Richard folds his arms. ''You see you cannot leave, Maud,'' he says simply. ''You cannot go, with nothing.''
He has moved to the door, to stand before it. There are other doors, that lead, perhaps to a street, perhaps only into other dark rooms. I shall never choose the right one. ''I am sorry,'' he says.
The boy''s knife flashes again. Now, I think, they will kill me. The thought itself is like a blade, and astonishingly sharp. For haven''t I willed my life away, at Briar? Haven''t I felt it rising from me, and been glad? Now I suppose they mean to kill me; and I am more afraid than I have imagined it possible to be, of anything, anything at all.
You fool, I say to myself. But to them I say: ''You shan''t. You shan''t!'' I run one way, and then another; finally I dart, not for the door at Richard''s back, but for the slumbering, swollen-headed baby. I seize it, and shake it, and put my hand to its neck. ''You shan''t!'' I say again. ''Damn you, do you think I have come so far, for this?'' I look at the woman. ''I shall kill your baby first!''—I think I would do it.—''See, here! I shall stifle it!''
The man, the girl, the boy, look interested. The woman looks sorry. ''My dear,'' she says, ''I have seven babies about the place, just now.