bowed head. "Billiken gob--gobble din--din!
Muddie not cly!"

It seemed to Jane that she was marching endlessly round a Jericho with
walls that reached to the sky with a flimsy tin toy trumpet in her hands.
How blow a blast to shatter them? "Ethel, the only thing you can bring
him is the truth. Are you going to give him a lie for his wedding gift?"

She winced but her mouth was sullen. "You can make me feel terrible, but
you can't make me tell."

"No," said Jane, "I can't make you tell. And Mrs. Richards can't make you
tell, nor even Michael Daragh. But--your own heart can." She leaned
swiftly nearer and put an arm about the flat, little figure. "Ethel, how
much do you love him?"

"More'n--_anything_ in the world."

"More than Irene?" The affirming nod was quick and positive. "More than
the baby?" Again the nod, slower, but still sure. "But that's not enough,
Ethel. You don't know anything about loving unless you love him more than
you love yourself."

The girl wriggled out of her clasp and stared at her.

"Do you know what I'm trying to say to you? I don't know as much about
loving as you do, Ethel. I've never loved any one--yet. But I know this!
Your Jerry may never find out about your trouble, but whether he does or
not, you couldn't be happy while you knew you were cheating him,--while
you knew you had married him without telling him the thing it's his right
to know. Ethel, you've got to love him more than yourself. You've got to
love him more than you want him!"

The color ebbed slowly out of Ethel's small face and Billiken began to
whimper. Far down the street the inevitable hurdy-gurdy ground out the
inevitable "Marseillaise." "_La jour de gloire est arrive!_" Was it?

"Love him,--more than I want him?" She said it over in a halting whisper.
"Love him more than I--" Her lips moved inaudibly, forming the second
half of the sentence. She bent over Billiken, crushing her in an embrace
which made her cry. Then she caught up her foolish little hat and jammed
it on without a glance at the mirror and flung herself into her coat. "I
better go quick!" She was still whispering. "I better go quick!" She ran
out of the room. Jane heard her on the stairs, then the slam of the front
door and the sharp staccato of her feet upon the sidewalk.

Billiken, released from the spell, lifted up her voice and shrilly wept,
passionately pushing away her bowl and spoon, roaring with rage when Jane
tried to touch her. It seemed