great sense of his weariness.
Loading the hampers, you understand. "Whew!"

Ann Elizabeth started violently, first at the whiff which preceded him
and at his approach into the room; then sat forward, her hand closing
into the arm of the chair, body thrust forward and her eyes widening
like two flowers opening.

Then she rose slowly and slyly, and edged behind the table, her two
hands up about her throat.

"Don't you come in here," she said, lowly and evenly. "I know you, but
I'm not afraid. I'm only afraid of you at night, but not by light. You
let me swallow, you hear! Get out! Get out!"

Rooted, Henry stood.

"Why, Annie!" he said in the soothing voice from out of his long ago,
"Annie--it's daddy!"

"No, you don't," she cried, springing back as he took the step forward.
"My daddy'll kill you if he finds you here. He'll slit you up from your
tail right up to your gill. He knows how. I'm going to tell him and Fred
on you. You won't let me swallow. You're slippery. I can't stand it.
Don't you come near me! Don't!"

"Annie!" he cried. "Good God! Annie, it's daddy who loves you!" Poor
Henry, her voice was still under a whisper and in his agony he committed
the error of rushing at her. "Annie, it's daddy! See, your own dear
daddy!"

But she was too quick. Her head thrown back so that the neck muscles
strained out like an outraged deer's cornered in the hunt and her
eyes rolled up, Ann felt for and grasped the paper knife off the
trinket-littered table.

"Don't you touch me--slit you up from tail to your gills."

"Annie, it's daddy! Papa! For God's sake look at daddy--Ann! God!" And
caught her wrist in the very act of its plumb-line rush for his heart.

He was sweating in his struggle with her, and most of all her strength
appalled him, she was so little for her terrible unaccountable power.

"Don't touch me! You can't! You haven't any arms! Horrible gills!"

She was talking as she struggled, still under the hoarse and frantic
whisper, but her breath coming in long soughs. "Slit-you-up-from-tail.
Slit--you--up--from--tail--to--gills."

"Annie! Annie!" still obsessed by his anguished desire to reassure
her with the normality of his touch. "See, Annie, it's daddy. Ann
Elizabeth's daddy." With a flash her arm and the glint of the paper
cutter eluded him again and again, but finally he caught her by the
waist, struggling, in his dreadful mistake, to calm her down into the
chair again.

"Now I've got you, dar