in an' left him."

She paused and Raven nodded at her as if he wanted to find it as simple
as it seemed to her.

"You see, I couldn't bring him down here," she said. "He might cry. An'
there's Charlotte. An' Jerry. An' the young man. I'm sorry the young man
see me. That's too bad."

"It's all right," said Raven briefly, though he was aware it was, from
Dick's present point of view, all wrong. "I'll attend to that."

"He's safe enough," said Tira, her eyes darkening as she recurred to the
baby. "If he cries, 'twon't do no hurt up there. Well!" She seemed to
remind herself that there was much to say. "I must be gittin' along with
my story." She looked at him in a most moving wistfulness, and added: "I
got scared."

XXXII

Raven gave his answering nod. That seemed to be about all he could
respond with, in his danger of saying the rash thing.

"Yes," he said, "scared. Same way?"

"No," she said. "Worse. I guess I never've been so scared. An' I've got
myself to thank. You see, last night----"

"Yes," said Raven. "I got wind of it last night."

This, though it puzzled her, she could not stay to follow out, with the
baby up in the hut defended only by pillows and Tenney perhaps turning
to ask: "You there?"

"You see," she said, "it's his crutch."

"You mean," supplied Raven, brute anger rising up in him against brute
man, "he's struck you with it?"

"No, no," she hastened to assure him. "He ain't even threatened me. Only
somehow it was like his havin' somethin' always by him, somethin' he
could strike with, an'--I dunno what come over me--I burnt it up."

At once Raven faced the picture of it, the mad impulse, the resulting
danger. But he would not add his apprehensiveness to hers.

"I dunno," she said, "as you'll hardly see what I mean: but it begun to
look kinder queer to me, that crutch did. All I could think of was how
much better 'twould be for everybody concerned if 'twas burnt up."

"Yes," said Raven. "I see. We all feel so sometimes, when we're tired
out." The moderation of these words but ill expressed his tumultuous
mind. That was it, his passionate understanding told him. The natural
world throws its distorted shadows, and our eyes have to be at their
strongest not to recoil in panic, while we turn back to strike. "And,"
he said, because she seemed to be mired here in the bog of her own
wonderment, "in the morning of course he found it out."

The strangest look came into her face: she wa