"I'm very sorry for you," Anna said, feeling as if the iron
band about her heart pressed on it a little less inexorably.

"Then why won't you hear me? Why won't you try to
understand? It's all so different from what you imagine!"

"I've never judged you."

"I'm not thinking of myself. He loves you!"

"I thought you'd come to speak of Owen."

Sophy Viner seemed not to hear her. "He's never loved any
one else. Even those few days...I knew it all the
while...he never cared for me."

"Please don't say any more!" Anna said.

"I know it must seem strange to you that I should say so
much. I shock you, I offend you: you think me a creature
without shame. So I am--but not in the sense you think! I'm
not ashamed of having loved him; no; and I'm not ashamed of
telling you so. It's that that justifies me--and him
too...Oh, let me tell you how it happened! He was sorry for
me: he saw I cared. I KNEW that was all he ever felt. I
could see he was thinking of some one else. I knew it was
only for a week...He never said a word to mislead me...I
wanted to be happy just once--and I didn't dream of the harm
I might be doing him!"