'Be patient with me. I could not help it,' she whispered, drinking in the tears that ran down her cheeks, not being able to wipe them.
'I will leave you—as true as death, I'll leave you! You have your sister's fault. She was so ragged she disgusted me. She came everywhere to look for me, and made my friends laugh at me. I left her for that. Do you understand?'
'Poor sister!' she moaned out.
'You are not ragged, but you get me laughed at just the same. Do you hear?'
'Yes, I know.'
'If you don't give over, I will leave you, as I did Carmela. I am a young fellow of honour, you know.'
'Yes, I know that.'
'Don't come here again.'
'Very well, I never will.'
They still went on with this talk, for he felt enraged at losing his game and at being laughed at by his friends, also at not having any money. She was penitent, feeling that ill-treatment was her just punishment for playing her sister false; so, while he bit at his spent cigar in a corner of his mouth and went on abusing her, taunting her with her unhappy life, calling her every bad name, she went alongside, silent and pale, for all the rouge had run down with the rain. Her wet chemise stuck to her shoulders, and her hair was glued to her forehead with damp. She went on, keeping down the umbrella to his side, bearing his insults; for she was carried away by sorrow and repentance, and said mechanically over and over again: 'It is little to what I deserve.'