and with all that sense of the sinister chilling him, could only shake his head more gravely still and plead in turn, voice freighted with all the tenderness of which he was capable: "Billie, you must not take it as you do—must not. You must see that I am right. You must."
He felt her mood change, her figure harden in his grasp. "But you're—you're not right," she stormed indignantly. "You're not right!" Her manner was instantly imperious; she could never be suppliant for long.
Meeting the blaze of those eyes, Harrington read in them the worst that he had feared; but he was firm this morning—he had to be as thoughts of the nearness of the noose to trustful Adam John came to him—but with all his firmness he had to be very, very gentle too. "Then you'll—you'll just have to wait, dear," he told her softly, whisperingly almost; "wait a little bit till you can sce the thing more clearly."
"But you—you're ruining everything," she flung out at him petulantly.
"On the contrary, I'm saving everything," he told her quite calmly.
"Fool!" she cried angrily, and flung him from her. "Obstinate fool! Go away. You make me so—so ashamed!" And she pitched herself into the cushions again, face hidden, weeping inconsolably.
Harrington stood biting his lip, knees trembling, for it weakened him immeasurably to have finally and definitely lost her moral support. Moreover it dismayed him to realize that she was not and never had been quite what he had thought—to perceive that she whom he had idealized, the goddess whom he had worshiped,
