"I can't promise till you tell what you want me to do."
"No, say you promise. Say it, say it."
But he would not, and she tried a new angle. "If I tell you, will you promise?"
"After you've told me," he persisted.
She sat up straight at this and took his face between her two arm palms.
"Billy, you know I love you, don't you?"
Looking into her eyes how could he doubt it.
She resumed. "You know I wouldn't ask you to do anything that wasn't for your own good, yet you won't promise the first promise I ever asked you to make."
He shook his head. "I can't."
"All right, I'll have to tell you then, Billy. I've heard things—about your job. I've heard that if you don't do exactly as the gang says you'll be kuk-killed. Oh, not exactly in those words, but I know what was meant. No, I shan't tell you where I heard it. It doesn't matter anyway. It was bad enough when you—I thought you were just a friend, but now—now when you're just everything to me, I cuc-can't bear to have you run any risks. Suppose something happens to you, what would I do? I'd die, I think. I'd want to, anyway."