it is to a man to know you're afraid, to
know you're in danger and he can't help you. I didn't ask you as I
ought. I asked you to come away with me. I ask you again. Come away with
me and I'll take you to the best place I know. I'll take you to Nan."

He had not guessed he was going to say this. Only, as he spoke, he knew
in his inner mind the best place was Nan. Suddenly she seemed to be in
the room with them. What was it but her cool fragrant presence? And she
understood. Tira might not. She might feel these turbid waves of his
response to he knew not what: the beauty and mystery of the world, the
urge of tyrant life, all bound up in the presence of this one woman. She
was woman, hunted and oppressed. He was man, created, according to the
mandate of his will, to save or to undo her. But the world and the
demands of it, clean or unclean, could not be taken at a gulp. He must
get hold of himself and put his hand on Tira's will. For she could only
be saved against her own desire. Whatever he had seemed to ask her, or
whatever his naked mind and rebellious lips had really asked, he could
not beg her to forgive him. He must not own to a fault in their
relation, lest he seem, as he had at that moment, an enemy the more.

"That's exactly what you must do," he said. "You must let me take you to
Nan."

A soft revulsion seemed to melt her to an acquiescence infinitely
grateful to her.

"That," she said, "was what I had in mind. If she'd take him--the
baby--an' put him somewhere. She said there were places. She said so
herself. I dunno's you knew it, but she talked to me about him. She said
there was ways folks know now about doin' things for 'em when they ain't
right, an' makin' the most you can of 'em. She told me if I said the
word, she'd come here an' carry him back with her."

"But," said Raven, "what about you? I'm ready to stand by the child,
just as Nan is. But I'm doing it for your sake. What about you?"

"Oh," said Tira, with a movement of her eloquent hands, as if she tossed
away something that hindered her, "tain't no matter about me. I've got
to stay here. Mr. Raven"--her voice appealed to him sweetly. He
remembered she had not so used his name before--"I told you that. I
can't leave him."

The last word she accented slightly, and Raven could not tell whether
the stress on it was the tenderness of affection, or something as
moving, yet austere. And now he had to know.

"You want to stay with him"----he bega