u remember what you said to Dick that night? You said
Dick was to blame, Millie, don't you remember? Remember the doctor
coming to the hotel? I'll never forget how you went on. Never heard a
woman swear like you before. Never seen one go on like you went on.
And when you hit Dick, Millie, for what you said he'd done, I felt bad
for Dick, though I hadn't much cause to care for what happened to him.
Millie, girl, you was a regular wildcat when the doctor told you what
was coming. You didn't want no kid, then!"

"Don't!" she gasped. "I ain't forgot. But I'm changed, Jim--since
then."

He moved a step nearer.

"I ain't the same as I used to be in them days," she went on, staring
at the window, and through the window to the starry night. "And Dick's
dead, now. I don't know," she faltered; "it's all sort of--different."

"What's gone and changed you, Millie?"

"I ain't the same!" she repeated.

"What's changed you?"

"And I ain't been the same," she whispered, "since I got the boy!"

In the pause, he took her hand. She seemed not to know it--but let it
lie close held in his great palm.

"And you won't have nothing to do with me?" he asked.

"I can't," she answered. "I don't think of myself no more. And the
boy--wouldn't like it."

"You always said you would, if it wasn't for Dick; and Dick ain't here
no more. There ain't no harm in loving me now." He tried to draw her
to him. "Aw, come on!" he pleaded. "You know you like me."

She withdrew her hand--shrank from him. "Don't!" she said. "I like
you, Jim. You know I always did. You was always good to me. I never
cared much for Dick. Him and me teamed up pretty well. That was all.
It was always you, Jim, that I cared for. But, somehow, now, I wish
I'd loved Dick--more than I did. I feel different, now. I wish--oh, I
wish--that I'd loved him!"

The man frowned.

"He's dead," she continued. "I can't tell him nothing, now. The
chance is gone. But I wish I'd loved him!"

"He never done much for you."

"Yes, he did, Jim!" she answered, quickly. "He done all a man can do
for a woman!"

She was smiling--but in an absent way. The man started. There was a
light in her eyes he had never seen before.

"He give me," she said, "the boy!"

"You're crazy about that kid," the man burst out, a violent, disgusted
whisper. "You're gone out of your mind."

"No, I ain't," she replied, doggedly. "I'm different since I got him.
That's all.