"Go away. Please don't come near me," she appealed, somewhat wildly. "You don't understand—anything."
Tug Blackstock looked puzzled. He seated himself at a distance of several inches, and clasped his hands resolutely in his lap.
"Of course, I won't tech you, Mary," said he, "if you don't want me to. I don't want to do anything you don't want me to—never, Mary. But I sure don't understand what you're crying for. Please don't. I'm so sorry I teched you, dear. But if you knew how I love you, how I would give my life for you, I think you'd forgive me, Mary."
Mary gave a bitter little laugh, and choked her sobs.
"It isn't that, oh no, it isn't that!" she said. "I—I liked it. There!" she panted. Then she sprang to her feet and faced him. And in the gloom he could see her eyes flaming with some intense excitement, from a face ghost-white.
"But—I won't let you make me love you, Tug Blackstock. I won't!—I won't! I won't let you change all my plans, all my ambitions. I won't give up all I've worked for and schemed for and sold my very soul for, just because at last I've met a real man. Oh, I'd soon spoil your life, no matter how much you love me. You'd soon find how cruel, and hard, and selfish I am. An' I'd ruin my own life, too. Do you think I could settle down to spend my life in the backwoods? Do you think I have no dreams beyond the spruce woods of Nipsiwaska County? Do you think you could imprison me in Brine's Rip? I'd either kill your brave, clean soul, Tug Blackstock, or I'd kill myself!"
Utterly bewildered at this incomprehensible outburst, Blackstock could only stammer lamely:
"But—I thought—ye kind o' liked Brine's Rip."
"Like it!" The uttermost of scorn was in her voice. "I hate, hate, hate it! I just live to get out into the great world, where I feel that I belong. But I must have money first. And I'm going to study, and I'm going to make myself somebody. I wasn't born for this." And she waved her hand with a sweep that took in all the backwoods world. "I'm getting out of it. It would drive me mad. Oh, I sometimes think it has already driven me half mad."
Her tense voice trailed off wearily, and she sat down again—this time further away.