"You—wouldn't—be—indebted—to—me?"
"Not to so terrible an extent. If it's a choice between your good name and hers—hers must go. She'd agree with me herself. She wouldn't hesitate for one single fraction of an instant—if she knew. She'd be grateful to you, as I am; but she couldn't profit by your magnanimity."
"So that the alternative you offer me is this: I can protect myself by sacrificing Dorothea, or I can marry you, and Dorothea will be saved."
"I shouldn't express it in just those words, but it's something like it."
"Then I'll marry you. You give me a choice of evils, and I take the least."
"Oh! Then to marry me would be—an evil?"
"What else do you make it? You'll admit that it's a little difficult to keep pace with you. You come to me one day accusing me of sin, and on another announcing my contrition, while on the third you may be in some entirely different mood about me."
"You can easily render me ridiculous. That's due to my awkwardness of expression and not to anything wrong in the way I feel."
"Oh, but isn't it out of the heart that the mouth speaketh? I think so. You've advanced some excellent reasons why I should become your wife, and I can see that you're quite capable of believing them. At one time it was because I needed a home, at another because I needed protection, while to-day, I understand, it is because I love you."
"Is this fair?"