"God knows I ought to have been."
"You're worried about her, and you think there's something wrong. If she says there isn't, you'll say that's what you want to be sure of."
"Look here; how do those fellows know it isn't the real thing?"
"Oh, they can tell that by the state of her heart. I don't suppose for a moment it's the real thing. She wouldn't be alive if it was. And you don't die of false angina. It's all nerves, though it hurts like sin."
He was silent for a second.
"Anne—she's beaten us. We can't tell her now."
"No. And we can't go on. If we can't be straight about it we've got to give each other up."
"I know. We can't go on. There's nothing more to be said."
His voice dropped on her aching heart with the toneless weight of finality.
"We've got to end it now, this minute," she said. "Don't come any farther."