He went up the stairs without a light, carrying his shoes in his hand, and Tira shivered once, thinking how horrible it was to go so softly in stockinged feet. She was not afraid of him. Only she did wish his feet would sound. She did not sleep that night. She brought in the cradle, put the baby in it, and drew it to the window and there she sat beside it, the night through, her hand on the broken hood. She had chosen a high, straight chair, so that she might be too uncomfortable to sleep, but she had no temptation to drop off. All her nerves were taut, her senses broad awake. She was ready, she knew, for anything. The night was peaceful, thrilled by little sounds of stirring life, and the house, whatever it guessed, had forgotten all about her. Toward three o'clock she suddenly lost her sense of vitality. She was cold, and so sleepy now that the thought of bed was an ache of longing. She got up, found herself stiff and heavy-footed, lifted the child from his cradle and went into the bedroom with him. There she put him inside the sheets, and lay down beside him on the outside of the bed. She slept at once, but almost at once she was recalled. Tenney was standing in the bedroom door, looking at her. "Wake up," he was saying, not unkindly. "Wake up." She came drowsily awake, but before she was fully herself her feet were on the floor and she was rubbing her heavy eyes. The sun was streaming in. "I've blazed the fire an' het me up some coffee," he said, still in that impersonal way which was so disturbing only because it was not his way. "I've harnessed up. I'm goin' to the street. You remember where that Brahma stole her nest? I've got to have two eggs for even dozens." "Up in the high mow," said Tira. "Right under the beam." She heard him go out through the shed, and she followed, to the kitchen, slowly, with the squalid feeling that comes of sleeping in one's day clothes, and there she found the fire low and his cup and plate on the bare table. She could see him through the window. There was the horse, hitched to the staple in the corner of the barn, there was the basket of eggs on the ground waiting for its even dozens. "D'you find any?" she called. He did not answer, and she ran out to the barn and called up to the mow: "You there? You find any?"