Mrs. Price walked up and down the room, clasping and unclasping her hands. "Yes, I'll send for Dr. Beach. We must send for Dr. Beach. I cannot understand your husband, Winnie." Bewildered by the catastrophe as she was, it gave her a certain feeling of assurance to be able unreservedly to condemn Laurence again. She gazed at Winnie prone on the bed and felt suddenly sickened with futility. All of Mrs. Price sickened and armed against Laurence. She wanted to snatch the child from the taint of its father as from a disease. "Why didn't you tell me this sooner, Winnie? Something might have been done. You know how unwise this is in your state." Winnie stared at her mother. "I'm going to die." Again tears swam in Mrs. Price's eyes, but she would not unbend herself. "No dear, you are not going to die. We will take good care of you and you will come through this terrible thing." Winnie stirred wearily and impatiently. "I don't care. I'm going to die." She was stubborn and calm now. Die was a stupid word like dust. It settled dully upon her pain. * * * * * Mrs. Price wrote a letter to Mrs. Farley. "Winnie is evidently going to have another baby. This is a great misfortune. I cannot understand how Laurence allowed this to occur. In her state you may imagine!" It was apparent that Mrs. Price was alarmed and that in writing the letter her hand had trembled, but it was plain too that in her veiled reproaches she was still delicately gratifying her hatred of Laurence. * * * * * Winnie, waiting for Dr. Beach, refused to stay in bed. She got up and put on a flowered négligé and sat by the open window. Looking down the long wet road, she hated the hill that set itself up heavily between her and the sky. She hated life that came to the end of itself abruptly like the road to the horizon at the end of the hill. When Dr. Beach came in Winnie spoke to him resentfully, and when her mother told him what was the matter, blushed a defiant crimson. It was a delicate situation to consider. All three people thought of Laurence with condemnation, but mention of him was eschewed. When Mrs. Price talked her voice was choked with pent opprobrium. Dr. Beach told Winnie to undo her dressing gown. When he examined her, his hot hands touched her cold body here and there lightly. She felt her body harshen to his touch. It was at the moment when his hand touched her that the child became hers. It was not that she wanted the child, but that she wanted the thing the man could not touch. She hated the day when the child would no longer be secret. After the doctor had touched her and made her aware of the child she ceased in part to feel that Laurence was in the child's flesh. She would have liked to think of herself as the only creature capable of giving birth.