if you
think there is any other terrifying possibility in our life here, for
God's sake look into your own heart and see for yourself! It all sounds
like nonsense to me, but . . ."

She snatched at the straw, she who longed so for help. "Oh, Neale, if
_you_ think so, I know . . ."

"I won't _have_ you taking my word for it!" he told her roughly. "_I_
can't tell what's back of what you do. And you oughtn't to take my word
for it if I tried to. Nobody on earth can make your decision for you,
but you yourself." The drops stood out on his forehead as he spoke, and
ran down his pale face.

She quivered and was silent for a moment. Then, "Neale, where shall I
get the strength to do that?" she asked.

He looked full in her face. "I don't know anywhere to go for strength
but out of one's naked human heart," he said.

She shrank from the rigor of this with a qualm of actual fear. "I think
I must have something else," she told him wildly.

"I don't know," he returned. "I don't know at all about that. I'm no
mystic. I can't help you there, dear. But I know, as well as I know
anything on earth, that anything that's worth having in anybody's life,
his parent-hood, his marriage, his love, his ambition, can stand any
honest challenge it can be put to. If it can't, it's not valid and ought
to be changed or discarded." His gaze on her was immeasurably steady.

She longed unspeakably for something else from him, some warming,
comforting assurance of help, some heartening, stimulating encouragement
along that stark, bleak way.

* * * * *

Somehow they were standing up now, both pale, looking profoundly into
each other's eyes. Something almost palpable, of which not a word had
been spoken aloud, came and stood there between them, and through it
they still looked at each other. They had left words far behind now, in
the fierce velocity of their thoughts.

And yet with the almost physical unity of their years of life together,
each knew the other's thoughts.

She flung herself against him as though she had cried out to him. He put
his arms strongly, tenderly about her, as though he had answered.

With no words she had cried out, silently, desperately to him, "Hold me!
Hold me!"

And with no words, he had answered, silently, desperately, "No one can
hold you but yourself."

* * * * *

A shouting babble of voices rose in the distance. The children crying to
each