She broke off suddenly, and then, seeing that he was silent, she added:
"Mr. Westerfelt, sometimes I am afraid, really afraid, your sickness
has affected your mind, you speak so strange and harsh to me. Surely I
do not deserve such cruelty. I am just a woman, and a weak one at
that; a woman driven nearly crazy through troubling about you." She
raised a corner of her shawl to her eyes.

He saw her shoulders rise with a sob, then he caught her hands.
"Don't--don't cry, little girl. I'd give my life to help you. Oh yes,
_do_ let me hold your hands, just this once; it won't make any
difference."

She did not attempt to withdraw her hands from his passionate, reckless
clasp, and, now more trustingly, raised her eyes to his.

"Sometimes I think you really love me," she faltered. "You have made
me think so several times."

"I'm not ashamed of it," he said. "I've had fancies for women, but I
have never felt this way before. It seems to me if I was to live a
thousand years I'd never, never feel that you was like other women.
Maybe you love me real deep, and maybe you just fancy me, but I'll
never want any other human being like I want you. I have been a bad
man--a careless, thoughtless man. Ever since I was a boy I have played
with love. I was playing with fire--the fire of hell, Harriet--and I
got burnt. In consequence of what I've done I suffer as no mortal ever
suffered. Repentance brings contentment to some men, but they are not
built like me. I don't do anything from morning to night but brood and
brood over my past life."