He was still holding the newspaper in one of his embracing hands. It rustled against her back, and, freeing herself, she saw it. "What's that?" she asked. "A newspaper, of course. I thought I should like to see what was going on in the world. It suddenly struck me that I hadn't looked at a newspaper since I read the notice of our wedding--five hundred years ago." But Muriel pouted. "Then," she said, "I don't see why you should begin now." "One has to begin sometime." "I don't see why. Is anything between us different to-day from yesterday?" "Certainly not, sweetheart." "Well, I thought we weren't going to be like other people. I thought we were always going to be enough to each other." "We are. Of course we are. But you were asleep, and, anyhow, I said I was never going to run away again. Besides, Muriel----" "I don't see why," Muriel maintained. He tried to quiet her with kisses. He held her close and pressed her face to his. During all that month, these were the only occasions when they so much as approached a difference of opinion. They lived, instead, in that crowded winter resort, like a man and a girl made one upon a new island in a deserted sea. They walked, hand in hand, and, as it seemed to them, heart to heart, through a wonderful world that was new to them. Happiness sparkled in their eyes and trembled at their lips. There were times when their happiness almost made them afraid. Heaven was very near. Then, as the month ended, the blasting idea came to Muriel: she was going to have a child. It came like that. Just when everything was perfect, just when love had realized itself. The thought lay beside her on a morning that she had expected to wake to so differently. Muriel felt as if it were the thought that had wakened her. She cast a frightened look at Stainton, who was lying beside her, his iron-grey hair disordered, his mouth slightly open, snoring gently. "Jim!" she said. She clutched at his pajama jacket and tried to shake him. "Jim! Jim!" He awoke, startled. He rubbed his eyes: "Eh? What?" "Jim!" Then he saw her face. "My God! What is it, dearie?" She gasped her fear. "Muriel!" he cried, and held her tight to his heart. His first feeling was a flash of gratitude: his desire had been granted; he was to be the father of a child. But Muriel only clung to him and cried. She did not want a baby. She was horrified at thought of it. She was panic-stricken. Stainton watched her grief with a sore heart and essayed to soothe it; yet, all the while, his heart swelled with a reasonless pride that appeared to him supremely reasonable: he had performed the Divine Act; within the year he would see a living soul clothed in his own flesh and moulded in his own image. Like hers, his eyes, though from a vastly different cause, were dimmed by tears. "My dear, my dear!" he whispered. "O, my dear!" Muriel, broken-hearted, wept hysterically.