eople.

"I got my wrists like this last night, wrestling with him. He swore he'd
go and leave me, but I held him, I did. And don't you ever think that
I'll let him go to that young girl--not if he kills me first!"

With those words the passion in her face died down. She was again a
meek, mute woman.

During this outbreak, Thyme, shrinking, stood by the doorway with lowered
eyes. She now looked up at Martin, clearly asking him to come away. The
latter had kept his gaze fixed on Mrs. Hughs, smoking silently. He took
his pipe out of his mouth, and pointed with it at the baby.

"This gentleman," he said, "can't stand too much of that."

In silence all three bent their eyes on the baby. His little fists, and
nose, and forehead, even his little naked, crinkled feet, were thrust
with all his feeble strength against his mother's bosom, as though he
were striving to creep into some hole away from life. There was a sort of
dumb despair in that tiny pushing of his way back to the place whence he
had come. His head, covered with dingy down, quivered with his effort to
escape. He had been alive so little; that little had sufficed. Martin
put his pipe back into his mouth.

"This won't do, you know," he said. "He can't stand it. And look here!
If you stop feeding him, I wouldn't give that for him tomorrow!" He held
up the circle of his thumb and finger. "You're the best judge of what
sort of chance you've got of going on in your present state of mind!"
Then, motioning to Thyme, he went down the stairs.

CHAPTER XVI

BENEATH THE ELMS

Spring was in the hearts of men, and their tall companions, trees. Their
troubles, the stiflings of each other's growth, and all such things,
seemed of little moment. Spring had them by the throat. It turned old
men round, and made them stare at women younger than themselves. It made
young men and women walking side by side touch each other, and every bird
on the branches tune his pipe. Flying sunlight speckled the fluttered
leaves, and gushed the cheeks of crippled boys who limped into the
Gardens, till their pale Cockney faces shone with a strange glow.

In the Broad Walk, beneath those dangerous trees, the elms, people sat
and took the sun--cheek by jowl, generals and nursemaids, parsons and the
unemployed. Above, in that Spring wind, the elm-tree boughs were
swaying, rustling, creaking ever so gently, carrying on the innumerable
talk of trees--their sapient, wordles