e 'fore you married me. You said we couldn't help the past, but we
could what's comin' to us. An' I thought you was an angel, Isr'el, with
your religion an' all. Not many men would ha' said that. I didn't know
one. An' we were married an' you--changed."

"Yes," he said. His hands were shaking as they did at the beginning of
his rages, but Tira, embarked on a course she had long been coming to,
was the more calm. "Yes, I changed, didn't I? An' when d' I change? When
that"--he paused and seemed to choke down the word he would have given
the child--"when that creatur' in there turned into the livin' pictur'
of the man that drew up here this day. Can you deny he's the image of
him?"

"No," said Tira, looking at him squarely. "He is the image of him."

"What do folks think about it?" he asked her. "What do you s'pose the
neighbors think? What'll it be when it grows worse an' worse? What'll
the school children say when he's old enough to go to school? They'll
see it, too, the little devils. The livin' image, they'll say, o' 'Gene
Martin."

Tira laid her work on the table in front of her. The moment of
restraining him had failed her, but another moment had come. This she
had seen approaching for many months and had pushed away from her.

"Isr'el," she said, "I guess you won't have that to worry over. There's
no danger of his goin' to school. He--ain't right."

He stared at her a long moment, puzzling instances accumulating in his
mind, evidences that the child was not like other children he had seen.
Then he began to laugh, a laugh full of wildness and despair.

"O my Lord!" he cried. "My Lord God! if I wanted any evidence I hadn't
got, You've give it to me now. You've laid Your hand on her. You've laid
Your hand on both of 'em. He can't ride by here an' see a red-headed
bastard playin' round the yard an' laugh to himself when he says,
'That's mine.' You've laid Your hand on 'em."

Tira rose from her chair and went to him. She slipped to the floor, put
her head on his unwelcoming shoulder and her arms about his neck.

"Isr'el," said she, "you hear to me. If you can't for the sake o' me,
you hear to me for the sake o' him,--sleepin' there, the pitifullest
little creatur' God ever made. How's he goin' to meet things, as he is?
'Twould be hard enough with a father 'n' mother that set by him as they
did their lives, but you half-crazed about him--what'll he do, Isr'el?
What'll the poor little creatur' do?"

Tenney sat r