eed to make you good an' happy. That's the one
purpose I dream about. Maybe your side's different. But I don't guess
it's any easier. You've got to wait around till those things come along.
But you've got more to do than that. You've got to play this old game
right. Your work's by this home. It don't matter if it's winter or
summer, if it's storming or sunshine. You've got to do the chores you're
guessing you hate, and you need to do them right, and willingly. We're
man and wife. And these chores are yours by all the laws of God, and the
Nature that made you the mother of our little Coqueline. You've got to
cut this crazy notion for fool pleasures right out, till the pleasure
time comes around. That time isn't yet. The woman who lets her child and
her home suffer for joy notions isn't worth the room she'll take in hell
later. Well, see and get busy, and let's have no more fool talk and
crazy notions. Here, take this," he went on, in his deliberate, forceful
way, thrusting the baby's feeding bottle into the girl's hands. "That's
the kiddie's feed. Guess I fixed it because--well, maybe because you're
tired. Take it to her. Give it to her. And, as long as you live don't
you ever forget she's the right to your love, and to my love, and every
darn thing we know to make things right for her."

The force of the man was irresistible. It was something the girl had
never witnessed before. She had only known the husband, devoted, gentle,
almost yielding in his great love. The man that had finished talking now
was the man Julyman regarded above all others.

Nita took the bottle thrust into her hands, and, without a word, she
rose from her chair and passed into the bedroom which the baby's room
adjoined.

Steve watched her go. His hungry eyes followed her every movement. His
heart was torn by conflicting emotions. His love told him that he had
been harsh almost to brutality, but his sense warned him he had taken
the only course which could hope to achieve the peace and happiness
which was Nita's right as well as his own.

He had meant to fight for these things as he would fight on the trail
against the forces of Nature seeking to overwhelm him. He would yield
nothing. For all his words had cost him he was conscious of the
rightness of the course he had taken. But he was fighting a battle in
which forces were arrayed against him of which he was wholly unaware.

As Nita passed into the bedroom the sound of footsteps outside broke