He gripped the edge of the mantelpiece with both his hands; his tense arms trembled from the shoulders to the wrists; his hold relaxed. He straightened himself and hid his shaking hands in his coat pockets. There were tears at the edges of his eyelids, the small, difficult tears that cut their way through the flesh that abhors them. She saw them. "Ah, Robert--do you care for me like that?" "You know how I care for you." He stopped as he swung away from her, remembering that he had failed in courtesy. "Thank you," he said, simply, "for telling me the truth." He reached the door, and she rose and came after him. He shook his head as a sign to her not to follow him. She saw that he was going from her because he was tortured and dumb with suffering and with shame. Then she knew what she must do. She called to him, she entreated. "Robert--don't go. Come back--come back. I can't bear it." He came back at that cry. "I haven't told you the truth. I lied." "When?" he said sternly. "Just now. When I told you that I didn't care for you." "Well?" "Sit down--here, on the sofa. I'll try and tell you." He sat down beside her, but not near. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, and her head propped on her clenched hands. She did not look at him as she spoke. "I said I didn't care, because I thought that was the easiest way out of it. Easiest for you. So much easier than knowing the truth." He smiled grimly. "Well, you see how easy it's been." "Yes." She paused. "The truth isn't going to be easy either." "Let's have it, all the same, Kitty." "You're going to have it." She paused again, breathing hard. "Have you never wondered why the people here avoided me? You know they thought things." "As if it mattered what they thought." "They were right. There _was_ something." She heard him draw a deep breath. He, too, leaned forward now, in the same attitude as she, as if he were the participator of her confession, and the accomplice of her shame. His face was level with hers, but his eyes looked straight past her, untainted and clear. "What if there was?" he said. "It makes no difference." She turned her sad face to his. "Don't you know, Robert? Don't you know?" He frowned impatiently. "No, I don't. I don't want to." "You'd rather think I didn't care for you?" His face set again in its tortured, dumb look. "You shan't think that of me." She leaned back again out of his sight, and he presented to her his shoulder, thrust forward, and his profile, immovable, dogged, and apparently unheeding. "It's because I cared for you that I couldn't tell you the truth. I tried and couldn't. It was so difficult, and you _wouldn't_ understand. Then Wilfrid Marston said I must--I had to tell you." He threw himself back and turned on her. "What had Marston to do with it?" Her voice and her eyes dropped. "You see, he knew." "I see." He waited. "I couldn't tell you."