He saw that he had overreached himself and grew suddenly penitent.
“Forgive me, Mary! I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m driven crazy by this infernal strike—and by you.”
“By me?”
“Yes, by you. You have no pity. I’m eating my heart out for you, and you’re as cold as an arctic moon.”
“Do you want me to be kind to you?”
“It’s the only want I have.”
“Then stop this strike. Stop it and ask anything decent of me and it’s yours. But until you do stop it, don’t speak to me, nor look at me, nor so much as whisper my name.”
She turned and swept out from his presence, and when she was gone he dropped back into his chair, stared at the blank walls around him, and cursed the evil days on which he had so ingloriously fallen.
But he resolved to win back the favor of the woman for whose sake he would joyously have walked straight to perdition.