She saw many
foreign countries and many foreign towns, and in all of them men and
women were evil. The towns were always in the hour between daylight
and dark, the streets twisted and obscure, the inhabitants furtive
and sinister.
The things that those inhabitants did were made quite plain to her.
She saw the dancing saloons, the women naked and laughing, the men
drunken and besotted, the gambling, the quarrelling, drugging,
suicide--all under a half-dead sky, stinking and offensive.
One day, at last, she laughed.
"Martin," she cried, "don't let's be so serious about it. You can't
want to go back to that life--it's so dull. At first I was
frightened, but now!--why it's all the same thing over and over
again."
"I'm only telling you," he said; "I don't say that I do want to go
back again. I don't want anything except for you to go away. I just
want to go to hell my own fashion."
"You talk so much about going to hell," she said. "Why, for ten days
now you've spoken of nothing else. There are other places, you
know."
"You clear out and get back to your parson," he said. "You must see
from what I've told you it isn't any good your staying.
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