“The only answer I could hear was. 'So long as you have them I will not speak with you.'”
“That seems pretty plain and clear. And yet?” said the Colonel, fondling the turquoises, “nobody can say there's any harm in such things, especially if you don't wear them.”
“Colonel, they are my great temptation. I don't know that I wouldn't wear them. And when I wear them I can think of nothing sacred, nothing holy. When they were given to me I used—I used to get up in the night to look at them.”
“Shall I lay it before the Almighty? That bracelet's got a remarkably good clasp.”
“Oh no—no! I must part with them. To-night I can do it, to-night—”
“There's nobody on this ship that will give you any price for them.”
“I would not think of selling them. It would be sending them from my hands to do harm to some other poor creature, weaker than I!”
“You can't return them to-night.”
“I wouldn't return them. That would be the same as keeping them.”
“Then what—oh, I see!” exclaimed Markin. “You want to give them to the Army. Well, in my capacity, on behalf of General Booth—”