"Because I choose to do so; because there is something that has to be settled between us, and you know that! I suppose you think I was taken in by the sweet way you treated me when we met down here in November. But it was the other way about. I took you in, didn't I?"
It was very cold in this damp country road; all the world seemed grey; the trees with their bare, seemingly withered branches stood like spectres against the dull sky.
Camilla's colour had faded. She looked haggard.
"Please speak a little more plainly," she said.
And Broxbourne answered her.
"Not I. There is nothing to be gained by telling the truth to a woman, especially to a woman like you."
She caught her breath sharply, almost as if she had been struck. Her mind, trained to work with almost incredible swiftness, fathomed the significance of these words.
She put out her hand and gripped his arm.
"What has to be said must be said to me, and to me only." Then suddenly she broke down. "Oh, Sammy!" she said, "I know. Don't you believe I know I did you a great wrong? There is nothing to excuse it, except that you don't know what a corner I was in!... What an awful temptation it was! It has all been so easy for you. You have never had to face hard times and black, killing difficulties. You can't be expected to understand what these things mean."
"Why didn't you ask me?" the man said surlily; and she answered in that same broken way—