" He handed
the boy a dollar bill. "You understand now?"
The boy tucked the bill away. "I'm wise! I'm wise!" He winked at Jan and
left the room.
Jan turned to her. "I'll have a few things sent up in the morning."
She was standing straight and motionless in the middle of the room.
"You're good," she said, but without looking at him.
"And--oh, my mother! I most forgot her. She lives in Port Rock.
To-morrow night I'll put you aboard the boat for Port Rock. And I won't
be able to see you till then."
"Not till to-morrow night?"
"I has to be at the dry dock early in the morning or they can't start
work. Good-night." He was holding his hat very stiffly in one hand. The
other hand he extended to her.
"Good-night," the woman said, and took his hand and clung to it.
Suddenly she lifted it to her lips and sobbed.
A woman crying and kissing his hand, and all done so suddenly he
couldn't stop it--Jan was shocked at himself. "Sh-h!" said Jan. "Sh-h!
You mustn't."
"I will. You're the first man ever came to the house who didn't look at
me as if I was a streetwalker. And he tried his best to make me one. And
I fought him--and fought him; but not a soul to help me. And a woman
can't hold out forever. I'd 'a' killed myself, but I was afraid to die
that way. I was beginning to weaken when you came. And if you had been
the wrong kind of a man--"
"Sh-h! Don't say things like that.
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