“You must go now, Frale, you hear? Now!”

Again he laughed, bitterly this time. “Yas — I reckon he’ll be right glad to help me get away from you. I’ll go myse’f in my own way.”

Under the holly tree they had paused, and suddenly she feared lest the boy at her side return to his mood of the evening before. She seized his hand again and hurried him farther up the steep.

“Come, come!” she cried. “I’ll go with you, Frale.”

“Naw, you won’t go with me neithah,” he said stubbornly, drawing back.

“Frale!” she pleaded. “Hear to me.”

“I’m a-listenin’.”

“Frale,