She was too normally alive not to express the loving heart outraged within her.
“I shall love him as long as I live,” she shivered between her fingers.
“Hell of a lot of good it’ll do you,” grunted the man coarsely.
Keen anxiety empowered her to raise an anguished face.
“You want my money––” she hesitated. “Well, you can have it.... You want it, don’t you?”
Her girlish helplessness made Morse feel that he was without heart or dignity, but he thought of his little boy and of how this girl was keeping from him the means to institute a search for the child, and his desire for vengeance kindled to glowing fires of hate. He remembered that, steadily of late, he had grown to detest the whole child-world because of his own sorrow, and nodded acquiescence, supplementing the nod with a harsh:
“And, by God, I’m going to have it, too!”
“Then let me go back to Lafe’s shop. I’ll give you every cent I have.... I won’t even ask for a dollar.”
It took some time for Morse to digest this idea; then he slowly shook his head.
“You wouldn’t be allowed to give me what would be mine––”