“Get out of her life, if you’re honest, an’ doan’t whine to me ’bout things being beyond mendin’! Go! Turn your back on her an’ let the dazzle of ’e fade out of her eyes an’ out of her mind. You knaw so well as me, that it ban’t beyond mendin’. She promised to marry me ’fore ever she seed the shadow of you; an’ you knawed it from the fust moment you set eyes on her; an’ yet you went on an’ sinked from manhood into this. You’m a whole cowardice o’ curs in the skin o’ one man, damn you!” “You do right to curse. You will never feel greater contempt for me than I do for myself. I cannot go away. It is impossible—wholly above my strength. And the position is beyond mending, despite what you say—both for Sarah and for me. It is no crime in her to love me; the fault is mine, and if I had sworn on my hope of salvation to you, I should have broken my oath as I did my promise. Measure my punishment—that is all you can do; and I won’t flinch from it.” “She loves you—better’n what she do me? It’s come to that; an’ you ax me to measure your punishment! You pitiful wretch! You know you’m safe enough now. She loves you better’n me. Theer’s your safety. ‘Struth! I could smash your bones like rotten wood, an’ you know it; but she loves you better’n me; an’ who be I to crack her painted china wi’ my rough cloam? I doan’t love her no less—anyways not so little as to bruise you, an’ that you knowed afore you spoke. Get out o’ my sight an’ may worse fall on you than ever I would bring. May the thing you’ve done breed an’ bite an’ sap the heart out of ’e like a canker worm; may it bring thorns to your roses, an’ death to your hopes, an’ storms to your skies; may it fill your cup wi’ gall an’ bend your back afore your time an’ sting you on your death-bed. May it do all that, an’ more, so as you’ll mind this hour an’ know if I’d scatted your lying brains abroad an’ killed ’e, ’twould have been kinder than to let you live!” “I have deserved your hardest words; but forgive her—now that you yield her up; forgive her if ever you loved her, for the fault was none of hers.” “You can think for her, can ’e? You can stand between me an’ her to shield her against the man as would have faced fire an’ water an’ all hell’s delights for her ever since she was a li’l dinky maid! You ax me to forgive her—you? Christ A’mighty! she’m a lucky woman to have a man of your metal to stand up for her against me!” “I didn’t mean that, Aggett; only I feared—” “Doan’t I love her tu, you smooth-faced fule? Do ’e think one hair of her ban’t so precious to me as to you? Do ’e think because she’ve took your poison I’m mazed tu? I’ve got to live my life wi’out her; I’ve got to bide all my days wi’out her—that’s enough. But she’d have loved me still if she could. Ban’t her sin that you poured magic in her cup; ban’t her sin that she won’t wear glass beads no more now she thinks she’ve found a strong o’ di’monds.”