He had never before heard anything like this from her.
"Can't anybody help me out of it ?" she said quietly.
"Who?
How?
...

Do you mean--" "Yes, I mean it! I mean it! I--" And suddenly she broke down, in a strange, stammering, tearless way, opening the dry flood-gates over which rattled an avalanche of words--bitter, breathless phrases rushing brokenly from lips that shrank as they formed them.
Plank sat inert, the corroding echo of the words clattering in his ears.
And after a while he heard his own altered voice sounding persistently in repetition: "Don't say those things, Leila; don't tell me such things." "Why?
Don't you care ?" "Yes, yes, I care; but I can't do anything! I have no business to hear--to see you this way." "To whom can I speak, then, if I can not speak to you?
To whom can I turn?
Where am I to turn, in all the world ?" "I don't know," he said fearfully; "the only way is to go on." "What else have I done?
What else am I doing ?" she cried.

"Go on?
Am I not trudging on and on through life, dragging the horror of it behind me through the mud, except when the horror drags me?
To whom am I to turn--to other beasts like him ?--sitting patiently around, grinning and slavering, awaiting their turn when the horror of it crushes me to the mud ?" She stretched out a rounded, quivering arm, and laid the small fingers of the left hand on its flawless contour.

"Look!" she said, exasperated, "I am young yet; the horror has not yet corrupted the youth in me.

I am fashioned for some reason, am I not ?--for some purpose, some happiness.
I am not bad; I am human.