“I don’t know what I should have done in the future, if you hadn’t taken me in,” Susan said. “Perhaps I should have thrown myself under a train. But, oh!” with starting dampness in her skin, which she wiped off with a sick gesture, “I did hate to let myself think of it. It wasn’t the being killed—that’s nothing—but feeling yourself crushed and torn and twisted—I used to stand and shake all over thinking of it. And I couldn’t have gone on. I hated myself—I hated everything—most of all I hated the Thing that made me. What right had it? I hadn’t done nothing to it before I was born. Seemed like it had made me just for the fun of pushing me under them wheels and seeing them tear and grind me. Oh! how I hated it!”
“So have I,” said Miss Amory, her steady eyes looking more like a hawk’s than ever.
Susan stared more than before. “I suppose I ought to have hated Jack Williams,” she went on, her throat evidently filling, “but I never did. I loved him. Seemed like I was just his wife, that it did. I believe it always will. That’s the way girls get into trouble. Some man that’s got an affectionate way makes ’em believe they’re as good as married. An’ then they find out it’s all a lie.”
“Perhaps some day you may see Jack Williams again,” said Miss Amory.
“He wouldn’t look at me,” answered Susan.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t look at him,” Miss Amory remarked, with speculative slowness.
“Yes, I would,” said Susan, “yes I would. I couldn’t trust him same as I did before—’cause he’s proved he ain’t to be trusted. But if he wanted me to marry him I couldn’t hold out, Miss Starkweather.”
“Couldn’t you?” Miss Amory said, still speculative. “No—perhaps you couldn’t.”
The girl wiped her eyes and added, slowly, almost as if she was thinking aloud:
“I’m not one of the strong ones—I’m not one of the strong ones—no more than little Margery was.”