, for the
smith himself brought him; but he could do no good. "Your wife is like
a bit of porcelain," said he. "Such a woman cannot stand anything."

"Yes--yes!" said Stephen, passing his hand through his thick hair.

They were standing in the living room, talking together.

"Stephen!" came Maria's feeble, anxious voice from the next room.

He went into the bedroom with his heavy tread which he did not know how
to subdue. "What is it?" he asked.

She held out her hand, as if to signify that he should come nearer.
Then he came to the bedside, but his bearing was still exactly as it
had been ever since the evening when his brother Ludwig left home.

"What--what is the baby's name going to be?" she asked tremulously.

"Haven't I told you already?" he answered, looking her straight in the
face without wincing.

"Not--not that name," she begged. "Don't do that to the child."

He turned carelessly away, as if to leave the room. The doctor stood on
the threshold with his hat and stick in his hand.

"Not--not that name, Stephen," begged the sick woman.

"You must not excite her," the doctor whispered to the smith. Maria
interrupted. "You speak to him, Sir," she gasped out, more and more
excited. "He is going to call the boy Cain."

The doctor came near laughing. "You'll not think of doing such a
foolish thing," said he to Fausch.

The smith stood there with his hands in his pockets. He went back into
the living room without answering. The doctor followed him. "Give up
your folly! Don't make your wife anxious! As to--the name--it would not
do at all, such a name," he said persuasively.

The smith stood and let the words pass over his head indifferently,
just as he might have let the rain drip down his back. Once only he
spoke: "What one is, that he must be called," said he.

"You're like a bull," said the doctor angrily. "You have a right to
send the child out of the house, but you have no right to disgrace it."

A sound of sobbing was heard from the bedroom. The doctor called the
maid, who hurried in.

"You're like a bull," he repeated to the smith. "Your violence will be
the death of your wife."

Stephen Fausch answered never a word. He turned his face fully toward
the doctor--his face with one empty eye socket and one keen black
eye--and stood there as if he had nailed himself fast to the spot,
stood there like a bull, as the doctor had said. The doctor left; he
saw that his reproofs had borne no fruit. W