"Yes."
"Believing that it was for the best interests of the railroad to come here?"
"No; doubting it very much, indeed."
"Then why did you do it? I must know; it is my right to know."
He got up and took her in his arms, and she suffered him.
"A few days ago, little girl, I couldn't have told you. But now I can. I am a free man—or I can be whenever I choose to say the word. You ask me why I pulled for the railroad; I did it for love's sake."
She was pushing him away, and the great horror in her eyes was unmistakable now.
"Oh!" she panted, "is love a thing to be cheapened like that—to be sinned for?"
"Why, Amy, girl! What do you mean? I don't understand——"
"That is it, Victor; you don't understand. You deliberately sacrificed your convictions; you have admitted it. And you did it in the sacred name of love! And your freedom—how have you made a hundred thousand dollars in these few weeks? Oh, Victor, is it clean money?"