"Mr. Burns," she said at last, putting out her hand and plucking at his
sleeve, "Mr. Burns, you-all ain't got no call ter be like this. You-all
ain't plumb bad. I knows you ain't, 'count of the way you-all have
been ter me an' 'cause you kept pap from hurtin' me, an' 'cause you are
takin' care of Auntie Sue like you're doin'. Hit ain't no matter 'bout
the money, now, 'cause you-all kin take care of her allus."
Brian looked up from the manuscript in his hand, and stared dumbly at
the girl, as if he failed to hear her clearly.
"An' just think 'bout your book," Judy continued pleadingly. "Think
'bout all them fine things you-all have done wrote down for everybody
ter read,--'bout the river allus a-goin' on just the same, no matter
what happens, an' 'bout Auntie Sue an'--"
She stopped, and drew away from him, frightened at the look that came
into the man's face.
"Don't, Mr. Burns! Don't!" she half-screamed. "'Fore God, you-all
oughten ter look like that!"
The man threw up his head, and laughed,--laughed as the wild, reckless
and lost Brian Kent had laughed that black night when, in the drifting
boat, he had cursed the life he was leaving and had drunk his profane
toast to the darkness into which he was being carried.
Raising the manuscript, which represented all that the past months of
his re-created life had meant to him, and grasping it in both hands, he
shook it contemptuously, as he said, with indescribable bitterness and
the reckless surrendering of every hope: "'All them fine things that I
have wrote down for everybody ter read.
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