"Will she have a choice then? She will have to take it. I won't live with her _anyhoy_," he replied, his passion once more welling up in his soul. "Mamie, my treasure, my glory!" he exclaimed, in tremulous accents. "Say that you are _shatichfied_; my heart will become lighter." Saying which, he strained her to his bosom, and fell to raining fervent kisses on her face. At first she made a faint attempt at freeing herself, and then suddenly clasping him with mad force she pressed her lips to his in a fury of passion. The pillowcase flapped aloud, ever more sternly, warningly, portentously. Jake cast an involuntary side glance at it. His spell of passion was broken and supplanted by a spell of benumbing terror. He had an impulse to withdraw his arms from the girl; but, instead, he clung to her all the faster, as if for shelter from the ghostlike thing. With a last frantic hug Mamie relaxed her hold. "Remember now, Jake!" she then said, in a queer hollow voice. "Now it is all _settled_. Maybe you are making fun of me? If you are, you are playing with fire. Death to me--death to you!" she added, menacingly. He wished to say something to reassure her, but his tongue seemed grown fast to his palate. "Am I to blame?" she continued with ghastly vehemence, sobs ringing in her voice. "Who asked you to come? Did I lure you from her, then? I should sooner have thrown myself into the river than taken away somebody else's husband. You say yourself that you would not live with her, _anyvay_. But now it is all gone. Just try to leave me now!" And giving vent to her tears, she added, "Do you think my heart is no heart?" A thrill of joyous pity shot through his frame. Once again he caught her to his heart, and in a voice quivering with tenderness he murmured: "Don't be uneasy, my dear, my gold, my pearl, my consolation! I will let my throat be cut, into fire or water will I go, for your sake." "Dot's all right," she returned, musingly. "But how are you going to get rid of her? You von't go back on me, vill you?" she asked in English. "_Me?_ May I not be able to get away from this spot. Can it be that you still distrust me?" "Swear!" "How else shall I swear?" "By your father, peace upon him." "May my father as surely have a bright paradise," he said, with a show of alacrity, his mind fixed on the loosened pillowcase. "_Vell_, are you _shatichfied_ now?" "All right," she answered, in a matter-of-fact way, and as if only half satisfied. "But do you think she will take money?" "But I have none." "Nobody asks you if you have. But would she take it, if you had?" "If I had! I am sure she would take it; she would have to, for what would she gain if she did not?" "Are you _sure_?" "_'F cush!_" "Ach, but, after all, why did you not tell me you liked me before she came?" she said testily, stamping her foot. "Again!" he exclaimed, wincing. "_All right_; wait."