"What I was going to say," he growled, controlling himself with difficulty, "is this: if you think I'm going to take this as final, you're very much mistaken. You'll get over this, just as you've gotten over your peevishness before. I've spoiled you, that's the truth of the matter. I always give in to you--" "I tell you I am in earnest," she cried hotly. "This is for good and all,--and you make me furious when you talk like that. I am doing my best to be kind and considerate, so you'd better be careful, Barry Lapelle, not to say too much." He looked into her flaming eyes for a moment and then muttered slowly, wonderingly: "By heaven, Viola, I believe you DO mean it. You--you are actually throwing me over,--giving me the mitten?" "I can't help it, Barry," she insisted. "Something,--I don't know what,--has come over me. Nothing seems to be the same as it used to be. I only know that I cannot bear the thought of--why, Barry dear, for the past three or four nights I've lain awake for hours thinking of the awful consequences if we had succeeded in making our escape that night, and had been married as we planned. How terrible it would have been if I had found out too late that I did not love you,--and we were tied to each other for life. For your sake as well as my own, Barry. Can you imagine anything more horrible than to be married to a woman who--who didn't love you?" "Yes," he snapped, "I can. It's worse a thousand times over not to be married to the girl you love,--and to see her married to some one else. That would be hell,--hell, do you understand?" She drew a little away from him. "But not the hell it would be for me when I found out--too late. Won't you understand, Barry? Can't you see how terrible it would be?" "Say, when did you get this idea into your head?" he demanded harshly. "What put it there? You were loving me hard enough a while ago,--couldn't get along without me, you claimed. Now you're singing another tune. Look here! Is--is there some one else?" "You know there isn't," she cried indignantly. "Who else could there be? Don't be foolish, Barry." "By God, if some one else has cut me out, I'll--I'll--" "There is no one else, I tell you! I don't love anybody,--I swear it." He eyed her narrowly. "Has Kenny Gwynne anything to do with all this?" She started. "Kenny? Why,--no,--of course not. What on earth could he have to do with my loving or not loving you?" "It would be just like him to turn you against me because he thinks I'm not fit to--Say, if I find out that he's been sticking his nose into my affairs, I'll make it so hot for him,--brother or no brother,--that he'll wish he'd never been born. Wait a minute! I'll tell you what I think of him while I'm about it--and you can run and tell him as quick as you please. He's a G-- d---- snake in the grass, that's what he is. He's a conceited, sanctimonious, white-livered--"