He leaned toward her because he could not help it. "I'd rather have
resentment from you than nothing."

"Then I will give you nothing," she answered quickly.

"You flout me!" he cried. "That is better than resentment."

"I hate you most, I think," she said with a tremulousness he did not
perceive, "when you say you do not care to go back to Plattville."

"Did I say it?"

"It is in every word, and it is true; you don't care to go back there."

"Yes, it is true; I don't."

"You want to leave the place where you do good; to leave those people who
love you, who were ready to die to avenge your hurt!" she exclaimed
vehemently. "Oh, I say that is shameful!"

"Yes, I know," he returned gravely. "I am ashamed."

"Don't say that!" she cried. "Don't say you are ashamed of it. Do you
suppose I do not understand the dreariness it has been for you? Don't you
know that I see it is a horror to you, that it brings back your struggle
with those beasts in the dark, and revivifies all your suffering, merely
to think of it?" Her turns and sudden contradictions left him tangled in
a maze; he could not follow, but must sit helpless to keep pace with her,
while the sheer happiness of being with her tingled through his veins. She
rose and took a step aside, then spoke again: "Well, since you want to