"I don't think I should dip any deeper into that kind of thing if I were you."
"I'll swear by anything! You see those two matches? That's the sign of the Cross. I swear by the Cross that I'll offer myself to Jack! And he can do what he likes with me."
"Wouldn't it be rather a waste of breath to talk like this to Jack?"
"You mean I'm not in earnest? I swear to you, Jim, that I'll beg him to marry me, if he still wants to."
The clock struck half-past six, and Loring shivered.
"I wish to God you'd died before you ever met him!" he muttered. "What the devil's the good of telling me all this?"
"If I hadn't told you, nobody'd have known. Jack wouldn't tell. I wanted to commit myself before I had time to go back. Now I'll give the whole of my life trying to make him happy, to atoning...."
Loring caught her wrists and gripped them.
"Leave him alone!" he cried. "It would be suicide if you married after this."
"If he wants me...." Barbara began again. "Jim, can't you see that I'm trying to save my soul? He can have everything. I'm quite young, and he can have all my youth and life, my looks, anything that I've got, anything that I am. He can take it all—or he can fling it all back at me."