s? Why, even _I_--ha, ha, ha!--even
_I_--should have known better than that. What a little fool your
enterprising idiot must be!--with his work-baskets and currant jelly
and his trying to make the 'Herald' a daily!--It will be a ludicrous
failure, of course. No doubt he thought he was being quite wise, and
was pleased over his tariff editorials--his funny, funny editorials--his
best--to please you! Ha, ha, ha! How immensely funny!"

"Do you know him?" he asked abruptly.

"I have not the honor of the gentleman's acquaintance. Ah," she rejoined
bitterly, "I see what you mean; it is the old accusation, is it? I am a
woman, and I 'sound the personal note.' I could not resent a cruelty
for the sake of a man I do not know. But let it go. My resentment is
personal, after all, since it is against a man I do know--_you_!"

He leaned toward her because he could not help it. "I'd rather have
resentment from you than nothing."

"Then I will give you nothing," she answered quickly.

"You flout me!" he cried. "That is better than resentment."

"I hate you most, I think," she said with a tremulousness he did not
perceive, "when you say you do not care to go back to Plattville."

"Did I say it?"

"It is in every word, and it is true; you don't care to go back there."

"Yes, it is true; I don't."

"You want to leave the place where you do good; to leave those people
who love you, who were ready to die to avenge your hurt!" she exclaimed
vehemently. "Oh, I say that is shameful!"

"Yes, I know," he returned gravely. "I am ashamed."

"Don't say that!" she cried. "Don't say you are ashamed of it. Do you
suppose I do not understand the dreariness it has been for you? Don't
you know that I see it is a horror to you, that it brings back your
struggle with those beasts in the dark, and revivifies all your
suffering, merely to think of it?" Her turns and sudden contradictions
left him tangled in a maze; he could not follow, but must sit helpless
to keep pace with her, while the sheer happiness of being with her
tingled through his veins. She rose and took a step aside, then spoke
again: "Well, since you want to leave Carlow, you shall; since you do
not wish to return, you need not.--Are you laughing at me?" She leaned
toward him, and looked at him steadily, with her face close to his. He
was not laughing; his eyes shone with a deep fire; in that nearness he
hardly comprehended what she said. "Thank you for not laughing," she
whispe