Strangway.  Heaven!

Beatrice.  I never really stopped loving him.  I never—­loved you,
Michael.

Strangway. [Stunned] Is that true? [Beatrice bends her head]
Never loved me?  Not—­that night—­on the river—­not——?

Beatrice. [Under her breath] No.

Strangway.  Were you lying to me, then?  Kissing me, and—­hating me?

Beatrice.  One doesn’t hate men like you; but it wasn’t love.

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——­

Beatrice.  I meant to forget him again.  I did mean to.  I thought I could get back to what I was, when I married you; but, you see, what a girl can do, a woman that’s been married—­can’t.

Strangway.  Then it was I—­my kisses that——! [He laughs] How did you stand them? [His eyes dart at her face] Imagination helped you, perhaps!

Beatrice.  Michael, don’t, don’t!  And—­oh! don’t make a public thing of it!  You needn’t be afraid I shall have too good a time!

     [He stays quite still and silent, and that which is writhing in
     him makes his face so strange that Beatrice stands aghast.  At
     last she goes stumbling on in speech]

If ever you want to marry some one else—­then, of course—­that’s only fair, ruin or not.  But till then—­till then——­He’s leaving Durford, going to Brighton.  No one need know.  And you—­this isn’t the only parish in the world.

Strangway. [Quietly] You ask me to help you live in secret with another man?

Beatrice.  I ask for mercy.

Strangway. [As to himself] What am I to do?

Beatrice.  What you feel in the bottom of your heart.

Strangway.  You ask me to help you live in sin?

Beatrice.  To let me go out of your life.  You’ve only to do—­ nothing. [He goes, slowly, close to her.]