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. Dennis's features softened into a pleading expression. "You'll let me go as far as the tide-way?" he petitioned. "No." He hesitated, but presently turned and walked a few steps over the ground they had just traversed. His gun was slung in the bend of his right arm. Once more he reverted to her, appealingly, but without a word. "You must go," said Adela, gently, standing on one of the little hummocks into which the land was broken, with the glow of the sinking sun irradiating her brown and rosy cheeks, her dark gray eyes, and wild black hair. Dennis obeyed. She remained stationary, watching him as he withdrew. But before he had gone out of earshot, he called out to her, defiantly, like a truant schoolboy: "I'm not goin' back to aunty's. Some o' those birds yonder got to smell powder, fust."