Would that he did not, she thought.

She must hide her secret from him as she was hiding it from all the world.
He was speaking.

She answered him calmly yet mechanically.

He wondered what strange thoughts were concealed beneath those clear, wide-open, child-like eyes which he was trying in vain to fathom.

What would he have thought had he known the terrible truth: that she had calmly, and after long reflection, resolved to court death--death by her own hand--rather than face the exposure with which she had that previous night been threatened..