vice of
her. She had been strong enough to defy Ted's tyranny; but, after all,
she could not defeat Nature's. Her work must make way.

She let herself noiselessly into the house. From the kitchen floated
the sounds of the cook's evening activities, but otherwise the place
was silent, and Ted's hat was not on its accustomed hook in the little
hall. She could be alone a while.

She stole up the stairs to her bedroom, meaning to lie down in the
quiet darkness, but once there, a panic assailed her, a senseless fear
of the dim corners, the distorted shadows. Besides, she wanted to see
herself; she wanted to see if Ted, promising her beautiful things from
motherhood the night before, if Mrs. North, warning her against it
to-day, had known that she--that she was going to have a child.

She turned on the lights and stood in their full glare before her
mirror. Searchingly she inspected herself--the slender figure that was
as yet only delicately rounded, the cheek that showed just a softer
curve and bloom, the eyes----

And then she caught her breath in a sharp sob and leaned nearer to her
reflection. What was it--who was it--that she saw in her eyes?

For something--some one--looked back at her that had not looked back at
her before; something--some one--ineffably yearning, poignantly
tender--looked back at her with the gaze of a mystery--of a miracle.
It was as if, within herself, she beheld another self; and this other
self was reconciled to life, was in harmony with its divine purpose.
Strangely enough, at that moment, her childhood's fancy of another self
recurred to her.

"Other-Sheila," she whispered, "Other-Sheila, is it _you_?"

While she leaned thus, waiting, perhaps, for the answer of that
reflected self, she saw that Ted had opened the door behind her. For
an instant their eyes met in the mirror, and with that gaze Sheila's
heart suddenly fled home to him. He was the father of her child!

"Oh," she cried, turning to him with outstretched, shaking hands and
quivering face, "Oh, tell it to me again! I _want_ to believe it!
_Tell me again that motherhood is the greatest thing!_"

CHAPTER IX

In that hour when Sheila, flinging herself into his arms, cried out to
Ted, "Tell me again that motherhood is the greatest thing. I want to
believe it!" she struck a high note that, during the succeeding days
and weeks and months, she could not always sustain. And yet, from the
moment when she attempted