ch her hand and bite the tips of her fingers. Trina would lie awake
for hours afterward, crying softly to herself. Then, by and by, "Mac,"
she would say timidly.

"Huh?"

"Mac, do you love me?"

"Huh? What? Go to sleep."

"Don't you love me any more, Mac?"

"Oh, go to sleep. Don't bother me."

"Well, do you LOVE me, Mac?"

"I guess so."

"Oh, Mac, I've only you now, and if you don't love me, what is going to
become of me?"

"Shut up, an' let me go to sleep."

"Well, just tell me that you love me."

The dentist would turn abruptly away from her, burying his big blond
head in the pillow, and covering up his ears with the blankets. Then
Trina would sob herself to sleep.

The dentist had long since given up looking for a job. Between breakfast
and supper time Trina saw but little of him. Once the morning meal over,
McTeague bestirred himself, put on his cap--he had given up wearing even
a hat since his wife had made him sell his silk hat--and went out. He
had fallen into the habit of taking long and solitary walks beyond the
suburbs of the city. Sometimes it was to the Cliff House, occasionally
to the Park (where he would sit on the sun-warmed benches, smoking his
pipe and reading ragged ends of old newspapers), but more often it was
to the Presidio Reservation. McTeague would walk out to the end of the
Union Street car line, entering the Reservation at the terminus, then
he would work down to the shore of the bay, follow the shore line to
the Old Fort at the Golden Gate, and, turning the Point here, come out
suddenly upon the full sweep of the Pacific. Then he would follow the
beach down to a certain point of rocks that he knew. Here he would turn
inland, climbing the bluffs to a rolling grassy down sown with blue iris
and a yellow flower that he did not know the name of. On the far side of
this down was a broad, well-kept road. McTeague would keep to this road
until he reached the city again by the way of the Sacramento Street car
line. The dentist loved these walks. He liked to be alone. He liked the
solitude of the tremendous, tumbling ocean; the fresh, windy downs; he
liked to feel the gusty Trades flogging his face, and he would remain
for hours watching the roll and plunge of the breakers with the silent,
unreasoned enjoyment of a child. All at once he developed a passion for
fishing. He would sit all day nearly motionless upon a point of rocks,
his fish-line between his fingers, happy if he caught th