"What is it then, my girl?"
"I can't do this," she said. She was still very pale. Something had come close to her, had touched her, that had never approached her so nearly before.
He stared at her. "But he'll have his life," he said.
"It's not that," she answered slowly. "It's the way. I can't!" she repeated. "I've tried, and I can't! It sickens me."
"And he's to do what he likes with us?" James cried.
"No, no!"
"And we're not to touch him without our gloves?"
She did not answer, and twice her brother repeated the taunt—twice asked her, with a confidence he did not feel, what was the matter with the plan. At last, "It's too vile!" she cried passionately. "It's too horrible! It's to sink to what he is, and worse!" Her voice trembled with the intensity of her feelings—as a man, who has scaled a giddy height without faltering, sometimes trembles when he reaches the solid ground. "Worse!" she repeated.
To relieve his feelings, perhaps to hide his shame, he cursed his enemy anew. And "I wish I had never told you!" he added bitterly.
"It's too late now," she replied.