"Oh! If you'd only spoken to me!—All this time I've been wanting you to—You must have known."
"Yes—I knew." Then Lizzie brought out slowly, letting her grave eyes wander over Rachel's face—
"You yourself insisted on telling me. You have brought it upon yourself if I say what I must...."
Rachel caught the hostility.
"Yes?" she said sharply.
"I'm older than you—older in every way. You know so little yet, the harm that you can do.... You must leave Francis Breton alone, Lady Seddon."
Rachel laughed—"Of course I knew that you—that it was the kind of way that you must look at it. But don't you see, we've got past all that first stage—It isn't, in the very least, any good looking at it from any general point of view. It's simply the individual happiness of the three of us, my husband, Francis Breton, myself—It's better for all of us that I should go."
"No ... not better for Francis Breton."
Rachel moved impatiently—"He—he and I—can judge that, Miss Rand——"
"No—You can't—you're too young. You don't know—I have a right to speak here, I know him—I have known him all this time——"