would find another woman. He wasn't bothered about that.

This was what he had wanted to tell Marcsa.

He bounded after her and overtook her a few feet from the machine shop.

"Why do you run away from me?" he growled, breathless, and caught her
hand. "If you don't want me any more, you need only say so. What do you
think--I'm going to eat you up?"

She stared at him searchingly--in uncertainty. He almost felt sorry for
her, she was trembling so.

"How you look!" he heard her stammer, and he turned red with anger.

"You knew it. I had them write to you that a shell hit me. Did you think
it made me better-looking? Just speak straight out if you don't want me
any more. Straight wine is what I want, no mixture. Yes or no? I won't
force you to marry me. Just say it right away--yes or no?"

Marcsa was silent. There was something in his face, in his one eye, that
took her breath away, that dug into her vitals like cold fingers. She
cast her eyes down and stammered:

"But you have no position yet. How can we marry? You must first ask the
master if he--"

It was as if a red pall woven of flames dropped in front of John
Bogdan's eyes. The master? What was she saying about the master? He
thought of the humpback, and it came to him in a flash that the fellow