He went on. "He taunted me, he laughed at me. I was up there for three years. In all that time his damned sneers and laughter were never out of my mind. He laughed at me because the drunken bargain I had made with him had turned out to his credit, after all."
"The sale?"
"Yes."
He looked away. The expression in her eyes cut him like a knife.
"I ought to have been shot for that, Mary," he said.
"Yes," she agreed mechanically.
His hand went to his mouth suddenly, as if to steady the lips.
"I'm not asking you to overlook it. Maybe you'll spare Christine the knowledge of it—not for my sake, but for hers."
"Tom, don't you feel that you owe me something?" she asked steadily.
"Everything. I'm going to pay, too. I took you from a home like this and—Oh, well, it won't do any good to bring it all up again. Let's—"