anything — ”

“She was between me and the front door. And you can’t realise how determined she was. She was like a rock. That’s the strangest thing of all about her. She used to be so good and obedient, and now she’s neither to hold nor bind. But I saideverything I could think of to bring her to her senses. I asked her if she had no regard for her reputation. I said to her solemnly, ‘Doss, when a woman’s reputation is once smirched nothing can ever make it spotless again. Your character will be gone for ever if you go to Roaring Abel’s to wait on a bad girl like Sis Gay. And she said, ‘I don’t believe Cissy was a bad girl, but I don’t care if she was.’ Those were her very words, ‘I don’t care if she was.’“