She lifted her eyes to his, steadfast and tender.
"Hap he'll not, Joe. If so be he doosn't, I shan't grudge him. A soldier in a soldier's grave. Liefer that than he should linger here now. He's such a battler, Ern is. That's why I love him."
He took the blows she dealt him, unflinching.
"You don't loov, Ern."
"I'm learning to."
His lips curled in scorn.
"You don't know what loov is. See here!—This is loov." He tapped his outspread palm, as often when lecturing.
"Ern's ma familiar friend—has been for years. He trusts me—look at what he did that last night. And sitha! A'm a mon men do trust. That's ma reputation—earned too. A never sold a pal yet, big or little. And now—A'll betray ma own mate behind his back; ma mate that's gone fightin ma battles in the cause for which A've lived twenty years; ma mate that trusts me—and all for the sake of loov." The great fellow was trembling himself now. "Am A a rotter?—You know A'm none. Am A a mon? You know A am. The measure o ma sin is the measure o ma loov. Judge for yourself."
He was battening down the furnace behind steel-doors; but she could hear the roar of the flames.
"That's loov. A'll lose all to win all; and A've more than most to lose. A'll lose ma life to save ma soul—and that's you. Are you for it?—Was a time A thought nowt o women: now A think o nought but the One Woman.... Now then!—Take it or leave it!—Choose your path!—Will you throw a loov like that away—the loov of a mon—for what?—A chap you don't trust, a chap you can't respect, a chap who's let you and the children down and will again, a chap you're never like to see again—a feeble feckless sot, and son of a sot—"