Through those turbid clouds she had a glimpse of a woman, touched and moved, standing by a man’s bedside and blessing him silently for his faithfulness, his gentleness, his fineness ... but those figures were far away, flat and unreal, like something in a made-up picture. They were but an added irritation. She hated the thought of them as a creature in flames would hate the recollection of a running brook. Poverty ... isolation, monotony, stagnation, killing depression over never-ending servile tasks ... _poverty_! There was no way out. She knew that now. But she could not endure it. She never could endure it again. She would hate Lester. She would kill herself and the children. She had sunk lower and lower till now she was crouching in a heap, panting, her bent arms over her face as if beaten down by relentless blows which she could no longer even try to parry. What could she do? Her native energy rose up blindly, staggering, like a courageous fighter who has been knocked out but does not know it. What could she _do_? With a terrible effort, she strove to rise to a higher level than this mere brute suffering. She tried--yes, she really tried for a moment to think what was the right thing to do. She tried again to pray, to ask God to show her what was the right thing for a good woman to do--but she could not pray. “_Grant, O Lord, I beseech thee ... pour into our hearts such...._” No, she could not pray. She could not command her mind to any such coherence as prayer. Whirling snatches of the thoughts which had filled her mind incessantly since the night before were blown across her attention like birds driven before a tornado--“The place for a mother is with her children--” How many times she had heard that--and said it. She was a bad woman to rebel so against it. And it would do her no good to rebel. What else could she do? Around and around the cell she tore, beating her hands on those locked doors. Some one had to stay and keep house and take care of the children and make the home. And if Lester were cured he couldn’t. No able-bodied man could do such work, of course. Nobody ever heard of such a thing. Men had to make the living. What would people say? They would laugh. They would make fun of the children. And of Lester. And of her. They would think of course she ought to want to do it. Every one had heard her say how hard it was for a.... And they couldn’t go away to another city, somewhere else, where no one knew them. Her one chance was here, here! * * * * * But all at once with a final roar the tumult swept off and went beating its way into the distance, out of the church and her heart. There was a dead, blank silence about her, through which there came to her a clear, neat, compact thought, “But perhaps Lester will not get well. Perhaps he will not get well.”