ANNA—[Her lips trembling pitifully] Thanks!
BURKE—[Walking up and down—distractedly.] That's right, make game of me! Oh, I'm a great coward surely, to be coming back to speak with you at all. You've a right to laugh at me.
ANNA—I ain't laughing at you, Mat.
BURKE—[Unheeding.] You to be what you are, and me to be Mat Burke, and me to be drove back to look at you again! 'Tis black shame is on me!
ANNA—[Resentfully.] Then get out. No one's holding you!
BURKE—[Bewilderedly] And me to listen to that talk from a woman like you and be frightened to close her mouth with a slap! Oh, God help me, I'm a yellow coward for all men to spit at! [Then furiously] But I'll not be getting out of this 'till I've had me word. [Raising his fist threateningly] And let you look out how you'd drive me! [Letting his fist fall helplessly] Don't be angry now! I'm raving like a real lunatic, I'm thinking, and the sorrow you put on me has my brains drownded in grief. [Suddenly bending down to her and grasping her arm intensely] Tell me it's a lie, I'm saying! That's what I'm after coming to hear you say.
ANNA—[Dully] A lie? What?
BURKE—[With passionate entreaty] All the badness you told me two days back. Sure it must be a lie! You was only making game of me, wasn't you? Tell me 'twas a lie, Anna, and I'll be saying prayers of thanks on my two knees to the Almighty God!
ANNA—[Terribly shaken—faintly.] I can't. Mat. [As he turns away—imploringly.] Oh, Mat, won't you see that no matter what I was I ain't that any more? Why, listen! I packed up my bag this afternoon and went ashore. I'd been waiting here all alone for two days, thinking maybe you'd come back—thinking maybe you'd think over all I'd said—and maybe—oh, I don't know what I was hoping! But I was afraid to even go out of the cabin for a second, honest—afraid you might come and not find me here. Then I gave up hope when you didn't show up and I went to the railroad station. I was going to New York. I was going back—
BURKE—[Hoarsely.] God's curse on you!