"You're a white man right through, and I'm only dirt compared to you," she cried tensely. "Look here, I've lied about that kid. She isn't yours, or mine either for that matter. What do you say to that?" and she flung her head back challengingly.
"Only that I know it already, her age made it impossible. But it makes no difference to the wrong I did you."
"Do you still mean you'd marry me?"
"I mean every letter of the pledge I gave you just now, child or no child," I answered in the same earnest tone.
"My God!" she exclaimed ecstatically, throwing her hands up wildly, and then bursting into tears. "And they told me you were a scoundrel!" She was quite overcome, dropped into a chair and hid her face in her hands. The tears were genuine enough, for when she looked up they had made little runlets in the rouge and powder.
"Well?" I asked presently.
"I'm not fit to be the wife of a man like you," she stammered through her sobs. "I'm dirt to you; just dirt. If more men were like you there'd be less women like me."
Had the moment come to push for her confession? It looked like it; but it seemed cowardly to take advantage of her remorse and distress produced by my own trickery.
"Go away now, please," she said after a long interval.
"But how do we stand, Anna?"