"I am sorry for all men,"

   she said.

"But the others I am sorry for

   and send away.

You I am sorry for

   and I let you come.

That's how I know

   I love you."

Eric Knight

You Play the Black

    and the Red Comes Up

1938

He told about all the women

what he had knowed,

and all the saloons he'd been in,

and some of it was a lie,

'cause if all those saloons

was as swell as he said they was

they'd of throwed him out.

James M. Cain

"Pastorale"

1928

She may 

be a

feminist,

my boy,

but she has

startling

lapses.

John Dickson Carr

The Three Coffins

1935

The night was like purple ink.

And it was as though the bottle

that held the ink

had been smashed against the sky

by some insurgent celestial accountant.

For heaven was pitted with its tiny,

twinkling particles of broken glass.

And there seemed to be no one

there to sweep them up.

God's office was closed for the night.

Cornell Woolrich

Fright

1950