Hating himself for his helplessness, he leaned over her and kissed her. She lifted her arms to him. "Oh, Laurie, when I'm sick and you feel this way----If I should die, I couldn't bear it!" she said. "But you won't die, Winnie. You won't die!" He gave up, leaning his face against her hair. Why could they never touch? He felt the child stir in her against him, and the child seemed so terrible and real that he longed for some terrible realness in them with which to understand the child. Winnie felt the child stirring between them, and was ashamed. It kept her from remembering sweetly the slightness of her body and the smallness of her pretty outstretched arms. She was ugly and inert at the mercy of the child. "Love me, Laurie!" she moaned. "I can't help being like this!" She was unfair to him, but the agony in her voice was sweet to her self-contempt. "Stop, Winnie. You have no right to say things like that." He could not speak any more. He held her close up against him. To herself she was small and ugly with child in a small dark room. She kissed his hair, stiff and bitter against her mouth. She envied him the wonder of the fear he felt for her. But, while there was resentment in her, it elated her to inspire this horror of pity. Small and weak as she was, her hands were the hands of joy and agony. She was jealous of her closeness to death, half afraid that the doctor was wrong. She wanted to be in danger. Secretly, her weakness fed on its new strength. "Dear Laurie," she said tenderly. He kissed her again. "I've worried until I'm not fit to be with you, Winnie," he said. Then he got up. "I'll call Mother. You must go to sleep." With tears in his eyes, he smiled at her. "Good night, Laurie, dear." Her voice was stifled in tears, but she smiled too. When he went out and she was alone in the room, the recollection of his pained face made her feel that he had taken something from her that belonged to her, that she was incapable of holding. * * * * * After Christmas Winnie was moved into the back room over the kitchen, because it was warmer for her so. There were a rag carpet here, an old-fashioned cherry bedstead, and a chest of drawers. On the flowered wall beside the bed hung a German print which represented a gamekeeper who had caught some children stealing apples. It was a very old print with a cracked glass. The children in the picture had strange oldish faces. The girls wore long skirts and the boy had half-length pants. The gamekeeper, with side-whiskers and red raddled cheeks, was dressed in a high hat, a short brown waistcoat, and tight trousers. To the right of him, in the foreground of the scene, two little dachshunds stood sedately at attention. Winnie stared at the picture until she hated it.