She didn't turn her head. She was obviously relieved.
"Would it be that brute?" she breathed out, meaning Schomberg, of
course. "He's getting too forward with me now. What can you expect? Only
this evening, after supper, he--but I slipped away. You don't mind him,
do you? Why, I could face him myself now that I know you care for me.
A girl can always put up a fight. You believe me? Only it isn't easy to
stand up for yourself when you feel there's nothing and nobody at your
back. There's nothing so lonely in the world as a girl who has got to
look after herself. When I left poor dad in that home--it was in the
country, near a village--I came out of the gates with seven shillings
and threepence in my old purse, and my railway ticket. I tramped a mile,
and got into a train--"
She broke off, and was silent for a moment.
"Don't you throw me over now," she went on. "If you did, what should
I do? I should have to live, to be sure, because I'd be afraid to kill
myself, but you would have done a thousand times worse than killing a
body. You told me you had been always alone, you had never had a dog
even. Well, then, I won't be in anybody's way if I live with you--not
even a dog's. And what else did you mean when you came up and looked at
me so close?"
"Close? Did I?" he murmured unstirring before her in the profound
darkness.
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