"Well," said Nan, and now she spoke with an edge in her voice, "what's she going to do about it? She's in danger of her life, you say." He nodded absently, his mind going back to that word, lucky. "She's afraid of her husband, afraid he'll kill her."
"Not so much that as afraid he'll kill the child."
"Well, then, isn't she going to leave him?"
"No. She won't."
"Have you asked her?"
"Oh, yes," said Raven. "I asked her at once. I told her I'd send her away from here, find her something to do: just what anybody'd say in a case like that."
"And she wouldn't let you?"
"She wouldn't let me."
"Why not?" asked Nan. "Does she—love the brute?"
She might have flicked a lash across his face and his nerves winced under it. There was, she saw, in his mind, something disparaging to the woman in coupling her with a softness misplaced.