humiliation, doing it almost tearfully. "But, look here, Jim, I've got
to marry Rosie--I've _got_ to."

The Irishman in the young man was still in the ascendant as he wagged
his head sympathetically. "Sure you've got to--if she wants it."

"Well, she does want it, doesn't she? She must have told you so, or you
wouldn't know so much about it."

"She's told me all about it from seeding to sale, and it's God's truth
I'm handing out to you--no bluff at all. This Rosie's another
proposition."

"I'll marry her, whatever she is," Claude declared, bravely; "and I've
got to see her, too."

Jim looked thoughtful. "It isn't so easy to see her because--Well, now,
I'll tell you straight, Claude--because it makes her kind o' sick to
think of you. Oh, that's nothing!" he hastened to add, on seeing a
second convulsion pass across Claude's face. "Sure she'd feel the same
about any one who'd done the like o' that to her, now wouldn't she? It
isn't you at all--not any more than it 'd be me or anybody else."

"If I could see her," Claude said, weakly, "I'd--I'd explain."

"Ah, but you couldn't explain quick enough. That's where the trouble
about that'd be. She'd be down on the floor in a faint before you'd be
able to say knife. You couldn't get near her at all at all--not this
Rosie--not if it was to explain away the ground beneath her feet."

"She'd get over that--" Claude began to plead.

"She'd get over it if it didn't kill her first; but it's my belief it
would. If you could have seen her the night she told me about you! It
was like cutting out her own heart and picking it to pieces. She's never
mentioned you before nor since--and I don't think ever will again. No,
Claude," he continued, in a reasoning tone, "there's no two ways about
it, but you've got to get out--for a spell, at any rate. If you don't,
old man Fay'll be after you with a gun, and what Matt Fay'll do may be
worse. I can handle them if you'll keep from hanging yourself out like a
red rag to a bull, like; but if you don't--then the Lord only knows
what'll happen."

"What'll happen," Claude cried, with a final up-leaping of resistance,
"is that you'll marry Rosie."

"I'll marry her if she'll have me. Don't you fret about that. But I
won't _try_ to marry her--not if I see that she's got the least little
bit of a wish to marry you, Claude. I'll play fair. If she changes her
mind from the way she is now, and gets so as to be able to think of you
again, and wan