bina and bade her control
herself and keep calm, lest worst things should happen to her. Ernest
was still sanguine that the young man would regret his suggestions; but
Jenny quenched this hope.

"It is all of a piece," she said, "and, looking back, I see it. His
instinct and will are against any such binding thing as marriage. He
wants to make her happy; but if to do so is to make himself miserable,
then she must go unhappy. Some bad girls might accept his offer; but
Sabina, of course, cannot. She is not made of the stuff to sink to this,
and it was only because he always insisted on the vital need for her to
complete his life, that she forgot her wisdom in the past and believed
they were really the complement of each other. As if a woman ever was,
or ever will be, the real complement of a man, or a man, the complement
of a woman! They are only complementary as meat and drink to the
hungry."

After some days Sabina read Raymond's letter again and it now awoke a
new passion. At first she had hated herself and talked of doing herself
an injury; but this was hysteria bred of suffering, since she had not
the temperament to commit self-destruction. Now her rage burned against
the child that she was doomed to bring into the world, and she brooded
secretly on how its end might be accomplished. She knew the peril to
herself of any such attempt; but while she could not have committed
suicide, she faced the thought of the necessary risks. If the child
lived, the hateful link must exist forever, if it perished, she would be
free. So she argued.

Full of this idea, she rose from her bed, went about and found some
little consolation in the sympathy of her friends. They cursed the man
until they heard what he had written to her. Then a change came over
their criticism, for they were not tuned to Sabina's pitch, and it
seemed to them, from their more modest standards of education, combined
with the diminished self-respect where ignorance obtains, that Raymond's
offer was fair--even handsome. Some, indeed, still mourned with her and
shared her fierce indignation; some simulated anger to please her; but
most confessed to themselves that she had not much to grumble at.

A wise woman warned her against any attempt to tamper with the child. It
was too late and the danger far too serious. So she passed through the
second phase of her sufferings and went from hatred of herself and
loathing of her load, to acute detestation of the man who