answered sullenly.

"Don't you? Well, I'll make you."

"No, you won't," she said. "I'd have told her everything if she'd waited
another minute. Then----"

"Then you'll say good-bye to your chance," he interrupted.

"I don't care," she repeated, in the same sullen tone. "I can tell Bobby
and father, and--and Bobby'll kill you. He hates you enough."

He had no answer ready, and she went on.

"I know it's lies you told. You always told me lies--always. Only when I
saw her come here it made me mad, and I wanted to hurt her first and
you afterwards. I didn't care for hurting you so much so long as I hurt
her. Now I know it was all lies you told me. She isn't after you; she
wouldn't look at you. But you're after her, wanting to tell her all the
lies you told me, and make her believe all the lies you did me, and she
won't--she won't--and that's why I hate her. I believed them, and she
won't. I believed you, and now--now you think you'll throw me over to
take her on--and she won't--and I hate her for it, for she'll never be
like me."

The girl stood with her mouth drawn and hard and her gleaming eyes
staring at the ground.

"Don't be a fool," he mumbled, and the sound of his voice roused her.

"You remember what I told you," she said, as she looked at him quickly.
"You told me lies, and I believed them; but if she does the same, I'll
kill you before she gets you. It would hurt her more to kill you then,
and I'll do it."

"Don't be a fool," he repeated.

"I'm not a fool; I was one, but I'm not now," she went on. "I'm going to
tell your mother, and Bobby, and father, and--and her; and then, if you
don't do what you promised----"

"What's the use of talking like that?" he interrupted, in a half-whining
voice. "Don't I tell you I will as soon as ever I get this other
business off? It's bound to come right in six months or so--Barber said
so before he went away--and then I can buy my own station, because the
old woman's bound to get shirty if I won't have the other girl--she's
been on it already, don't I tell you? You just wait. It'll only be six
months more."

"That'll be too late," the girl answered, with all the sullenness in her
voice again and her mouth growing hard once more.

"No, it won't; and besides, Barber may have it fixed up before then. He
said not more than six months, and that it was a sure pile for me if no
one knew anything about it. You heard him that night by Slaughter's."

"I don't believe him