She went to the window, draping herself in the proper tragic pose, gazing out into the clear frozen twilight, drawing a deep sigh.
"It was all before I knew you—when I first came, when I was desperate, without a friend, without a cent! It was either that or—" She left the window abruptly, overcome by the mood, and returning, sat down, her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands. "He is a gambler, a partner of my father's. He fell in love with me there at Gold Fields—you remember? When my father was killed, he sent me to school; he has always been kind, very kind. Wanted to marry me afterward, but I wouldn't hear of it. I ran away. I wanted to be young, to enjoy life, to live! He is very ugly, very old; his skin is all spotted and loose, and his eyes are watery and faded, and when he touches me I shiver."
She raised her head, staring before her, drawing down the corners of her mouth.
"I didn't see him again until—until I came here, and that was by accident. Everything had gone wrong! The company I had come with had failed; I could get nothing to do! It was very black. There were men, horrible men, offering me—you understand! I sold newspapers, in all kinds of weather, until ten or eleven at night sometimes, to get enough to eat! That's where he found me, under an umbrella on a street corner, in a pouring rain, a bundle of newspapers soaking under my arm. I was crying; I couldn't struggle any more! He took me to his home, a beautiful place just off Washington Square. He wanted me to marry him then. I can remember every word he said:
"'I'm over sixty. I've lived hard. Two strokes—and the next will box me up. At the worst, girl, it'll only be four or five years and then seven hundred thousand coming to you!'
"I don't know what I might have answered, but he put out his hand—wrinkled chalky hand! I can see it now—and touched mine. Ugh! But I made the bargain then and there, signed it in black and white. Three years to do as I please, and then—"
"And the time is up precisely on the tenth of March?" he said, with a grim smile.
"No! I have eight months more," she said, furious that he should not have been convinced by a story which had moved even her. "Who knows? He is very, very ill; it may all be over in a week!"
All at once the true effect flashed into her imagination, she turned, seizing him by the coat violently, clinging to him, crying:
"Oh, Your Honor, forgive me whatever I do these days! I haven't told you the truth. I'm not engaged—I'm married to him! And it's horrible—it is killing me! I don't know what I shall do. I think such wicked thoughts. I hope he'll never recover! Can you ever love me now?"