"Newty, you have been very good to me. You did all this for me—and yet even you don't know how much it means to me."
"Hit warn't nothin'," he answered in a dead voice. Then, having resolved not to betray himself, he found himself crying out to his own surprise, in a tumult of fierce and passionate feeling: "I'd go plumb down inter hell, fer ye, M'nervy."
The girl looked up, then she rose unsteadily, and laid a hand on his arm. Her eyes were gazing very fixedly into his, and she spoke eagerly:
"You say you'd do that—for me. Do something else, Newty. Come—out of a life that's not much better than hell—for me."
He spoke quietly again, though under her finger-touch his arm shook as if it were suddenly palsied:
"I don't jest plumb understand ye."
"Give it all up, Newty." She was talking excitedly, and her words came fast. "Give up this idea of vengeance. It's all wrong and mistaken—and wicked. It hurts you most of all. You said out there to-night that this was the only life you ever knew—"
"This an' ther penitenshery," he corrected her; and a harsh note stole into the words as he uttered them.
"There are other lives you can know. Can't you forego this idea of vengeance? Can't you forget it?"
The man gave a short and hollow laugh.