"If you would only tell me what to believe—" she said.
"And if I won't?" He broke in upon her almost fiercely. "If I demand your trust on this point—as I have a right to demand it on every point—what then? Are you going to give me everything except that?"
She shook her head. "No, Max."
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
She answered him steadily enough. "I mean that unless you can tell me the truth—the truth, Max," there was a piteous touch in her repetition of the words—"I can never give you—anything."
"Meaning you won't marry me?" he said.
Steadily she answered him. "Yes, I mean just that."
He continued to hold her before him. His face grew harder, grimmer than before. "And you think I will suffer myself to be thrown over?" he said.
That pierced her lethargy, quickened her to resistance. "I think you have no choice," she said.
Max's jaw set itself like an iron clamp. "There you show your absolute ignorance," he said, "of me—and of yourself."