me back into the bedroom where
the child was whimpering. She stayed there a long time, and Tenney stood
where she left him, listening for her crooning song. When it began, as
it did presently, he gave a nod of relief and started moving about the
room. Once he went into the scullery, and Tira heard him pumping. But
when she had got the child dressed, and had gone out there herself, to
prepare the vegetables for dinner, she put her hand mechanically,
without looking, on the rack above the sink. The hand knew what it
should find, but it did not find it. The knife was gone. Tira stood a
long time looking, not at the empty place, but down at her feet. It was
not alarming to miss the knife. It was reassuring. It was not to be
believed, yet she must believe it. Tenney was taking precautions. He was
afraid.

Nan, halfway home, met Raven. He had been walking up and down, to meet
her. Defeat, he saw, with a glance at her face.

"Yes," said Nan, coming up with him. "No go, Rookie. He was civil. But
he was dreadful. I don't know whether I should have known it, but it's
the way she looked at him. Rookie, she was scared blue."

Raven said nothing. He felt a poor stick indeed, to have brought Nan
into it and given her over to defeat.

"Can't we walk a spell?" said she. "Couldn't we take the back road to
the hut? I do so want to talk to you."

They turned back and passed the Tenneys' at a smart pace. Raven gave the
house a swift glance. He was always expecting to hear Tira cry out, she
who never did and who, he knew, would endure torture like an Indian.
They turned into the back road where the track was soft with the latest
snow, and came into the woods again opposite the hut. When they reached
it and Raven put down his hand for the key, Nan asked:

"Does she come here often?"

"Not lately," he said, fitting the key in the lock. "She had rather a
quiet time of it while he was lame."

They went in and Nan kept on her coat while he lighted the fire and
piled on brush.

"Rookie," she said, when he had it leaping, "it's an awful state of
things. The man's insane."

"No," said Raven, "I don't feel altogether sure of that. We're too ready
to call a man insane, now there's the fashion of keeping tabs. Look at
me. I do something outside the ordinary--I kick over the traces--and
Milly says I'm to go to the Psychopathic. Dick more than half thinks so,
too. Perhaps I ought. Perhaps most of us ought. We deflect just enough
from what t