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.

"Because you love me!" he said.

"Because I hate you," she answered.

And yet a spark of exultation leaped within him at the thought that love
had caused this apostasy. He had had that suspicion before, though it was
a poor consolation when he could not reach her. Now she had made it
vivid. A woman's logic, or lack of logic--her logic.

"Listen!" he pleaded. "I tried to forget you--I tried to keep myself
going all the time that I mightn't think of you, but I couldn't help
thinking of you, wanting you, longing for you. I never knew why you left
me, except that you seemed to believe I was unkind to you, and that
something had happened. It wasn't my fault--" he pulled himself up
abruptly.

"I found out what men were like," she said. "A man made my sister a woman
of the streets--that's what you've done to me."