“I can't live with you, Jim.”
The blue flames beneath the drooping eyelids were leaping now in the yellow glare of the candle's rays. The muscles of his body were knotted. His voice came from his throat a low growl.
“Do you know who you're fooling with?”
The blood of a clean life flamed in her cheeks and nerved her with reckless daring. Her figure stiffened and her voice rang with defiant scorn:
“Yes. I know at last—a thief who would drag his own mother down to hell with him!”
Not a muscle of his powerful body moved; his face was a stolid mask. He threw his words slowly through his teeth:
“Now you listen to me. You're my wife. I didn't invent this marriage game. I played it as I found it. And that's the way you're going to play it. You're good and sweet and clean—I like that kind, and I won't have no other. You're mine. MINE, do you hear! Mine for life—body and soul—`FOR BETTER FOR WORSE, FOR RICHER FOR POORER, IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH, TO LOVE, CHERISH'——”
He paused and thrust his massive jaw squarely into her face:
“`——AND OBEY!'” he hissed, “`UNTIL DEATH DO US PART, ACCORDING TO GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCE'—you said it, didn't you?”
“Yes——”