"
"I can't go back. Don't bring him. Don't bring him. Don't tell
father. Not now. I will later, some other time. When we get to
California, but not now--not to-night."
The sentences were cut apart by breaths that broke from her as if she
had been running. He was frightened and tried to draw her to the light
and see her face.
"Why, Missy!" he said with scared helplessness, "Why, Missy! What's
got you?"
"Don't get the clergyman. Tell him there isn't any. Tell him you've
looked all over. Tell him a lie."
He guessed the trouble was something more than the grief of the moment,
and urged in a whisper:
"What's the matter now? Go ahead and tell me. I'll stick by you."
She bent her head back to look into his face.
"I don't want to marry him now. I can't. I can't. I _can't_."
Her hands on his shoulders shook him with each repetition. The force
of the words was heightened by the suppressed tone. They should have
been screamed. In these whispered breaths they burst from her like
blood from a wound. With the last one her head bowed forward on his
shoulder with a movement of burrowing as though she would have crawled
up and hidden under his skin, and tears, the most violent he had ever
seen her shed, broke from her.
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