"The one you would not draw that day, which seems so long ago!"
His face brightened.
"You kept it?"
"I clung to it as though it were ... the last straw!
"Why, Tom, can't you see what it has meant? If you had drawn you would have been my foreman. You would have protected me, fought for me, taken care of me. I'd never have been forced to stand alone, never been forced to try to do something for myself, by myself. Your refusal put on me the responsibility of being a woman or a leech....
"I drew the last straw that day. I drew the responsibility of keeping the HC on its feet. I feel that I have helped to do that...."
"You have."
"Through sickness and through death, through dark days and storms. I have done something! I have walked alone, unaided....
"And I have made you love me, Tom.... That is the biggest thing I have done. To be worthy of your love was my greatest undertaking. By being worthy, by winning you, I have justified my being here, my walking the earth, my breathing the air...."
"Sho!" he cried in embarrassment, and took the locket and fingered it.