little girl with the eyes! Honestly, Bab, I was only doing it to disarm
suspicion. MY EVERY THOUGHT IS OF YOU."

"I mean," I said, as firmly as I could, "that this whole thing has got
to stop. I can't stand it."

"Am I to understand," he said solemnly, "that you intend to end
everything?"

I felt perfectly wild and helpless.

"After that Letter!" he went on. "After that sweet Letter! You said, you
know, that you were mad to see me, and that--it is almost too sacred
to repeat, even to YOU--that you would always love me. After that
Confession I refuse to agree that all is over. It can NEVER be over."

"I daresay I am losing my mind," I said. "It all sounds perfectly
natural. But it doesn't mean anything. There CAN'T be any Harold
Valentine; because I made him up. But there is, so there must be. And I
am going crazy."

"Look here," he stormed, suddenly quite raving, and throwing out his
right hand. It would have been terrably dramatic, only he had a glass of
punch in it. "I am not going to be played with. And you are not going to
jilt me without a reason. Do you mean to deny everything? Are you going
to say, for instance, that I never sent you any violets? Or gave you my
Photograph, with an--er--touching inscription on it?" Then, appealingly,
"You can't mean to deny that Photograph, Bab!"

And then that lanky wretch of an Eddie Perkins brought me a toy Baloon,