What cannot be ignored about the end of his story, however, is what Marlow ended up doing. When Marlow spoke of her deceased husband in Kurtz's Intended, he continued to lead her to believe that he had lived and died a moral, good-natured man. What's most striking is when she asked him for his last words, Marlow completely lied and replied, "The last word he said was your name." He continued by justifying himself because it would have been “… too dark” to tell him the truth. Conrad aimed not only at Marlow's quest for his own self-knowledge, but also at the reader's, letting him see how, in order to keep society functioning, society will never be aware of its true darkness.