She turned to him sombrely. “Chris,” she said, “suppose I were to die?” “I won’t suppose it,” he answered. “You mustn’t allow yourself to be morbid.” “I’m not. Only there’s always a risk. And I can’t help thinking of Sandra. She hasn’t anyone but me----” “Don’t you trust me, Minnie? Don’t you know how fond I am of the child?” “I know,” she said, with a frown. “But I’ve seen so much of that sort of love.... You might die yourself.” “I’ve provided for that, as you know.” “Or,--I might as well be frank, Chris. When this other child comes, you’ll feel very differently toward Sandra. You’ll lose interest in her.” He was seriously annoyed. “You ought to know me better----” “I’m not blaming you. But a child of your _own_--it’s altogether another thing. Oh, you’ll see!” Slow tears were running down her face. “How can I help worrying? My poor little girl!” “What would you like me to do?” he asked kindly. “I tell you I’ve provided for her in any event.” “I suppose there’s nothing to be _done_,” she answered. She turned her face to the wall and lay perfectly still. He waited until he believed her to be asleep and then went softly out. But he was amazed and horrified when, from the darkness of the hall, he saw her sit up in bed and fling her hands above her head, and whisper, with a ferocious distinctness he could not misunderstand: “Oh, I _hate_ your baby! I hate it! I hate it! I hope and _pray_ it will die before it comes to rob my little girl! I hate your baby!” He crept downstairs and into his study. “It’s her condition,” he told himself. “She’s not normal, hardly sane.... She didn’t realise....” But his joy and pride in the child they were expecting had quite gone. Her distorted passion had tainted his healthy common-sense. A hated, unwanted child! In spite of himself, he began to see it as a monster, began to dread it.... CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE I It took a countless number of small details finally to arouse distrust in Mr. Petersen. In the beginning, there was the roast chicken. Mrs. Hansen, who once more ruled the kitchen, came to him in great distress. “Mr. Petersen!” she cried, “It’s gone! The whole thing! A beautiful whole roast chicken I put into the ice chest with my own hands this very morning.” “Tramps,” he suggested, “or Michael. Don’t worry. Go and buy another.” And that marked the beginning. After that she missed something almost every day, and it nearly made her insane. She never talked of anything else; to Mr. Petersen, to Mrs. Petersen, to her own husband, or even to Sandra. “It isn’t tramps,” she insisted. “There I’ve never stirred out of my kitchen the whole morning, and that loaf of bread’s gone!” She could not make anyone realise the magnitude of it, the hair-raising mystery. Minnie took the attitude that Mrs. Hansen must be and was mistaken; Mr. Petersen suspected Michael. The poor woman was desperate. “All the years I’ve been here!” she moaned, “and never a bit of trouble like this!”