Page:The Reverberator (2nd edition, American issue, London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1888).djvu/213

Rh Mr. Flack stared a moment. "Lord, how they have worked on you! And do you think it's bad?"

"Do I think what's bad?"

"Why, the letter we are talking about."

"Well—I don't like it."

"Do you think I was dishonourable?"

The girl made no answer to this, but after a moment she said, "Why do you come here this way—why do you ask me such questions?"

He hesitated; then he broke out: "Because I love you—don't you know that?"

"Oh, please don't!" she almost moaned, turning away.

"Why won't you understand it—why won't you understand the rest? Don't you see how it has worked round—the heartless brutes they've turned into, and the way our life—yours and mine—is bound to be the same? Don't you see the base way they treat you and that I only want to do anything in the world for you?"

Francie made no immediate response to this appeal, but after a moment she began: "Why did you ask me so many questions that day?"

"Because I always ask questions—it's my business to ask them. Haven't you always seen me ask you and ask every one all I could? Don't you know they are the very foundation of my work? I thought you sympathised with my work so much—you used to tell me you did."