“Fearing what you now do?” Hillhouse paused in front of her.
“That's what I said.” The old woman raised her eyes to his. Hillhouse sank down into his chair, nursing a new-born alarm in his lap.
“What do you mean, Sister Porter?” he asked, in a low tone.
“Why, I mean that I never heard any thoroughly rational man on earth talk just as Floyd did last night. I may be away off. I may be wronging him badly, but not once in all his tirade did he say right in so many words that he meant actually to marry her.”
“Great God, the damnable wretch!” Hillhouse sprang again to his feet. Mrs. Porter put out her hand and caught his arm and drew him down to his chair again.
“Don't decide hastily,” she urged him. “I laid awake all night trying to get it clear in my head. He had lots to say about the awful way the world had treated him, and that he felt, having no name, that he was unworthy of anybody as sweet and good as she was, but that if she would go off with him he'd feel that she had sacrificed everything for him and that that would recompense him for all he had lost. He even said that Providence sometimes worked that way, giving people a lot to bear at first, and then lifting them out of it all of a sudden.”
Hillhouse leaned forward till his elbows rested on his knees and he covered his ghastly face with his hands. For a moment he was silent. Mrs. Porter could hear him breathing heavily. Suddenly he looked at her from eyes that were almost bloodshot.
“I understand him,” he declared. “He fell into a drunkard's hell, feeling that he was justified in such a course by his ill-luck, and now he has deliberately persuaded himself that both he and she would be justified in defying social customs—being a law unto themselves as it were. It is just the sort of thing a man of his erratic character would think of, and the damnable temptation is so dazzling that he is trying to make himself believe they have a right to it.”
“Really, that was what I was afraid of,” said Mrs. Porter, with a soft groan. “I heard him tell her that he would never be called by the name of Floyd again. Surely, a man has to have a name of some sort to get legally married, doesn't he?”
“Of course he has,” said Hillhouse. “But, my God, Sister Porter, what are you going to do?”