t if she SHOULD be
right----"

"But I tell you she isn't, Mart!"

"Yes, I know you do." The deadly gentleness was again in her voice. "I
know you do!" she repeated mildly. "Only--only----" Her lip trembled
despite her desperate effort, she felt her throat thicken and the tears
come.

Instantly he was beside her again, and with her arms still raised she
felt him put his own arms about her, and felt his penitent kisses
through the veil of her hair. A sickness swept over her: they were here
in the sacred intimacy of their own room, the room to which he had
brought her as a bride only a few months before.

She freed herself with what dignity she could command. He asked her a
hundred times if she loved him, if she could forgive him. Her one
impulse was to silence him, to have him go away.

"I know--I know how you feel, Wallie! I'm sorry--for you and myself,
and the whole thing! I'm terribly sorry! I--I don't know what we can
do. I have to go away, of course; I can't stay here until we know; and
you'll have to investigate, and find out just what she claims. I'll go
to Sally, I suppose. People can think I've come up to help when the
baby comes--I don't care what they think!"

"I thought you might go to Oakland for awhile," he agreed, gratefully;
"but of course it'll be best to have you go to Sally--it'll only be for
a few days. Mart, I feel rotten about it!"

"I know you do, Wallace," she answered nervously.

"To spring this on you--it's just rotten!"

Martie was silent. Her mind was in a whirl.

"Will you go out?" she asked simply. "I want to dress."

"What do you want me to go out for?" he asked, amazed.

Again his wife was silent. Her cheeks were bright scarlet, her eyes
hard and dry. She looked at him steadily, and he got clumsily to his
feet.

"Sure I'll go out!" he said stupidly. "I'll do anything you want me to.
I feel like a skunk about this--it had sort of slipped my mind, Mart!
Every fellow lets himself in for something like this."

Trapped. It was the one thought she had when he was gone, and when she
had sprung feverishly from bed, and was quickly dressing. Trapped, in
this friendly, comfortable room, where she had been so happy and so
proud! She had been so innocently complacent over her state as this
man's wife, she had planned for their future so courageously. Now she
was--what? Now she was--what?

Just to escape somehow and instantly, that was the first wild impulse.
He was gone, but he was