"No, I'll never tell you so!" she cried, her eyes flashing. She laid a hand upon her bosom, which was heaving. "There's somethin' here, Dennie, makes it hard to say it. I can't! I can't!"
What she intended by this was no more than that, if he could not trust her without such assurance, it was impossible for her to speak. But Dennis took it quite otherwise.
"By God, it's true, all an' all!" he stormed. He paused an instant, seemingly dazed, and then went on: "I didn't fairly believe it afore, but a little black devil come allays whisperin' it into my ear, when I was alone, and I couldn't get him out'n my mind. It was Sylv, Sylv, Sylv—my own brother! Oh yes, you can bet I began to see it, then! I done my best, and I've waited; but it's him you love, and now I'm to be throwed over, I am. I'm the one that don't count nary fip. An' now I believe it, you needn't be afeared. I believe it, and I know it."
Adela was stung by his doubt, and, recoiling from it, made her next move in precisely the opposite direction to that which her heart prompted her to take.
"You've done your best?" she echoed, tauntingly. "And what's that? Mighty little. You can't read, like—like Sylv."
"Sylv be d—d!" shouted her lover. "If ye say another word, I'll kill him!"
Adela Reefe stood before him, quite calm and unshaken. However she might fear his violence toward others, she felt no alarm for herself. She knew her power.
"No, you won't kill him, Dennie," she said. "You're not wicked: you can't do that wrong. But I'm goin' to tell you what you'll do. You're to leave me here, and go back by yourself, as I said."
Dennis tossed out a little defiant laugh. "No, I ain't a-goin', nuther. You'll see me walkin' right alongside o' you till we get to old man Reefe's, and then I'm a-goin' to tell him the whole yarn, and we'll fix the weddin'."
"You will go straight back to aunty's," she reaffirmed, quietly.