with one egg, her custards reinforced with
cornstarch, her cream was only "top milk." Even her house was only half
a house: the four rooms were matched by four other rooms, with only a
central wall between. But Sally had a square yard, and a garden, and
Martie came to love every inch of the little place, so rich in
happiness and love.

The days went on and on, and there was no word of Wallace. Martie's
heart was like lead in her breast. She talked with Sally, set tables,
washed dishes, she laughed and planned, and all the while misgivings
pressed close about her. Sometimes, kneeling in church in the soft warm
afternoons of early spring, she told herself that if this one cup were
taken from her lips, if she were only proved to be indeed an honourable
wife, she would bear with resignation whatever life might bring. She
would welcome poverty, welcome humiliations, welcome the suffering and
the burden of the baby's coming--but dear Lord, dear Lord, she could
not face the shame that menaced her now!

Sally saw the change in her, the new silence and gravity, and wondered.

"Martie, dearest, something's worrying you?"

"Nothing much, dear. Wallace--Wallace doesn't write to me as often as I
should like!"

"You didn't quarrel with him, Mart?"

"Oh, no--he's the best husband in the world. We never quarrel."

"But it's not like you to fret so," Sally grieved. Presently she
ventured a daring question: "Has it ever occurred to you, Mart, that
perhaps----"

Martie laughed shakily.

"The way you and Grace wish babies on to people--it's the limit!"

Sally laughed, too, and if she was unconvinced, at least she said no
more. She encouraged Martie to take long walks, to help with the
housework, and finally, to attempt composition. Sitting at the clean
little kitchen table, in the warm evenings, Martie wrote an article
upon the subject of independence for women.

For a few days she laboured tirelessly with it: then she tired of it,
and flung it aside. Other things absorbed her attention.

First came the expected letter from Wallace. Martie's hand shook as she
took it from the postman. Now she would know--now she would know!
Whatever the news, the suspense was over.

Perhaps the hardest moment of the hard weeks was when she realized that
the tension was not snapped, after all. Wallace wrote affectionately,
but with maddening vagueness. He missed his girl, he had a rotten cold,
he was not working now. Golda was raising hell.