"Would it please you, Elcot, if I were to say that I'm very proud of that cut on your lip—though I'm horribly ashamed of being the cause of it? In any case, it's the simple truth."
"We'll take it for granted," replied Hunter, looking at her searchingly. "The trouble is that this matter has forced on a crisis. It's evident that our relations can't remain as they are just now."
"You don't find them satisfactory?"
"No." Hunter broke into a harsh laugh. "I don't know how I have borne with them as long as I have, though I've resolutely tried to fall in with your point of view. Anyway, I can't go on living with, and at the same time utterly apart from, you. It might have been possible if I had never been fond of you."
"Nobody could have blamed you if you had grown out of that regard for me," Florence suggested.
"The difficulty is that I haven't done so," Hunter declared more quietly, though there was still a trace of harshness in his tone. "As you imply, it's perhaps unreasonable of me, but there the fact is. The question is, What am I going to do?"
Florence stretched out her hands and her voice was very soft.
"Elcot," she murmured, "I really must have tried your patience very hard now and then, but just now I'm glad you find this state of things unbearable. Would it be very difficult to go back a few years and begin again—differently?"
The man moved nearer her and then stopped, hesitating.
"I'm afraid," he answered slowly, "there are respects in which I can't change. To begin with, I don't see how I am to provide for you as I should like if I abandon the life you chafe at and give up the farm. I have told you this often; but, even if it stands between us, it's a truth that must still be faced."