"Not for the world," said Brett firmly.
"You do not know how unkind you are. You do not know—you do not know how much your friendship is to me, and how you are letting this wretched mystery come between us."
"I know better, better than you can guess."
"And you are keeping it to yourself because you are afraid of hurting me—hurting me!" she repeated bitterly. "As though I were not past hurting, these many months, as though I had not been through most all that a woman can bear and live, and yet I have borne it and have lived. No, I am wrong. I can still be hurt. Two things could hurt me. If by some horrible miracle John came back to life, and if—" She paused and hesitated.
"What?" asked Brett, who hardly seemed to be listening to her.
"If you allowed anything to break up this friendship of ours. But the one is impossible. John is dead, and I have lived down the shame of his memory, and the other—no, it would be your fault."
"It would hurt you much more to know what I am keeping from you than to lose my friendship, or rather your friendship for me," said Brett, shaking his head. "Mine you cannot lose, whatever you do. I am giving you the best proof of it now."
"And do you mean to say that after all that came out in those dark days, that after the trial and conviction, and my husband's escape and his horrible end, that there is still worse behind?—that he left something which you know and I do not know, but which, if I knew it, could still have the power to wreck my life and break what is the best part of me—yes, I am not ashamed to say so—the best part of me—our friendship. I am not tired of the sound of that word yet, nor shall be. Do you mean that? Do you really mean what you say?"
"Yes," answered Brett, who had nodded at each of her questions. "I mean that there is something which I know, and of which the knowledge might ruin the happiness you have found since you have been alone. And yet you ask me to tell you what it is, when no possible good could come from your knowledge of it."
"Yes, I do," said Marion, emphatically. "And as for my happiness, you are killing it with every word you say. You have knocked from under my feet the security of my position and you have taken the good out of what was best by saying that a word from you would spoil it. What is there left now but to tell me the truth?"