ou'd cry all by yourself with me gone." His little face was all drawn
up with anxiety and sympathy at my lonely estate with him out of it and
a cry rose up from my heart with a kind of primitive savagery at what I
felt was coming down upon me.

Without waiting to take him with me, or think, or do anything but feel
deadly savage anger, I hurried across the garden and into Doctor Moore's
office, where he was just laying off his gloves and dust coat.

"What do you mean, John Moore, by daring, daring to think you can go and
take Billy away from me?" I demanded looking at him with what must have
been such fear and madness in my face that he was startled as he came
close to the table against which I leaned. His face had grown white and
quiet at my attack and he waited to answer for a long horrible minute
that pulled me apart like one of those inquisition machines they used to
torture women with when they didn't know any better modern way to do it.

"I didn't know Bill would tell you so soon, Mrs. Molly," he said at last
gently, looking past me out of the window into the garden. "I was coming
over just as soon as I got back from this call to talk with you about
it, even if it did seem to intrude Bill's and my affairs into a day
that--that ought to be all yours to be--be happy in. But Bill, you see,
is no respecter of--of other people's happy days if he wants them in
his."

"Billy's happy days are mine and mine are his and he has the heart not
to leave me out even if you would have him!" I exclaimed, a sob
gathering in my heart at the thought that my little lover hadn't even
taken in a situation that would separate him from me across an ocean.

"Bill is too young to understand when he is--is being bereaved, Molly,"
he said and still he didn't look at me. "I have been appointed a
delegate to represent the State Medical Association at the Centennial
Congress in London the middle of next month--and somehow I--feel a bit
pulled lately and I thought I would take the little chap and have--have
a _wander-jahr._ You won't need him now, Mrs. Peaches, and I
couldn't go without him, could I?" The sadness in his voice would have
killed me if I hadn't let it madden me instead.

"Won't need Billy any more!" I exclaimed with a rage that made my voice
literally scorch past my lips. "Was there ever a minute in his life that
I haven't needed Billy? How dare you say such a thing to me? You are
cruel, cruel, and I have always known it, cold a