Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/341

 And I didn't know that I was thinking a lot about William Grogan when I asked you; but I guess I was. When I said I loved you, God knows that was square and true enough. I guess I began loving you from the first day you walked past my cellar window; but I didn't wake up to the fact until you came aboard the Ajax. Yes, that was honest enough. But deep down somewhere I thought maybe I might have a chance if you were married to me. Well, what I had on my mind was this: to give you a name until we got back to the States, to have the right to take care of you, to see that you had everything. I didn't know that you were coming down. Perhaps I wasn't very steady myself; I'd just been through a whale of a fight. If you've been through hell, so 've I—When you didn't turn up on the Ajax, when you lay there in that bed and we did not know which way it was going. Well, when we got back to the States I was going to give you your freedom and tide you over the bumps until the … the right one came along."

His fingers went into his hair again.

"That's what I had in my poor old coco, what I had to tell you to-night or choke to death. I couldn't sleep, thinking you'd put me in the same boat with other men. Colburton won't bother you any more. He's gone back with his face out of plumb. I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't glad, damned glad. He got what was coming to him. And now that I've got it all off my chest, you just buck up, sister, and forget it. When we get back