Kneedrock hunched his great shoulders. "The weakling!" It was as if the word were an oath. "And you! Weaker still, yet filled to the brim with the very devil."
"I know I'm bad," she said, in the simplest possible way. "But it's not my fault, Hal. It's the spoiled joy that was never allowed. I'm all for love, and I've never had it. That's all."
"Love!" he sneered with bitterest contempt. "What rot for you to speak of love! Poor Darling, with his brains blown out! The silly ass! I wonder he doesn't—" He had meant to say "haunt you," but he stopped short.
"He does," she replied, quite as if he had finished. "But live men do it more. Listen, Hal—rough as you are you've always been very good to me. Only you and I know how good. Be good again. Take him away. Otherwise I can't promise, and—you know I can't marry him."
"Why don't you marry him, damn it?" he asked cruelly.
She looked up into his face wistfully. "Why don't I?" and there was a quaver in her voice. "Ah, why don't I?"
He made no answer.
"Love is the only safeguard that I have," she continued. "If I didn't love—" she paused.
"Couldn't Carleigh hold you to—to something?"
"Nothing could hold me."