“How?”
“Someone may come.”
“Not at all likely,” she sighed.
“But a chance is a chance, Girl, dear.”
“Oh!” she cried, suddenly. “To think that I have brought you to this! That what you thought would be a little favor to me has brought you to death.”
She began to sob convulsively.
It was as though for the first time she realized her responsibility for his life; as though her confidence in her complete understanding of him had disappeared and he was again a stranger to her—a stranger whom she had coolly led to the edge of life with her.
“Don’t, Girl—don’t!” he commanded.
Her self-blame was terrible to him. But she could not check her grief, and finally, hardly knowing what he did, he put his arm around her and drew her closer to him. Her tear-wet cheek touched his. She had removed her hat, and her hair brushed his forehead.
“Girl, Girl!” he whispered, “don’t you know?—Don’t you understand? If chance had not kept us together, I would have followed you until I won you. From the moment I saw you, I have had no thought that was not bound up with you.”