But Keith shook his head. And with a catch in her breath, she said:
“You will not take him from me. I should die.”
He turned round on her sharply.
“I don't want him taken from you. I want to help you keep him. Are you ready to go away, at any time?”
“Yes. Oh, yes!”
“And he?”
She answered almost in a whisper:
“Yes; but there is that poor man.”
“That poor man is a graveyard thief; a hyena; a ghoul—not worth consideration.” And the rasp in his own voice surprised him.
“Ah!” she sighed. “But I am sorry for him. Perhaps he was hungry. I have been hungry—you do things then that you would not. And perhaps he has no one to love; if you have no one to love you can be very bad. I think of him often—in prison.”