“Mr. Burns,” she said at last, putting out her hand and plucking at his sleeve, “Mr. Burns, you-all ain't got no call ter be like this. You-all ain't plumb bad. I knows you ain't, 'count of the way you-all have been ter me an' 'cause you kept pap from hurtin' me, an' 'cause you are takin' care of Auntie Sue like you're doin'. Hit ain't no matter 'bout the money, now, 'cause you-all kin take care of her allus.” Brian looked up from the manuscript in his hand, and stared dumbly at the girl, as if he failed to hear her clearly. “An' just think 'bout your book,” Judy continued pleadingly. “Think 'bout all them fine things you-all have done wrote down for everybody ter read,--'bout the river allus a-goin' on just the same, no matter what happens, an' 'bout Auntie Sue an'--” She stopped, and drew away from him, frightened at the look that came into the man's face. “Don't, Mr. Burns! Don't!” she half-screamed. “'Fore God, you-all oughten ter look like that!” The man threw up his head, and laughed,--laughed as the wild, reckless and lost Brian Kent had laughed that black night when, in the drifting boat, he had cursed the life he was leaving and had drunk his profane toast to the darkness into which he was being carried. Raising the manuscript, which represented all that the past months of his re-created life had meant to him, and grasping it in both hands, he shook it contemptuously, as he said, with indescribable bitterness and the reckless surrendering of every hope: “'All them fine things that I have wrote down for everybody ter read.'” He mimicked her voice with a sneer, and laughed again. Then: “It's all a lie, Judy, dear;--a damned lie. Auntie Sue is a saint, and believes it. She made me believe it for a little while,--her beautiful, impossible dream-philosophy of the river. The river,--hell!--the river is as treacherous and cruel and false and tricky and crooked as life itself! And I am as warped and twisted in mind and soul as you are in body, Judy, dear. Neither of us can help it. We were made that way by the river. To hell with the whole impossible mess of things!” With a gesture of violent rage, he turned toward the river, and, taking a step forward, lifted the manuscript high above his head. Judy screamed, “Mr. Burns, don't!” He paused an instant, and, turning his head, looked at her with another laugh. “'Fore God, you dassn't do that!” she implored.