my feet and told me to kick it into the gutter!
Everybody stopped and stared; and I couldn't get by him. And he
said--he said I'd kicked his heart into the gutter and he didn't
want it to catch cold without a hat! And wouldn't I please be so
kind as to kick----" She choked with angry mortification. "It was
horrible! People were stopping and laughing, and a rowdy began to
make fun of Ray, and pushed him, and they got into a scuffle, and
I ran into the jeweller's and almost fainted."

"He is insane!" said Laura, aghast.

"He's nothing of the kind; he's just a brute. He does it to make
people say I'm the cause of his drinking; and everybody in this
gossipy old town _does_ say it--just because I got bored to death
with his everlasting do-you-love-me-to-day-as-well-as-yesterday
style of torment, and couldn't help liking Richard better. Yes,
every old cat in town says I ruined him, and that's what he wants
them to say. It's so unmanly! I wish he'd die! Yes, I _do_ wish he
would! Why doesn't he kill himself?"

"Ah, don't say that," protested Laura.

"Why not? He's threatened to enough. And I'm afraid to go out of
the house because I can't tell when I'll meet him or what he'll
do. I was almost sick in that jeweller's shop, this morning, and
so upset I came away without getting my pendant. There's _another_
thing I've got to go through, I suppose!" She pounded the yielding
pillow desperately. "Oh, oh, oh! Life isn't worth living--it seems
to me sometimes as if everybody in the world spent his time trying
to think up ways to make it harder for me! I couldn't have worn
the pendant, though, even if I'd got it," she went on, becoming
thoughtful. "It's Richard's silly old engagement ring, you know,"
she explained, lightly. "I had it made up into a pendant, and
heaven knows how I'm going to get Richard to see it the right way.
He was so unreasonable tonight."

"Was he cross about Mr. Corliss monopolizing you?"

"Oh, you know how he is," said Cora. "He didn't speak of it
exactly. But after you'd gone, he asked me----" She stopped with a
little gulp, an expression of keen distaste about her mouth.

"Oh, he wants me to wear my ring," she continued, with sudden
rapidity: "and how the dickens _can_ I when I can't even tell him
it's been made into a pendant! He wants to speak to father; he
wants to _announce_ it. He's sold out his business for what he
thinks is a good deal of money, and he wants me to marry him next
month and tak