"Don't beat about the bush. This thing has got to be settled once and for all. Will or will you not?"
"I can't, Joe." She looked at him with haunted eyes.
"You can't break loose?"
"Break loose? What do you mean?"
"Never mind ... never mind ... poor Val!" Sternness had gone from him. "Well, that is settled, then--I go back without you." He got up heavily and turned away from the fire.
"I 'm dead-beat and must get rest, Val. Haidee has fixed me up very well in her nice little room; she told me you always meant me to have it."
He turned and looked at her, in his eyes a sudden bitterness and anger born of his longing to take into his arms and crush to him this woman who exiled him from her heart.
"Do you think it is quite fair, Val? Do you think you are playing the game?"
She looked at him with wistful, harried eyes.
"I am trying to, Joe--I----"