"If I thought you ever could be 'there,' Ann, it's nothing to say that I'd die to save you from it." She let her thought dwell for a moment upon the picture of herself as a drunkard which had caused such intense feeling in him.

"I am not worth his caring what becomes of me in that way," she thought to herself.

It was the first time it ever occurred to her to think that she was unworthy of the love he had for her; but at the same moment she felt a shadow extinguish the rays of hope she had begun to feel, for she believed, as Bart did, that his piety was in direct opposition to the help he might otherwise give her.

She had begun to hope that piety had loosened its grasp upon him for the time.
"I don't know what's to become of us, Christa and me," she said despairingly; "if we don't take to drink it will be a wonder, everybody turning the cold shoulder on us." This was not her true thought at all.

She knew herself to be quite incapable of the future she suggested, but the theme was excellently adapted to work upon his feelings.
"I'm going away to-night, Ann," he said; "perhaps I won't see you again for a long time; but you know all that you said you would promise last night----" Her heart began to beat so sharply against her side with sudden hope, and perhaps another feeling to which she gave no name, that her answer was breathless.