merely low spirits and reduced vitality, not “an infirmity of growth.” She constantly expected perfection, and all that fell below it was its opposite extreme, and worthless. She began to suspect herself of being an exceptional and lofty nature deprived of her dues. Guy was a little disappointed at her prudent objection to children until their success was established. Prudence was mere waste of time to his courage and assurance. And he believed, though without going into the psychology of the situation, that Bessie would be happier with a child or two. “Oh, how can we do any more?” she answered, in her pretty, spoiled way. “We're trying to cut a two-yard garment out of a one-yard piece now.” At least, she was; and so Guy was. Well, it wasn't a great matter yet. It is not in the early years of marriage that that lack is most felt. And Bessie was not very strong; she never seemed really well any more. She developed a succession of small ailments, lassitudes, nerves. She dragged on the hand of life, and complained. The local physician drugged her with a commendable spirit of optimism and scientific experiment. But the drawl of the light voice with its rising inflection became distinctly a whine. She got a way of surprising Guy and upsetting his calculations with unannounced extravagances. “What's the good of all this drudgery? We're making no headway, getting nowhere; we might as well have what good we can as we go along.” There was a negro woman in the kitchen now, and in the sitting-room one of the new sewing-machines. And Guy, who, so far, had been only excavating for the cellar of his future business house, was beginning to feel that good foundation walls were about to start. But, even when peevish, Bessie had a way of turning up her eyes at him that reduced him to helplessness and adoration. And she was delicate! “I know,” he sympathized with her loyally, “it's like trying to work and be jolly with a jumping tooth; or rather, in your case, with a constant buzzing in your head.” The jumping tooth was his own simile. The headaches that had begun while he was soldiering were increasing. He had intermittent periods of numbness in the lower half of his body. It was annoying to a busy man. He could offer no explanation, nor could the doctors. “Overwork,” they suggested, and advised the cure that is of no school--“rest.” That was “impossible.” Besides, it was all nonsense. He put it aside, went on, kept it from Bessie. The end came, as it always does, even after the longest expectation, with a rush. He was suffering with one of his acute headaches one night, when Bessie fell asleep beside him. She woke suddenly, with no judgment of time, with a start of terror, a sense of oppression, or--death? “Guy!” she screamed. The strangeness of his answering voice only repeated the stab of fear. She was on her feet, had made a light....