ally.

"That would be true," Rose agreed, "if the work weren't so heavy and if
I were younger."

"It's the work you're used to doing all the time, isn't it? Because you
aren't young is all the more reason you need the exercise. You're not
going to hire extra help, so you might just as well get any to-do out of
your mind," he retorted, the dreaded note in his voice.

She considered leaving him. If she had earned her living before, she
could again. More than once she had thought of doing this, but always
the hope of a child had shone like a tiny bright star through the
midnight of her trials. Since she had endured so much, why not endure a
little longer and reap a dear reward? Then, too, she could never quite
bring herself to face the pictures her imagination conjured of Martin,
struggling along uncared for. Now, as her heart hardened against him, an
inner voice whispered that everyone had a right to a father as well as
a mother, and Martin might be greatly softened by daily contact with a
little son or daughter. In fairness, she must wait.

Yet, she knew these were not her real reasons. They lay far deeper, in
the very warp and woof of her nature. She did not leave Martin because
she could not. She was incapable of making drastic changes, of tearing
herself from anyone to whom she was tied by habit and affection--no
matter how bitterly the mood of the moment might demand it. Always she
would be bound by circumstances. True, however hard and adverse they
might prove, she could adapt herself to them with rare patience and
dignity, but never would she be able to compel them to her will, rise
superbly above them, toss them aside. Her life had been, and would be,
shaped largely by others. Her mother's death, the particular enterprise
in which her father's little capital had been invested, Martin's
peculiar temperament--these had moulded and were moulding Rose Wade. At
the time she came to Martin's shack, she was potentially any one of a
half dozen women. It was inevitable that the particular one into which
she would evolve should be determined by the type of man she might
happen to marry, inevitable that she would become, to a large degree,
what he wished and expected, that her thoughts would take on the
complexion of his. Lacking in strength of character? In power of
resistance, certainly. Time out of mind, such malleability has been the
cross of the Magdalenes. Yet in what else lies the secret of the harmony
achieved by