"Don't you think," he once tried to urge the law, "that it would be beautiful if we should have a little baby?" "_I_ sha'n't be beautiful!" she wailed. "I shall lose my looks. I----" "Muriel!" "Yes, I shall. I know. I have seen it--on the street--lots of places. I shall grow--I shall----And all my lovely clothes!--Oh!"--She broke off and hid her eyes--"I shall grow vulgar looking and horrid!" They were walking along a country lane, and Stainton glanced about nervously, fearing that her words, spoken in a tone altogether unrestrained, would certainly be heard by more ears than his own. The road, however, was empty. He drew her aside to a spot where the woods met the lane and where, a few paces to the left of the lane, the trees hid them. He took her into his arms. "Muriel," he said, "if I could go through this for you, I would; you know that." "I know you can't go through it for me," she wept, "and so it's easy enough for you to say." "No," said Jim, "I can't go through it for you, and so you see, it must be God's will that it should be as it is to be." She was worn out by the days of worry, but she made one more appeal. "Jim," she said, "can't you do something else for me?" He knitted his brows. "Something else?" he wondered. "I can love you; I can back you up with all the love of my body and brain and soul. You may always count on that, sweetheart." "But"--her eyes looked straight into his--"can't you _do_ something?" He understood. He fell back a step, his face grey. "Muriel!" he whispered. "I've read of such things in the papers," she said. "Muriel!" His eyes were so horrified that she hung her head. "Oh, it's wrong; I know it's wrong," she said. "But, oh, if you knew how afraid I was of this and how I hate and how--O, Jim, Jim!" She tottered forward, and his arms received her. "Muriel, my dear wife," he said. "My own dear little girl, to think that when God has put a life into our keeping, you----Why, Muriel, that is murder!" That word won Stainton's victory. Muriel succumbed. For her it was like the safe passing of one of those physical crises when the patient had rather die than face the pain of further living; for him it was the sealing of his happiness. IX ANOTHER ROAD It was a few days later that Muriel, the reconciled, decided that she wanted to leave Aiken. "Don't you think," she asked, for she had come unconsciously often to use phrases characteristic of Jim, "that a change of scene would be good for us both?" Stainton had not thought so. He had wandered so much in his life that, now wandering was no longer a necessity of life, he was tired of it. Besides, he was eminently satisfied with Aiken. "I don't know," he said. "I think it's splendid here. Haven't we been--aren't you happy, dear?" Muriel was looking out of the window of their hotel sitting-room.