Sometimes she had tried to send him away, for his own sake.

For herself, she had been terrified at the thought of losing him.
"Another man might have done what you did, out of chivalry; but no other man but you would not have despised the woman.

I deserved it; but I knew you didn't despise me.

You have been just the same to me all through as you were in the early days.

It braced me up and helped me to keep some sort of self-respect.