he other children she
knew--and as when a girl she had been used to lie and imagine thrilling
episodes with some dream lover. Now she pretended her baby had already
come and was lying beside her; she bunched a fold of bedclothes to make
her pretence the more real, and lay cuddling it, her eyes closed so that
the sense of sight should not dissipate her dreams. No man had any part
in her vision of the future with her baby; it was to be hers alone, and
she pictured a blissful period when she played with it, dressed and
undressed it, lived for it. Somehow she imagined that all her
difficulties would cease with its birth, and both the torment of
Archelaus and the presence of Ishmael, which now left her so unstirred
it wearied her, faded away. Although she told herself she hated men and
the harm they did, she hoped her child would be a boy, because she was
of the type of woman, even as Annie had been, that always wants a boy.

She kept her eyes shut and caressed the bundle she had made beside her,
and tried to forget her physical condition and her mental worry in the
joy she was forecasting.

"Phoebe ... lil' 'un ... I'm come," said a voice from the other side
of her bedroom door. Her lids flew up; a great spasm of terror shot
through her, making her sick and setting her heart pounding. She saw the
last warm glow of the evening in the square of sky, its light tingeing
the white bedroom with fire; she saw the bundle in the curve of her arm
was only a roll of sheet and blanket whose striped edge of pink and blue
somehow for an irrational moment engaged her attention, so vivid had her
dreaming been, so incongruous was this sudden recall. Then she turned
over in bed towards the door, panic in her breast, and her whole body
swept by the hot waves of fear. She had locked the door, as she always
did now, but the tones, soft as they were, had power to frighten her
even through the stout wood.

She lay silent, hoping he would think she was asleep, not making a
sound.

"I do want to see 'ee that bad," came the voice. She paid no heed, but
clenched her hands under the bedclothes; her heart had settled into an
even thunderous beating that to her ears almost deafened the voice that
provoked its action.

"I've come to say good-bye," went on the voice. "Won't 'ee just say
good-bye to I? I'm going to another world this time, not to Australy or
Californy. I can't stand life any longer, Phoebe; you'll just wish I a
good journey for the l