ngry, and outraged. He
was not a man to reflect upon causes; results, and very present ones,
were all that concerned him. But he did, now, hark back to the scene
soon after the birth and death of the last child. Such states of mind
didn't last for ever, and there was no baby coming at the moment. He
could not make things out.

"See here," he said rather gropingly, "you are not holding a grouch,
are you?"

"No, Larry."

"What then?"

For a moment Mary-Clare shrank. She weakly wanted to put off the big
moment; dared not face it.

"It's late, Larry. You are tired." She got that far when she
affrightedly remembered the bedroom upstairs and paused. She had
arranged it for Larry--there must be an explanation of that.

"Late be hanged!" Larry stretched his legs out and plunged his hands
in his pockets. "I'm going to get at the bottom of this to-night. You
understand?"

"All right, Larry." Mary-Clare sank back in her chair--she had fallen
on her adventurous way; she had no words with which to convey her
burning thoughts. Already she had got so far from the man who had
filled such a false position in her life that he seemed a stranger. To
tell him that she did not love him, had never loved him, was all but
impossible. Of course he could not be expected to comprehend. The
situation became terrifying.

"You've never been the same since the last baby came." Larry was
speaking in an injured, harsh tone. "I've put up with a good deal,
Mary-Clare; not many men would be so patient. The trouble with you, my
girl, is this, you get your ideas from books. That mightn't matter if
you had horse sense and knew when to slam the covers on the rot. But
you try to live 'em and then the devil is to pay. Dad spoiled you. He
let you run away with yourself. But the time's come----"

The long speech in the face of Mary-Clare's wondering, amazed eyes,
brought Larry to a panting pause.

"What you got a husband for, anyway, that's what I am asking you?"

Mary-Clare's hard-won philosophy of life stood her in poor stead now.
She felt an insane desire to give way and laugh. It was a maddening
thing to contemplate, but she seemed to see things so cruelly real and
Larry seemed shouting to her from a distance that she could never
retrace. For a moment he seemed to be physically out of sight--she
only heard his words.

"By God! Mary-Clare, what's up? Have you counted the cost of carrying
on as you are doing? What am I up against?"

"Yes, Larr