He did not answer her, and she became conscious of his brooding. ‘Abner! What’s up with you? Tell me! You’re frightening me. Abner!’ ‘We can’t go to-morrow,’ he said. ‘But, Abner, we must, we must! Two or three days, he said. He might even be a day early. He might come to-morrow. Think of it, Abner! I should die.’ ‘If George is coming home like that we can’t go.’ ‘Abner, are you mad? What’s come over you?’ ‘I don’t know. Naught’s come over me. It’s hearing his name sudden like that. It’s like a judgment. It makes you think.’ ‘Judgment!’ she scoffed. ‘Oh, Abner, haven’t we thought enough? Haven’t we been thinking for six months? I’m sick of thinking!’ ‘Like a warning. Just the very second. If he’d come an hour later . . .’ ‘What’s the difference, Abner? If he’d come to-morrow or in a week’s time it would be no different. We’d made up our minds, Abner, we’re not children. Things like that don’t count. Whether you’ve had me or not, I’m yours. You know that.’ She clung closer to him, but his mind would not accept the sway of her emotion. He freed himself from her hands, and the movement swept her into a passion. ‘Abner!’ she cried. ‘Don’t do that! Don’t! You’ll kill me . . . kill me!’ ‘George is my pal,’ he said stolidly. ‘I gave old George my word. We shook hands on it, George and me. “Abner,” he said, “you’m the only pal I’ve got that I can trust.”’ ‘Oh, that’s it, is it?’ she cried, and her voice went shrill. ‘That’s it? What children men are! Gave George your word! Don’t you see that you’ve broken your word already . . . broken it long ago, ever since you thought of me like that? And then you say you love me! That isn’t love, Abner, not my kind anyway!’ He caught her up in his arms, and she could not speak now for tears. His own face was anguished. ‘You’d better kill me and have done with it,’ she sobbed. ‘Far better. Oh, why don’t you kill me right out if you’re going to leave me? I wish I were dead! I do! Abner, if we don’t go away to-morrow I shall lose you. I know it . . . I know it! For my sake, Abner! I’ve had so little happiness.’ He fondled her as she spoke. ‘I’m not going to leave go of you,’ he said. ‘Don’t you ever think that!’ He kissed her tearful face. ‘But I gave old George my word,’ he continued obstinately. ‘Oh, damn your word!’ she cried, violently wrenching herself away from him. ‘Don’t get wild,’ he protested. ‘Listen to me.’ ‘I won’t listen. You’re talking wickedly, madly.’ ‘You’ve got to listen, my girl!’ He took hold of her and held her with his strength. ‘A chap may go back on his word. Every one knows that. But a man that’s worth calling don’t go slinking away behind another chap’s back like a dog. If old George is coming home he’s got to hear what I say to his face, not find the place empty and say I’ve run away from him. Me and George has got to have this out.’ ‘Then take us away first,’ she pleaded, ‘and come back to see him afterward.’