stay. I leave the key under the stone."

"Yes," said Nan. "I see."

"No, you don't," cried Raven, "or you wouldn't look like that. What is
it you don't see? What is it you don't like? Out with it, Nan."

Nan said nothing, and suddenly he saw she was trembling. It was in her
lips, it must be all over her, because he could see it in her hands, the
tight shut ball of them under her long sleeves.

"Now," he said, irritated beyond measure by the unkindness of
circumstance, "what is it I haven't made clear? Don't you like her?
Don't you believe in her? Or don't you take any stock in what I tell
you?"

"Of course I believe you," said Nan quietly. He could see her relax. "As
for liking her--well, she's beautiful. I agree with you perfectly
there."

But he had not said she was beautiful. That he did not remember.

"She is, isn't she?" he agreed. "And so--Nan, she's the strangest
creature you ever saw in your life. I suppose I could count up the words
she's spoken to me. But the queer part of it is, I know they're all
true. I know she's true. I'd stake----" there he paused.

"Yes," said Nan quietly. "I've no doubt she's true. And she's a very
lucky woman."

"Lucky?" repeated Raven, staring. "She's the most unfortunate creature I
ever saw. Lucky! what do you mean by that?"

"Well," said Nan, and now she spoke with an edge in her voice, "what's
she going to do about it? She's in danger of her life, you say." He
nodded absently, his mind going back to that word, lucky. "She's afraid
of her husband, afraid he'll kill her."

"Not so much that as afraid he'll kill the child."

"Well, then, isn't she going to leave him?"

"No. She won't."

"Have you asked her?"

"Oh, yes," said Raven. "I asked her at once. I told her I'd send her
away from here, find her something to do: just what anybody'd say in a
case like that."

"And she wouldn't let you?"

"She wouldn't let me."

"Why not?" asked Nan. "Does she--love the brute?"

She might have flicked a lash across his face and his nerves winced
under it. There was, she saw, in his mind, something disparaging to the
woman in coupling her with a softness misplaced.

"I don't know," he said, with a thoughtful precision. "Sometimes I think
she's all mother: doesn't care about anything but the child. I know
she's square, knew it at once, but that doesn't mean I know any more
about her. She's a locked door to me."

His tone was low, but it told Nan how he wished the door wo