He took hold of the end of her seam, passed his finger along it as if
examining the fabric and the stitches. "I took one glass," he said,
with the curious quiet gravity which lay to-night like a spell upon all
his words and actions.

"Well," she said cheerily, "I don't believe in a man making a slave of
himself, not to take a glass when he wants it just because he sometimes
makes a beast of himself by taking more than he ought."

"If you choose to think black is white, Ann, it will not make it that
way."

"That's true," she replied compliantly; "and you've got more call to
know than I have, for I've never 'been there.'"

"God forbid!" he said with sudden intensity. All the habits of thought
of the last year put strength into his words. "If I thought you ever
could be 'there,' Ann, it's nothing to say that I'd die to save you from
it."

She let her thought dwell for a moment upon the picture of herself as a
drunkard which had caused such intense feeling in him. "I am not worth
his caring what becomes of me in that way," she thought to herself. It
was the first time it ever occurred to her to think that she was
unworthy of the love he had for her; but at the same moment she felt a
shadow extinguish the rays of hope she had begun to feel, for she
believed, as Bart did, that his piety was in direct opposition to the
help he might otherwise give her. She had begun to hope that piety had
loosened its grasp upon him for the time.