"I hoped it would be possible," she said as her dark eyes filled with pain and conflict, "for this visit to end without these things having to be said. I hoped you'd just go away without finding out.... I've done my best and tried to play the part ... but I can't keep it up forever.... Now I'm asking your help."
"Conscience," he reminded her, and his tone held a sympathy which discounted his stubbornness in demanding the full reasons for her decision, "I don't want to press you with questions when you ask me, in the name of friendship, not to do it ... but—" He paused a moment and continued with a shake of his head. "We must be honest with each other. Once before we let a failure to fully understand separate us. I can't make the same life-wrecking mistake twice. Don't you see that I must know why I am being banished?"
Slowly she nodded her head in reluctant assent. Her figure seemed to waver as with faintness, but when Stuart reached out his arms to catch her, she stepped back and stood with regained steadiness.
"I suppose ..." she acknowledged, "I must be fully honest with you.... I suppose I was only trying to make it easier for myself ... and that I must face it fully."
"Face just what, Conscience?"
"The facts. When you came, Stuart, I believed that you had been cured of the old heartbreak. I believed it until—the other day when we talked about Marian Holbury—then I knew—that you were still in love with me."
Farquaharson's face paled and his lips tightened.
"I had tried," he said slowly, "to let you think the things which might make you happier—but I don't seem to be a good actor."
"You were a splendid actor, Stuart, but you had a woman's intuition against you."