"Yes—that'll be just what he'll do—and he'll make a fat lot more than you will."
"Oh, don't go!" sobbed Janey.
Nigel looked wretchedly from one to the other.
"Janey," he cried, drawing her close to him, and quivering in the agony of his appeal, "Janey, can't you understand?—I want to start a new life, I want to throw off all my beastly past. I want to make my name—your name—clean and honourable. I dragged it into the mud, and I must pull it out again. Oh, I've suffered so, Janey. I can't get out of prison, I feel more helplessly shut up than ever I did at Parkhurst. But now I—can be—free."
The last words burst from him in a choking cry. He flung himself back from her, and looked into her eyes. Then he was surprised, for he saw in them, swimming in tears, a glimmer of understanding.
"Janey," he continued, putting his lips close to her face, and mumbling his appeal almost incoherently, "I can't expect you to grasp all that this means to me. You're good, you're pure—you don't know what it is to have a horrible stain on your heart, which all your tears don't seem able to wash away. But can't you put yourself for a moment in my place and realise what it is to hunger for a decent life, to dream of whiteness and purity and innocence, and burn to make them yours?—to be willing to give the whole world—just to be—clean?"
"I think I can," said Janey.