" You're worried I'll go back to whorin again, I reckon," she said. He could only nod. He felt his face grow red. Mollie shrugged. "Can't say for certain I won't. But it I do, Nate, then you won't have to have nothin' more to do with me, an' that'll be that." She set her hand on his arm. "I don't want it to end that way, I swear I don't."

"I don't, either. It's just-oh, hell." Caudell kicked the dirt again. Foolish to take chances, he thought-would you use a one time drunk to guard a whiskey barrel? "

― Harry Turtledove , The Guns of the South