[With a bitter laugh.] It was! It was! It was like trusting Judas! [A pause.] Was I to be a Koreb, mad and heartbroken in prison? Or like Elizabeth, who has lost her very soul, and cannot see that there is any human being in the world but you?
Carlyon.
[With a scornful laugh.] But you can? Is that it? Good God! to think a wretched instinct like that should master you! To betray me for a chance lover!
Vera.
It was just the opposite. If I had not half-consciously loved him you could never have deluded me. I wanted to stifle my heart, and I all but stifled my conscience with it.
Carlyon.
When did you change? How long have you meant this?
Vera.
I have not changed. I meant it ever since that night, when Elizabeth—[breaks off]—when I saw that to trust in you was to go mad!