Her thoughts came down from the rose-red star like aeronauts on parachutes, landing in fog and swamp. Oh, the weariness, the waste of it! For the more she thought, the more she felt herself like one hanging in mid-space--heaven above her, earth below, and no place for her in either. She could not fly. She would not fall. "And I 'm not very strong to be clinging and holding on, like this. One might let go ... and not mean to." And yet she had held on pretty well, till the second baby came. She had never felt this moral dizziness till then, this something which might be called life-vertigo, that made it seem in mad, black moments easier to drop than to cling. For after the boy was born she was not well. She had never been strong since. And Marshall hated sickness. He was such a big, strong, splendid fellow! It had been very hard on Marshall. He hated it so, that she hated it too. She had scorned the scouts of her true condition, and when the trouble at the heart set in, and he called it "only nervous," she said, "No doubt you are quite right, dear," and blamed herself for feeling somehow hurt. She did not speak of it to any one for a long time, after that. But when, one easterly afternoon, the air being as heavy as the clods of the grave, she lay gasping for life for three hours alone, not able to reach a bell or call for help, she sent for Dr. Thorne. And he told her, for she insisted--and he knew his patient; not a woman to be wheedled by a professional lie--he told her the truth. "Poor Marshall!" said Jean Avery. "It will be so hard on my husband! ... Don't tell him, doctor. I forbid you, doctor. I think he 'd take it easier if I told him myself, poor fellow!" She did not tell him that day, for he did not come home; nor the next, for he had a headache; nor the third, for he was in excellent spirits, and she could not bear to. In fact, she waited a week before she gathered her courage to speak. One Saturday evening he did not go to the club, but was at home, and he had been very kind to her that day, and loving, and in fact he noticed her appearance, and asked her what was the matter, and why she breathed so short. Then she drew his hand over her eyes, so that she might not see how he would look, and the beautiful curve of her lip broke a little, for she felt so sorry for her husband; but her firm voice carried itself with courage (Jean never had the invalid's whine), and she told him what the doctor said. Marshall Avery listened in a silence which might have meant the utmost of distress or the innermost of skepticism. He walked to the window and stood for a while looking out into the lighted street. Perhaps he had a blundering, masculine notion of doing the best thing for her. She would be the first to believe that. "I 'll see Thorne about this," he said presently. "I can't have him putting you in a panic. You 've grown very nervous lately.