He stood for some moments looking down into her face, appraising as it were her flightiness, and meditating justice. Then he struck her quietly, swiftly and hard, so that her half-open mouth closed with a sharp snap.
She was not senseless, but she made no effort to rise. He stood over her, smoldering. Then, his voice suddenly soft and tender, "I reckon I is got ter learn you," he said, and he picked her up in his arms and carried her from the roadside deep into the tangled growths of the vacant yard—deeper and deeper, until no sound at all came to us from them.
"That was Mrs. Fulton's laundress and her husband," said Hilda. "She's been trying to copy Mrs. Fulton; but he's settled that. He's a real man, and he'll keep his wife. Women like to be hit and trampled. It proves to them that they're worth while."
"That may be, Hilda. I don't know. I couldn't hit a woman.… You haven't told me that you're not going to tell what you saw."
"I don't know," she said; "he's suffered enough. It ought to end."
"But I thought you—didn't want to hurt me?"
"I don't. Still——"
"Still what?"
"Oh, favors aren't everything."
"What do you mean, Hilda!"