That brought her to bay.
"You're cruel. You're unjust. You're insulting. You're a brute!"
"Chuck it," said I. "You've got to face the truth this once because it may save other lives. You told me you'd always despised him, thought he was stupid, dull, a fool, played with him, used him, accepted his presents, borrowed his pay and had him to flirt with and keep yourself in practise. 'It does 'em good,' you told me. Then you lied to him and left him in the lurch. Joe told me," here I had to improvise, "on the morning of his death, that you expected him to run away with you, through an enemy's country, in time of war. He saw through you at last. He said he'd see you damned first, and that's the message I bring to you from the dead."
She held her hands to her ears screaming, "Oh, let me off! Let me go!"
"Go," said I, standing aside and pointing toward the gate, "cut along, young woman, back to your duty."
She crouched down, cowering against the wall. "I daren't," she whispered, "he'll kill me!"
"Serve you jolly well right if he did. There isn't a man with any manhood in him would stand you for a day."
And I was sorry for her all the time. To be so mean a creature must be a wretched fate, endowed with pleasures but no happiness. Like a constricting snake she was created to crush the manhood out of men, to slaver them over, to destroy them, and hunt for more. To be a snake with a conscience must be horrible. So while my words were harsh I spoke only in pity to rescue this poor creature from herself.
"Your eyes," I said, "are a brace of harlots making wanton love to every man in sight. Your lips have no restraint while your tongue flatters and you make your sacred beauty a thing of hell. You fool men with sham tears, sham smiles, sham sentiments, sham emotions—playing the game of life with marked cards, cogged dice—a shark at getting, only a miser at giving."
"Oh, I don't!" She stood up to face me again. "I never! I—"