"Yes," said Tira, "mebbe you could. But if you do, I'll break out. An' when I've broke out"--she towered over him--"I'll break your neck." Tenney, looking up and seeing in her eyes the mother rage that sweeps creation from man to brute, was afraid, and Tira knew it. She looked him down. Then her gaze broke, not as if she could not have held his forever, but haughtily, in scorn of what was weaker than herself. "I've been a true wife to you, Isr'el," she said. "You remember it now, 'fore it's too late. For as God's my witness, if you turn your hand ag'inst a little child--whether it's your own or whether it ain't--an' that baby in there is yourn an' no man but you has got part nor lot in him--if you turn ag'inst him, I turn ag'inst you. An' when I've done that, you'll find me as crazy as you be, an' I can't say no worse." She went into the bedroom and he heard her crooning there, defiantly he thought, even through the low sweetness of her voice. But her passion had shaken him briefly. For the moment, the inner self in him could not help believing her. He went back to his newspaper, trying, though the print was dim before him, to recover his hold on the commonplace of the day. He, too, would be unmoved; she should see he was not afraid of her tantrums. But he had not read half a column before an evil chance drew his eyes to a paragraph in the gossip from the various towns about. This was under the caption of his own town: "A certain gentleman appeared last week with a black eye, gained, it is said, in a scrap with a non-resident interested in keeping the peace in country towns. It is said both combatants bore themselves gallantly, but that suit for assault and battery is to be brought by the party attacked."