"That was what I grew up with. I don't know when it started, but the determination to punish him grew and grew in my mind until it crowded out every other thought. I planned for years before I did anything. I followed him. I learned all about him. His avarice went to such lengths at last that I began to see my chance to show him up. I met Dordess and the others, and the idea of the Avengers slowly took shape. There was something fine to us in the idea of making him pay to bring pleasure and health to the poor. None of us would spend a cent of his filthy money on ourselves. What have I done to Deaves to repay the crushing blows he dealt to me and mine?--a few pin-pricks, that's all. Well, it is my life. I cannot change it now."
Evan was more softened than he cared to show. "I understand," he said. "It excuses your heart, but not your head. It was so foolish to try to buck the law!"
"I can't help it," she said. "I would rather die than return what I have made that old robber disgorge. I have worked too long for this!"
Evan inwardly groaned. To reason with her seemed so hopeless. "You can't live outside the pale of the law," he said. "No man can, let alone a woman. Only wretchedness can come of it!"
"I'll take my chance," she said with curling lip. "Thank God, I have friends who are not so timid."
Evan changed his tone. "Well, never mind the right and the wrong of it," he said earnestly. "Do it because I love you. I love you with all my heart. We quarrel, but my heart speaks to yours. You must hear it. I have endured from you what I believe no man ever forgave a woman. But I forgive you. If you go to jail my life will be a desert. But go to jail you shall, unless you make restitution!"
Corinna laughed mirthlessly. "Funny kind of love!" she said.
"It is the best kind of love. I have sense enough left to realise that if I give in to you on a clear question of right it would ruin us both. We would despise each other."
"I have promised to trouble the Deaves no further," she said. "They're satisfied."
"I had already decided to break up the Avengers, too. Isn't that enough?"
She turned away. "You ask the impossible," she said. "I'd rather die!"
"But to go to jail," he said relentlessly, "to have your beautiful hair cut off" (he was not at all sure of this, but he supposed she was not either), "to wear the hideous prison dress, to have the sickly prison pallor in your clear cheeks, and your eyes dimmed. Your best years, Corinna!"