.

"Go!" she gasped. "Go with her! By so doing I will not have to explain;
I will be free to return--to Doris."

"So!" And now Thornton got up and paced the floor; "having foresworn
every duty you owe me, having driven me to what you choose to call
wrong, you pack your nice, clean little soul in your bag and go back to
pose as--as--what in God's name will you pose as? You!"

Meredith shrank back. She was conscious now of her danger.

"Well, then!" Thornton came close and laughed down upon the shrinking
form--her terror further roused the brute in him; all that was decent
and fine in him--and both were there--fell into darkness; "you'll pay,
by heaven! before you go. You'll--"

"Leave me alone!" Meredith sprang to her feet. "How dare you?"

And again Thornton laughed.

"Dare? You--you little idiot! You'll come with me to-morrow--by God!"

* * * * *

But Meredith did not go with Thornton on the morrow, and if the other
took her place she did not seek to know.

The weeks and months dragged on and she was thankful for time to think
and plot. It took so much time for one who had never acted before. And
then--she knew the worst!

Thornton might return at any time and soon--her child would be born!
First terror, then a growing calmness, possessed Meredith. She forgot
Thornton in her planning, forgot her own misery and sense of wrong. She
did not hate her child as she might have--she learned in the end to
consider it as the one opportunity left to her of saving whatever was
good in her and Thornton. She clung to that good, she was just, at last,
to Thornton as well as herself. Both he and she were victims of
ignorance--the little coming child must be saved from that ignorance;
the father's and--yes, her own, for Meredith was convinced that she
would not live through her ordeal.

Thornton must not have the child--he was unfit for that sacred duty of
giving it the chance that had been denied the parents. The new life must
have its roots in cleaner and purer soil. Doris must save it. Doris!

Then Meredith wrote three notes. One was to Sister Angela:

You remember how, as a little girl, you let me come to you and tell
you things that I could not tell even to God? I am coming now,
Sister--will be there soon after this reaches you; and then--I will
tell you!

I want my child to be born with you and Doris near me. I have
written to Doris.

And whether I liv