"I didn't know," he said desperately, "I couldn't guess. Do you think I would have had this thing happen to you? I was carried away—we were both carried away—"
"You planned it!" she replied vehemently, without looking up. "You didn't care for me, you only—wanted me."
"That isn't so—I swear that isn't so. I loved you I love you."
"Oh, do you think I believe that?" she exclaimed.
"I swear it—I'll prove it!" he protested. Still under the influence of an acute anxiety, he was finding it difficult to gather his wits, to present his case. "When you left me that day the strike began—when you left me without giving me a chance—you'll never know how that hurt me."
"You'll never know how it hurt me!" she interrupted.
"Then why, in God's name, did you do it? I wasn't myself, then, you ought to have seen that. And when I heard from Caldwell here that you'd joined those anarchists—"
"They're no worse than you are—they only want what you've got," she said.
He waved this aside. "I couldn't believe it—I wouldn't believe it until somebody saw you walking with one of them to their Headquarters. Why did you do it?"
"Because I know how they feel, I sympathize with the strikers, I want them to win—against you!" She lifted her head and looked at him, and in spite of the state of his feelings he felt a twinge of admiration at her defiance.