"Don't think that I am speaking lightly of wifehood.... I desire it as I desire motherhood. I was made for both. If the world will let me I shall be both wife and mother. But if the world interferes to stultify me, then, nevertheless I shall still be both, and the law can keep the title it refuses me. I deny the right of man to cripple, mar, render sterile my youth and womanhood. I deny the right of the world to forbid me love, and its expression, as long as I harm no one by loving. Clive, it would take a diviner law than man's notions of divinity, to kill in me the right to live and love and bring the living into life. And if I am forbidden to do it in the name of the law, then I dare do it in the name of One who never turned his back on little children--" She ceased abruptly; and he saw her eyes suddenly blinded by tears: "Oh, Clive--if you only could have seen them--the little flower-like faces and pleading arms around--my--neck--warm--Oh, sweet!--sweet against my breast--" CHAPTER XXV Winifred had grown stout, which, on a slim, small-boned woman is quickly apparent; and, to Clive, her sleepy, uncertain grey eyes seemed even nearer together than he remembered them. She was seated in the yellow and white living-room of her apartment at the Regina, still holding the card he had sent up; and she made no movement to rise when her maid announced him and ushered him in, or to greet him at all except with a slight nod and a slighter gesture indicating a chair across the room. He said: "I did not know until this morning that you were in this country." "Was it necessary to inform you?" "No, not necessary," he said, "unless you have come to some definite decision concerning our future relations." Her eyes seemed to grow sleepier and nearer together than ever. "Why," he asked, wearily, "have you employed an agency to have me followed?" She lifted her drooping lids and finely pencilled brows. "Have you been followed?" "At intervals, as you know. Would you mind saying why? Because you have always been welcome to divorce." She sat silent, slowly tearing into tiny squares the card he had sent up. Presently, as at an afterthought, she collected all the fragments and placed them in a heap on the table beside her. "Well?" she inquired, glancing up at him. "Is that all you have to say?" "I don't know what to say until you tell me why you have had me followed and why you yourself are here." Her gaze remained fixed on the heap of little pasteboard squares which she shifted across the polished table-top from one position to another. She said: "The case against you was complete enough before last night. I fancy even you will admit that." "You are wrong," he replied wearily. "Somehow or other I believe you know that you are wrong. But I suppose a jury might not think so." "Would you care to tell a jury that this trance-medium is not your mistress?"