For an instant there had been a faint suggestion of contrition in his tone, but it was overwhelmed by his desire for self-justification.

It was of himself he was thinking, not of the deed in itself, not of the woman he had left to bear her child in an alien wilderness.
"I tried to do what I could for you.

I want you to know that.

I meant to have cared for you, that no harm should come to you," he said, and the words jarred upon his own ears as he spoke them.
In her face there was less of disdain than of marvel.

He wished to escape from her eyes, but they held him fast.