"Come back, Frona! Come back!" he called, "I am sorry."
"No, you're not," came the answer. "And I'd be sorry if you were.
Good-night."
He watched her merge into the shadows, then entered the cabin. He had utterly forgotten the scene within, and at the first glance it startled him. Cariboo Blanche was crying softly to herself. Her eyes were luminous and moist, and, as he looked, a lone tear stole down her cheek. Bishop's face had gone serious. The Virgin had sprawled head and shoulders on the table, amid overturned mugs and dripping lees, and Cornell was tittubating over her, hiccoughing, and repeating vacuously, "You're all right, my dear. You're all right."
But the Virgin was inconsolable. "O Gawd! Wen I think on wot is, an' was . . . an' no fault of mine. No fault of mine, I tell you!" she shrieked with quick fierceness. "'Ow was I born, I ask? Wot was my old man? A drunk, a chronic. An' my old woman? Talk of Whitechapel! 'Oo guv a cent for me, or 'ow I was dragged up? 'Oo cared a rap, I say? 'Oo cared a rap?"
A sudden revulsion came over Corliss. "Hold your tongue!" he ordered.
The Virgin raised her head, her loosened hair streaming about her like a Fury's. "Wot is she?" she sneered. "Sweet'eart?"
Corliss whirled upon her savagely, face white and voice shaking with passion.
The Virgin cowered down and instinctively threw up her hands to protect her face. "Don't 'it me, sir!" she whined. "Don't 'it me!"
He was frightened at himself, and waited till he could gather control.
"Now," he said, calmly, "get into your things and go. All of you.
Clear out. Vamose."
"You're no man, you ain't," the Virgin snarled, discovering that physical assault was not imminent.