man whose advertisement you answered—the man who wrote you the stiff letter in the handwriting you didn't like, signed N. Smith."
"Oh!" The word broke from her in a moan.
"Darling! Have I lost you if I go on?"
"You must go on!" she cried out, sharply. "For both our sakes you must go on!"