dreaming. Dreaming--dreaming--she sighed and tossed about, and then
laughed softly to herself.

He noticed that she had something on her mind, which she would like
to tell him but which she had hardly the courage to say. So he asked
her.

Then she had confessed it to him, hesitatingly, shyly, and yet with
so much passion that it terrified him. It was the child of which she
had been thinking the whole time, of which she always must think--oh,
if only she had it. She would have it, must have it. The woman had so
many other children, and she--she had none. And she would be so happy
with it, so unspeakably happy.

She had become more and more agitated in the darkness of the night,
uninterrupted by a single word from him, by any movement--he had lain
quite quietly, almost as though the surprise had paralysed him,
although it could not really be called a surprise any more. What was
her whole life? she had said. A constant longing. All the love
he showered on her could not replace the one thing: a child, a
child.

"My dear, good husband, don't refuse it. Make me happy. No other
mother on earth will be so happy--my darling husband, give me the
child." Her tears were falling, her arms clasped him, her kisses rained
down on his face.

"But why just _that_ child? And why decide so quickly? It's no
trifle--we must think it over very carefully first."

He had made objections, excuses, but she had pertinent answers ready
for all. What was to be thought over very carefully? They would not
come to any other result. And how could he think for a moment that the
woman would perhaps not give them the child? If she did not love it,
she would be glad to give it, and if she did love it, then all the more
reason for her to be glad to give it, and to thank God that she knew it
was so well taken care of.

"But the father, the father. Who knows whether he will agree to
it?"

"Oh, the father. If the mother gives it, the father is sure to
agree. One bread-eater less is always a good thing for such poor
people. The poor child, perhaps it will die for want of food, and it
would be so well"--she broke off--"isn't it like a dispensation of
Providence that just we should come to the Venn, that just we should
find it?"

He felt that she was persuading him, and he strove against it in his
heart. No, if she allowed herself to be carried away by her feelings in
such a manner--she was only a woman--then he, as a man, must
subordinate his feel