he shuffling
of many feet behind her, and jeers and cat-calls and the beating of the
tin can. She went on, looking to the right and the left for some old
friend to come out and take her to shelter, but now she knew that there
would be none. These people would drive her on and on. And when she got
home to Yaverland's End, if they would let her go there, and did not
trample her down on the roadside first, she would lose her child. The
core of her body and soul would be torn out from her, and all promise
of pleasure and all occasion of pride. For there was no pleasure in the
world save that to which she had looked forward these seven months, of
seeing that perfect little body that she knew so well and kissing its
smooth skin and waiting for it to open those eyes--those black eyes; and
there could be no greater degradation than to bring forth death, when
for months the sole sustenance against the world's contempt had been
that she was going to give birth to a king of life. There danced before
her eyes all the sons of whom she was to be bereft in the person of this
son. The staggering child, the lean, rough-headed boy of ten with his
bat, the glorious man.

Now her loss was certain. All the people were running out into the
gardens of the little houses on the right and throwing up the windows
over the shuttered shops on the left, and all wore the flushed and
amused masks that meant they were determined that she should lose her
child. Mrs. Hobbs, who kept the general store, the kind old woman whom
she had thought would take her in, and Mrs. Welch, the village drunkard,
were leaning over adjacent garden walls, holding back the tall, divine
sunflowers that they might hobnob over this delight, and their faces
were indistinguishable because of those masks. Even Lily Barnes,
standing on the doorstep of the nice new Lily Villa her husband, Job
Barnes the builder, had built for their marriage, with her six months
old baby in her arms, was thus disguised, and seeming, like Mr. Goode,
to look through her old friend at some obscene and delicious fact, sent
up that hooting wordless cry.

Marion was so appalled that a woman carrying her baby should connive at
the death of another's that she stood quite still and stared at her,
until the boys behind her thrust her with sticks. When she passed the
alley between the post-office and the carrier's she saw the cattle-man,
Goodtart, looking out at her from its shadows; he did not move, but his