off.

LARRY. My head! Yes! It's like this, Keith--there's a girl----

KEITH. Women! Always women, with you! Well?

LARRY. A Polish girl. She--her father died over here when she was
sixteen, and left her all alone. There was a mongrel living in the
same house who married her--or pretended to. She's very pretty,
Keith. He left her with a baby coming. She lost it, and nearly
starved. Then another fellow took her on, and she lived with him two
years, till that brute turned up again and made her go back to him.
He used to beat her black and blue. He'd left her again when--I met
her. She was taking anybody then. [He stops, passes his hand over
his lips, looks up at KEITH, and goes on defiantly] I never met a
sweeter woman, or a truer, that I swear. Woman! She's only twenty
now! When I went to her last night, that devil had found her out
again. He came for me--a bullying, great, hulking brute. Look!
[He touches a dark mark on his forehead] I took his ugly throat, and
when I let go--[He stops and his hands drop.]

KEITH. Yes?

LARRY. [In a smothered voice] Dead, Keith. I never knew till
afterwards that she was hanging on to him--to h-help me. [Again he
wrings his hands.]

KEITH. [In a hard, dry voice] What did you do then?

LARRY. We--we sat by it a long time.