She wept, inconsolable. She would not let him comfort her. She hoped that her tears would soften him.
‘Can’t you do just one thing for me, Abner? You’re cruel . . . cruel! You don’t love me. That isn’t love.’
‘I’ve got to do it my own way.’
‘You might just as well kill me.’
‘I’ve never run away from a man yet.’
‘If you don’t take me away from here now,’ she said desperately, ‘you’ll never have me at all. Never! I know it, Abner, it’s our last chance.’
‘It’s been too much for you,’ he said. ‘You can’t see anything clear. I’m not a chap that changes.’
She stared at him in silence with sad, resentful eyes. Then she lost control of herself and began to curse the clumsiness of old Drew, who had blundered in on them with his drunken gossip in the middle of the night. ‘I’ll never forgive him!’ she cried. ‘Never!’ She shouted like a drunken woman. Then she stopped and listened intently, just as an animal listens in suspicion. Morgan, awakened by the sound of raised voices, had begun to cry.
‘It’s Morgan,’ she whispered.
‘You’d better go to him,’ Abner replied.