"Yes," she said, with a significant quiet. "I thought 'twas full warmer in the bed. I'm goin' to stay with him." "In there?" Tenney repeated. "All night?" She nodded at him. The afternoon brightness was again on her face, and for an instant he felt afraid of her, she looked so strange. Then he laughed a little. He thought he understood, and, advancing, put a hand on her shoulder and spoke in an awkward tenderness. "Here," said he, "you ain't afraid o' me, be you? Why, I wouldn't no more lay hands on him----" He had meant to add that she had reassured him by her disclaimer of the morning. But he could not quite manage that. Words were not his servants. They were his enemies, especially at such times as he was mad with rage. Then they came too fast and got the better of him, and he could hardly ever remember afterward what they were. Tira slipped from under his hand and continued her ordered tasks about the room. But she smiled at him in the friendliest way. "Oh, no," she said, "I ain't the leastest mite afraid." She laughed a little, in a manner mystifying to him, for it suddenly seemed to her she should never be afraid of anything again. Tenney stood there, his eyes following her as she moved about the room, and again the thought of her cruelty possessed him. Last of all her orderly deeds, she lighted a little lamp and set it on the table near him. "Don't you forgit to blow it out," she warned him. "I'm terrible afraid o' fire, these winter nights. I won't put out the big lamp yet. I can see to undress by it, an' then baby won't wake up." He took his lamp and set it down again and went to the bedroom door, her eyes following him. "I dunno," he said, in a strangled voice, "as there's any need o' that in there, for folks to tumble over." He stepped inside, took up the cradle with the telltale gash in the hood, carried it through the kitchen and set it outside the door, in the shed. "I'll carry it up into the shed chamber to-morrer," he said, in the same tortured voice. Then he took his lamp and turned to go. He was as much surprised at himself as she could have guessed. For some reason--and he did not know the reason--he could not bear to leave her there in the dark with the silent witness standing by to cry out against him. Yet this he did not think. He only knew he must get the cradle out of the room and do it quickly. When he had reached the door to the enclosed staircase, her voice halted him so abruptly that the light quivered in his hand. "Isr'el," it called, "you're real good. Don't you be cold. There's a blanket on the foot." But though he hesitated another minute, the voice had nothing more for him, and he went slowly up to bed. As he undressed, his thoughts down there with her, he wondered how her voice could have sounded so gay. In the middle of the night, Tira woke suddenly, with the sense of something near. There was the moon flooding the little room, and in the doorway stood a figure.