"If I'm guilty of all that" she answered with a haunted misery in her eyes which she averted her face to hide, "I'm hardly worth fighting for. The only answer I have is that I'm doing what seems right to me."
"Can't you admit that for the moment your sense of right may be clouded? All I ask is that you go for a while to the home of some friend, where they don't rebuff the sunlight when it comes in at the window."
"Stuart," she told him gently but with conviction, "you have changed, too. Once I could have taken your advice as almost infallible, but I can't now."
The Virginian's face paled, and his question came with an irritable quickness, "In what fashion have I changed?"
"In a way, I think I've recovered my balance," she said with deep seriousness. "I couldn't have done it without you. You've taken my troubles on yourself, but at a heavy price, dear. They've preyed on you until now it's you who can't trust his judgment. All you say influences me, but it's no longer because of its logic, it's because I love you and you're talking to my heart."
Farquaharson paced the frosty path of the woods where they were talking. His face was dark and his movements nervous so Conscience would not let herself look at him. She had something difficult to say and of late she had not felt strong enough to spend vitality with wastefulness.
"You say I'm wrecking both our lives...." she went on resolutely. "I don't want to wreck either ... but yours I couldn't bear to wreck. I love you enough to make any sacrifice for you ... even enough to give you up."
Stuart wheeled and his attitude stiffened to rigidity. The woods raced about him in crazy circles, and before his eyes swam spots of yellow and orange.
"Do you mean—" he paused to moisten his lips with his tongue and found his tongue, too, suddenly dry—"do you mean that you've let this tyranny of weakness conquer you? Have you promised to exile me?"