Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/178

 "Deane, go home!" Merritt urged earnestly. " You're not fit to stay out here. No man would be, after—all that."

But on the instant Deane's anger flared up again, irresponsible, violent, wholly out of proportion to its cause.

"Haven't I got enough to keep me happy without you to help it on?" he said with savage irony. "Do you think I'll turn tail and give up now, at the eleventh hour?"

"No; after all I suppose it would not do," Merritt said gravely, a keen eye on Deane's drawn face.

Deane calmed down at once.

"I thought you'd feel that way about it," he said in satisfied tones. "You see, of course, how I'm placed." He laughed