You sounded just like them, then, giving me orders--just like your
whole rotten crowd, but you're through with them now, and you're through
ordering me about and making a fool of me. I've been afraid to say my
soul was my own. It wasn't, I guess. But we're all through with that.
We're through, Judith."

"Yes, of course. Of course we're through. It's all right. Everything's
all right, Neil dear."

"Everything's all wrong, and I know whose fault it is now: it's your
fault. Maybe I only had one chance in a hundred to get on, but one
chance is enough, and I was taking it. You made me ashamed to take it. I
was ashamed to do the work that was all I could get to do, and I had my
head so full of you I couldn't do any work. Maggie's better than I am.
She don't sit around with her hands folded and wait for Everard to get
tired of her. And the whole town don't laugh at her. The whole town
don't know----"

"Neil, I said I was sorry. Please don't."

"You've got the smooth ways of them all, but it's too late for that
between us, Judy. Smooth, lying ways."

"We can't go to Wells, Neil dear. What could we do there? Think."

"I'm sick of thinking. I'd get work maybe. I don't know. I don't care.
Judith----"

"We can't. Not to-night, Neil. Wait."

"I'm sick of waiting. I've got nothing to gain by it. I've done all the
waiting I could. I've stood all I could. You're the only thing I want in
the world, and I couldn't wait for you any longer if I could get you
that way--and I wouldn't get you. I'd lose you."

"Not to-night. To-morrow, if you really want me to go. To-morrow,
truly."

"You're lying to me, and I'm tired of it."

"No, Neil--Neil dear."

"You're lying."

"How dare you say that! I hate you!"

"That's right. We'll talk straight now. It's time."

"I hate you. Don't touch me. You're going to take me home--you
must--and I'm never going to speak to you again. I think you're crazy.
But I'm not afraid of you--I'm not afraid."

The low-keyed, hurrying voices broke off abruptly. There was no sound in
the buggy but Judith's rapid breathing, more and more like sobs, but no
tears came. The two faces that confronted each other were alike in the
gloom, white and angry and very young; alike as the faces of enemies are
when they measure each other's strength in silence. It was a cruel,
tense little silence, but the sound that broke it was more cruel. It was
dry and hard and had nothing to do with his own conquering laugh, th