image wavered in the mirror. She
thought: "Here it is again, this awful feeling! Surely I am not going to
faint!" She could hear Sarah's sighing breath: she could hear the
singing of the shaded gas-flame. She turned her gaze away from the
mirror, and saw Sarah's grey head inadvertently nodding, as it always
nodded. Then the letter slipped out of her hand. She glanced down at the
floor, in pursuit of it: the floor was darkly revolving. She thought:
"Am I really fainting this time? I mustn't faint. I've got to arrange
about that bacon to-night and--oh, lots of things! Sarah is not a bit
better. And I must sit with her until she gets off to sleep." Her legs
trembled, and she was terrorized by extraordinary novel sensations of
insecurity. "Oh!" she murmured weakly.

III

"You've only fainted," said the doctor in a low voice.

She perceived, little by little, that she was lying flat on the floor at
the foot of Sarah's bed, and that he was kneeling beside her. The bed
threw a shadow on them both, but she could see his benevolent face,
anxious and yet reassuring, rather clearly.

"What?" she whispered, in feeble despair. She felt that her resistance
was definitely broken.

From higher up, at the level of the hidden bed, came the regular
plaintive respiration of Sarah Gailey.

"You must take care of yourself better than this," said the doctor.
"Perhaps this is a day when you ought to be resting."

She answered, resigned.

"No, it's not that. I believe I'm going to have a child. You must..."
She stopped.

"Oh," said the doctor, with discretion. "Is that it?"

Strange, how the direct words would create a new situation! She had not
told the doctor that she had been through the ceremony of marriage, and
had been victimized. She had told him nothing but the central and final
thought in her mind. And lo! the new situation was brought into being,
and the doctor was accepting it! He was not emitting astounded 'buts--!'
Her directness had made all possible 'buts' seem ridiculous and futile,
and had made the expression of curiosity seem offensive.

She lay on the floor impassive. She was no longer horrified by
expectancy.

"Well," said the doctor, "we must see. I think you can sit up now, can't
you?"

Three-quarters of an hour afterwards, she went into Sarah's room alone.
She was aware of no emotion whatever. She merely desired, as a
professional nurse might have desired, to see if Sarah slept. Sarah was
not sleeping