She did not care; she no longer cared what he said to her or thought about her; nor did she care that her mask had fallen at last.

It was not what he was saying, but what her own heart repeated so heavily that drove the colour from her face.

Not he, but she herself had become the pitiless attorney for the prosecution; not his voice, but the clamouring conscience within her demanded by what right she used the name of friendship to characterise the late relations between her and the man to whom she had denied herself.
Then a bitter impatience swept her, and a dawning fear, too; for she had set her foot on the fallen mask, and the impulse rendered her reckless.
"Why don't you speak ?" she said.

"Yes, I have a right to know.

I care for him as much as you do.