e out seeking the
far invisible bar of the Pacific.

"It doesn't fit in with you, Marcella," he said, and her eyes focussed
on the glowing end of his cigarette. "I can't imagine you ill and
weak--or--or--motherly. Well, yes, perhaps motherly, because that's how
you are to me sometimes. But you seem too young, somehow."

"Whom the gods love die young," she quoted softly. "Because they keep
young. I'll be ever so young when I'm a nice old lady with white hair. I
shall have it cut short then, like a choir boy's in saint pictures. And
as for being ill and weak, I never shall. I simply won't have it."

"My dear, oh my dear, you'll have to. And I'll have to take care of you.
All women need taking care of."

She gave a little short, quiet laugh.

"You'll not make me take off my armour, Louis," she said. He looked
puzzled, but said nothing. She lay back on the pillow, looking up at the
Southern Cross. The wind lifted her hair gently. Ghosts came over the
sea, very kindly ghosts that smiled at her and passed on.

His hand reached out to hers in the darkness.

"I say," he whispered, into her hair, "I was an ass over those damn
smokes. I'll--I'll buck up over that sort of thing in future,
Marcella--can't have two babies in the family."

Her eyes filled with tears.

"My _dear_," she whispered, and held tight to his hand.

CHAPTER XX

He went to sleep that night with the muscles of his mind tightened. He
was going to fight for his wife and child! She, judged by all he had
known of women in his select suburb among his family's friends, and in
his externing in the Borough was now a poor weak thing, to be cossetted
and cared for, worked for and protected. He felt he could move
mountains to-night--for the first time in his life he had someone weak
to care for. No more charity from his father! No more slacking, no more
giving way! He had an aim in life now. And, moreover, he had the
thrilling excitement of a "case." That he could not forget, though it
was certainly subsidiary to the feelings of pride in himself that her
imaginary weakness had brought into being.

And the "poor weak woman" lay at his side, staring at the stars with
eyes that held bigger worlds than they. After the heat of the day to lie
here in the coolness, with the night breeze fanning her hair, tickling
her bare feet and arms, was very delightful. Several times she pressed
her hands tight down on the mattress and once she pinched herself. She
see