lt in her bones, with fear
and pain.

Once more she was aware of the sun lying red on the rim of the hill
opposite. She suddenly held up the child in her hands.

"Look!" she said. "Look, my pretty!"

She thrust the infant forward to the crimson, throbbing sun, almost with
relief. She saw him lift his little fist. Then she put him to her bosom
again, ashamed almost of her impulse to give him back again whence he
came.

"If he lives," she thought to herself, "what will become of him--what
will he be?"

Her heart was anxious.

"I will call him Paul," she said suddenly; she knew not why.

After a while she went home. A fine shadow was flung over the deep green
meadow, darkening all.

As she expected, she found the house empty. But Morel was home by ten
o'clock, and that day, at least, ended peacefully.

Walter Morel was, at this time, exceedingly irritable. His work seemed
to exhaust him. When he came home he did not speak civilly to anybody.
If the fire were rather low he bullied about that; he grumbled about his
dinner; if the children made a chatter he shouted at them in a way that
made their mother's blood boil, and made them hate him.

On the Friday, he was not home by eleven o'clock. The baby was unwell,
and was restless, crying if he were put down. Mrs. Morel, tired to
death, and still weak, was scarcely under control.

"I wish the nuisance would come," she said wearily to herself.

The child at last sank down to sleep in her arms. She was too tired to
carry him to the cradle.

"But I'll say nothing, whatever time he comes," she said. "It only works
me up; I won't say anything. But I know if he does anything it'll make
my blood boil," she added to herself.

She sighed, hearing him coming, as if it were something she could not
bear. He, taking his revenge, was nearly drunk. She kept her head
bent over the child as he entered, not wishing to see him. But it
went through her like a flash of hot fire when, in passing, he lurched
against the dresser, setting the tins rattling, and clutched at the
white pot knobs for support. He hung up his hat and coat, then returned,
stood glowering from a distance at her, as she sat bowed over the child.

"Is there nothing to eat in the house?" he asked, insolently, as if to a
servant. In certain stages of his intoxication he affected the
clipped, mincing speech of the towns. Mrs. Morel hated him most in this
condition.

"You know what there is in the house," she sa