And the two walked on a while and at last the mother said in a very passion of bitterness, “It does not matter who begot it and none shall ever know and if you will help me through this, cousin and my sister, I will care for you as long as my life is in me.” And the cousin’s wife said in a low voice, “I have not lived so many years as I have and never seen a woman rid herself of a thing she did not want.” And for the first time the mother saw a hope before her and she whispered, “But how--but how--” and the cousin’s wife said, “There are simples to be bought if one has the money, strong stuff that kills woman and child sometimes, and always it is harder than a birth, but if you take enough, it will do.” And the mother said, “Then let it kill me, if it will only kill this thing, and so save my sons and these others the knowledge.” Then the cousin’s wife looked steadfastly at the mother and she stopped where she was and looked at her, and she said, “Yes, cousin, but will it come about again like this, now that your man is dead?” Then did the mother swear and she cried in agony, “No, and I will throw myself into the pond and cool myself forever if it comes on me hot again as it did in the summer.” That night she dug out from the ground a good half of her store of silver and when the chance came she gave it to the cousin’s wife to buy the simples. On a night when all was bought and the stuff brewed, the cousin’s wife came in the darkness and she whispered to the waiting woman, “Where will you drink it? For it cannot be done in any house, being so bloody a business as it is.” Then the mother remembered that wayside shrine and how lonely it was with so few wayfarers passing by, and none in the night, and to that wayside shrine the two women went, and the mother drank the brew and she lay down upon the ground, and waited. Presently in the deep night the stuff seized on her with such gripes as she never dreamed of and she gave herself up to die. And as the agony went on she came at last to forget all except the agony, and she grew dazed with it. Yet in the midst of it she remembered not to scream to ease herself, nor did they dare to light a torch or any little light, lest any might by some strange chance pass and see from even a distance an unaccustomed light in that shrine. No, the mother must suffer on as best she could. The sweat poured down her body like rain and she was dead to everything except the fearful griping, as though some beast laid hold on her to tear the very vitals from her, and at last it seemed a moment came when they were torn from her indeed, and she gave one cry. Then the cousin’s wife came forward with a mat she had, and took what was to be taken, and she felt and whispered sadly, “It would have been a boy, too. You are a fortunate mother who have so many sons in you.” But the mother groaned and said, “There never will be another now.”