orld. She veered for a moment from her terror to the
necessity for justifying herself.

"You needn't think," she said, almost aggressively, "I'd talk to
everybody like this."

He was holding himself down to a moderation he knew she wanted, and
replied:

"No, of course not. But you can talk to me."

"Yes," she said, "I can." She dismissed that, having said it, as if she
saw no need of finding the underlying reasons they were both going by.
"You see," she said, "it's the baby. When he gits one o' them spells,
it's the baby he pitches on."

Raven picked out from her confusion of pronouns the fact that Tenney, in
his spells, incredibly threatened the baby.

"Don't you think," he said, "you make too much of it--I mean, as to the
baby. He wouldn't hurt his own child."

Again the blood ran into her cheeks, and she looked a suffering so acute
that Raven got up and walked through the room to the window. It seemed
an indecency to scan the anguished page of her face.

"That's it," she said, in a strangled voice. "When he has his spells he
don't believe the baby's his."

"God!" muttered Raven. He turned and came back to her. "You don't mean
to live with him," he said. "You can't. You mustn't. The man's a brute."

She was looking up at him proudly.

"But," she said, "baby is his own child."

"Good God! of course it is," broke out Raven, in a fever of impatience.
"Of course it's his child. You don't need to tell me that."

Then, incredibly, she smiled and two dimples appeared at the corners of
her mouth and altered her face from a mask of tragic suffering to the
sweetest playfulness.

"You mustn't say 'it,'" she reproved him. "You must say 'he.' Anybody'd
know you ain't a family man."

Raven stood looking at her a moment, his own smile coming. Then he sat
down in his chair. He wanted to tell her how game she was, and there
seemed no way to manage it. But now he could ask her questions. Her
friendliness, her amazing confidence, had opened the door.

"Exactly what do you mean?" he asked, yet cautiously, for even after her
own avowals he might frighten her off the bough. "Does he drink?"

She looked at him reprovingly.

"No, indeed," she said. "He's a very religious man."

"The devil he is!" Raven found himself muttering, remembering the
catamount yells and the axe. "Then what," he continued, with as complete
an air as he could manage of taking it as all in the day's work, "what
do you mean by his spells?"

She