"I love you, Gerrit," Nettie said; "I'll never stop till I die." Her face and voice were almost tranquil; she seemed to speak from a plane above the ordinary necessities of common existence, as if her pain, burning out her color and vigor and emotions, had given her the privilege of truth. Curiously enough when it seemed to him that she had expressed what should have sent him into a single consuming flame he grew at once completely calm. He, too, for the moment, reached her state of freedom from earth and flesh. "I love you, Nettie," he replied simply. However, he speedily dropped back into the sphere of actual responsibilities. He saw all the difficulties and hovering insidious shadows in which they might be lost. This, in turn, was pushed aside by the incredulous realization that Nettie's life and his had been spoiled by a thing no more important than a momentary flare of temper. If, as might have happened, he had overlooked Barzil Dunsack's ridiculous tirade, if he had turned into the yard where Nettie was standing instead of tramping away up Hardy Street, everything would have been well. It was unjust, he cried inwardly, for such infinite consequences to proceed from unthinking anger! A great or tragic result should spring from great or tragic causes, the suffering and price measured by the error. He could see that Nettie was patiently waiting for him to solve the whole miserable problem of their future; she had an expression of relief which seemed to take a happy issue for granted. None was possible. A baffled rage cut his speech into quick brutal words flung like shot against her hope. "I love you," he repeated, "yes. But what can that do for us now? I had my chance and I let it go. To-day I'm married, I'll be married to-morrow, probably till I die. Perhaps that wouldn't stop a man more intelligent--it might be just that--than I am; perhaps he'd go right after his love or happiness wherever or however it offered. There are men, too, who have the habit of a number of women. That is understood to be a custom with sailors. It has never been with me; as I say, maybe I am too stupid. "What in the name of all the heavens would I do with Taou Yuen?" he demanded. "I can't desert her here, in America, leave her with William. I brought her thousands of miles away from her home, from all she knows and is. If I took her back and dropped her in China it would be murder." An expression of unalloyed dreariness overspread Nettie's features. "I wish I had been killed right out," she said. The starkness of the words, of the reality they spoke, flowed over him like icy water; he felt that he was sinking, strangling, in a sea grimmer than any about Cape Horn. He was continually appalled by the realization that there was no escape, no smallest glimmer, leading from the pit into which they had stumbled. He had the sensation of wanting enormously to go with Nettie but was fast in chains that were locked on him by a power greater than his will.