Winnie wore a thick cotton nightdress with long sleeves. Ruffles of coarse embroidery set stiffly away from her thin wrists. She felt herself hot and light against the cold pillow and the cold damp linen. The window shades were up, and she could see the moonlight, faint outside. The moonlight grew in the room as the fire died down. The steady burn of the gas flame was cold, like liquid glass flowing over the dark. Winnie's feet grew cold. She began to shiver. The cold crept up her legs under her nightdress. It was like grass growing up her. The fire in the grate sputtered and flared out again. It grew too bright. It stung her. The brightness flowed into her eyes until they were like hot pools, and she could not see. When Mrs. Farley came to take the tray away, Winnie had a high fever, and Dr. Beach had to be called in the same evening. * * * * * It was four o'clock in the afternoon. In Winnie's bedroom the window was slightly lifted to let in the soft spring air. The room was flooded with an apricot-colored glow. Pink dots of sunlight moved on the wall. The polished chest of drawers and the cherry bedstead were a deep rich red. There were lilac shadows on the cool sheets hollowed by Winnie's upraised knees. The picture of the gamekeeper dissolved in pale sunshine. Winnie was sunk in a dream when a sudden pain widened her eyes. She sat up astonished, for she knew what the pain meant. It was like a challenge. The child had come to wrestle with her. The pain came again and she clenched her fists until the nails made little red half-moons in her soft full palms. She had closed her eyes, but when she opened them they shone with a new and fierce aliveness. Winnie spread her toes out tensely against nothing. Each time the pain came to her she seemed to know the whole world with her hips and thighs. Then she lay back exhausted, feeling knowledge ebb away in the tingling peace of relief. When Mrs. Farley came into the room to carry away the soiled lunch tray, Winnie was unable to speak, but the shifting determined eyes of the older woman gave one quick glance and guessed what had come about. Mrs. Farley ran out and called Dr. Beach and Mrs. Price on the telephone. Later she remembered Laurence. Winnie was aware of the confusion in her room. She even understood that the physician and her mother were discussing whether or not she should be moved to a hospital. But in the reality of suffering their voices and faces were unreal. If there had been no surcease Winnie could not have borne it, but just when she felt that she could endure least, pain went out of her like a quenched light, and she sank faintly as if into a memory of herself. It had grown dark. A shaded lamp was lit. A nurse had come from the hospital and Mrs. Price and Mrs. Farley were sent out.