"Lost him?" she mused. "No--not that. If I'd lost him, Jim, I'd take you. If ever he looked in my eyes--as if I'd lost him--I'd take you. I've give him up; but I ain't lost him. Maybe," she proceeded, eagerly, "when the time comes, he'll not give me up. He loves me, Jim; he'll not forget. I know he's different from us. You can't tell a mother nothing about such things as that. God!" she muttered, clasping her hands, "how strangely different he is. And every day he'll change. Every day he'll be--more different. That's what I want. That's why I give him up. To make him--more different! But maybe," she continued, her voice rising with the intensity of her feeling, "when he grows up, and the time comes--maybe, Jim, when he can't be made no more different--maybe, when I go to him, man grown--are you listening?--maybe, when I ask him if he loves me, he'll remember! Maybe, he'll take me in. Lost him?" she asked. "How do you know that? Go to you, Jim? Go to you, now--when he might take me in if I wait? I can't! Don't you understand? When the time comes, he might ask me--where you was." "You're crazy, Millie," the man protested. "You're just plain crazy." "Crazy? Maybe, I am. To love and hope! Crazy? Maybe, I am. But, Jim, mothers is all that way." "All that way?" he asked, regarding her with a speculative eye. "Mothers," she repeated, "is all that way." "Well," said he, swiftly advancing, "lovers isn't." "Keep back!" she cried. "No, I won't." "You'll make a cat of me. I warn you, Jim!" "You can't keep me off. You said you loved me. You do love me. You can't help yourself. You got to marry me." She retreated. "Leave me alone!" she screamed. "I can't. Don't you see how it is? Quit that, now, Jim! You ain't fair. Take your arms away. God help me! I love you, you great big brute! You know I do. You ain't fair.... Stop! You hurt me." She was now in his arms--but still resisting. "Leave me alone," she whimpered. "You hurt me. You ain't fair. You know I love you--and you ain't fair.... Oh, God forgive me! Don't do that again, Jim. Stop! Let me go. For God's sake, stop kissing me! I like you, Jim. I ain't denying that. But let me go.... Please, Jim! Don't hold me so tight. It ain't fair.... Oh, it ain't fair...." She sank against his broad breast; and there she lay helpless--bitterly sobbing. "Don't cry, Millie!" he whispered. Still she sobbed. "Oh, don't cry, girl!" he repeated, tenderly. "It's all right. I won't hurt you. You love me, and I love you. That's all right, Millie. What's the matter with you, girl? Lift your face, won't you?" "No, no!" "Why not, Millie?" "I don't know," she whispered. "I think I'm--ashamed." There was no longer need to hold her fast. His arms relaxed. She did not move from them. And while they stood thus, in the moonlight, falling brightly through the window, he stroked her hair, murmuring, the while, all the reassuring words at his command.