"All the time, and you never told me?"
"All the time and I never told you. I'd almost forgotten when you offered me that secretaryship, but I knew it when I let you engage me; I knew it before I came down. I never would have come if I'd realized what it meant, but when I did know, I stayed all the same."
"What do you think you ought to have done?"
"Of course—I ought to have gone away—since I couldn't be honest and tell you."
"And why" (she said it very gently but with no change in her attitude), "why couldn't you be honest and tell me?"
"I'm not sure that I'd any right to tell you what I hadn't any right to know. I'm only sure of one thing—as I did know, I oughtn't to have stayed. But," he reiterated sorrowfully, "I did stay."
"You stayed to help me."
"Yes; with all my dishonesty I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't made myself believe that. As it's turned out, I've helped to ruin you."
"Please—please don't. As far as I'm concerned you've nothing to reproach yourself with. Your position was a very difficult one."
"I ought never to have got into it."