ward him, an expression of surprise struggling on her thin
face, but it had never been her way to show affection, and she made no
offer even to shake hands. However, he had put his arms round her and
kissed her cold cheek.

"You've just come?" she said, tentatively, as she drew stiffly from his
embrace.

"Just a minute ago. I had to see the baby the first thing. I couldn't
wait. The old man showed him to me. Ain't he great? I hain't seen his
eyes yet--he was sound asleep. I reckon that boarder-woman helps you
with him; she seems to thinks lots of him, and be powerful particular. I
didn't get your letter about its coming, Hettie. I'd have written at
once--you know I would. It was lost, I reckon. The mails don't run right
always. The old man wrote me, and it certainly was like a thunderclap.
I'm mighty proud, Hettie. You see, I'd given up hoping that a baby'd
ever come to us, an'--"

"To _us_?" The woman stared and drew herself more erect. "What do you
mean? Are you crazy? You've seen babies before and never went on at such
a rate. I don't care for it. I haven't once touched it since it come. I
don't like its mother any too well, and she is such a fool about it
that--"

"Its _mother_?" Henley gasped. "Why, ain't it _ours_--ain't it yours and
mine? The--the old man wrote me that--" Henley's voice faltered and
sank. His lower lip hung loose from his teeth and quivered. With a
furious shrug Mrs. Henley turned from him to the curtainless window
against which the outer night pressed like a palpable substance. She
could hear him behind her panting like a tired beast of burden. For a
moment there was an awful silence in the room, then he broke it.

"My God, he made a fool of me!" he groaned.

"And you made one of _me_," the woman threw back from the window, "and
before them all!" She sneered, as her glance fell on the pile of gifts
on the bed. "This is what you come back for? Any other man would have
had too much sense to be so easily fooled." She strode to the table and
picked up the candle, for what purpose he did not know, but it slipped
from her fingers and fell to the floor and went out. He heard her groan,
and the slats of the bed creaked as she sat down. Thankful that the
darkness hid the evidences of shame on his face, and not daring to trust
his voice to further utterance, he went out of the room. As he passed
through the hallway he heard a low cry from the infant on the right, and
its mother crooning over it. No