"'What's the matter with him?' she asked in a sort of vacant trepidation. 'He doesn't look very ill. I never did see anybody look like this be-fore. . . .'
"'Do you think,' I asked indignantly, 'he is shamming?'
"'I can't help it, sir,' she said stolidly. And suddenly she clapped her hands and looked right and left. 'And there's the baby. I am so fright-ened. He wanted me just now to give him the baby. I can't understand what he says to it.'
"'Can't you ask a neighbour to come in to-night?' I asked.
"'Please, sir, nobody seems to care to come,' she muttered, dully resigned all at once.
"I impressed upon her the necessity of the greatest care, and then had to go. There was a good deal of sickness that winter. 'Oh, I hope he won't talk!' she exclaimed softly just as I was go-ing away.
"I don't know how it is I did not see--but Ididn't. And yet, turning in my trap, I saw her lingering before the door, very still, and as if med-itating a flight up the miry road.
"Towards the night his fever increased.
"He tossed, moaned, and now and then muttered a complaint. And she sat with the table between her and the couch, watching every movement and every sound, with the terror, the unreasonable ter-ror, of that man she could not understand creeping over her. She had drawn the wicker cradle close to her feet. There was nothing in her now but the maternal instinct and that unaccountable fear.