STRANGWAY. Why did you tell me it was?
BEATRICE. Yes. That was the worst thing I've ever done.
STRANGWAY. Do you think I would have married you? I would have burned first! I never dreamed you didn't. I swear it!
BEATRICE. [Very low] Forget it!
STRANGWAY. Did he try to get you away from me? [BEATRICE gives him a swift look] Tell me the truth!
BEATRICE. No. It was—I—alone. But—he loves me.
STRANGWAY. One does not easily know love, it seems.
[But her smile, faint, mysterious, pitying, is enough, and he
turns away from her.]
BEATRICE. It was cruel to come, I know. For me, too. But I couldn't write. I had to know.
STRANGWAY. Never loved me? Never loved me? That night at Tregaron? [At the look on her face] You might have told me before you went away! Why keep me all these——