"Oh, yes, that's right--blame me! Blame me for everything! Maybe you think _I_ think this is a happy, restful place, too! Maybe you think this is what _I_ thought 'twould be--being married to you! But I can tell you it just isn't! Maybe you think I ain't tired of working and pinching and slaving, and never having any fun, and being scolded and blamed all the time because I don't eat and walk and stand up and sit down the way you want me to, and-- Where are you goin'?" she broke off, as her husband reached for the hat he had just tossed aside, and started for the door. Burke turned quietly. His face was very white. "I'm going down to the square to get something to eat. Then I'm going up to father's. And--you needn't sit up for me. I shall stay all night." "_All--night!_" "Yes. I'd like to sleep--for once. And that's what I can't do--here." The next moment the door had banged behind him. Helen, left alone with the baby, fell back limply. "Why, Baby, he--he--" Then she caught the little ink-stained figure to her and began to cry convulsively. In the street outside Burke strode along with his head high and his jaw sternly set. He was very angry. He told himself that he had a right to be angry. Surely a man was entitled to _some_ consideration! In spite of it all, however, there was, in a far-away corner of his soul, an uneasy consciousness of a tiny voice of scorn dubbing this running away of his the act of a coward and a cad. Very resolutely, however, he silenced this voice by recounting again to himself how really abused he was. It was a long story. It served to occupy his mind all through the unappetizing meal he tried to eat at the cheap restaurant before climbing Elm Hill. His father greeted him cordially, and with no surprise in voice or manner--which was what Burke had expected, inasmuch as he had again fallen into the way of spending frequent evenings at the old home. To-night, however, Burke himself was constrained and ill at ease. His jaw was still firmly set and his head was still high; but his heart was beginning to fail him, and his mind was full of questionings. How would his father take it--this proposition to stay all night? He would understand something of what it meant. He could not help but understand. But what would he say? How would he act? Would he say in actions, if not in words, that dreaded "I told you so"? Would it unseal his lips on a subject so long tabooed, and set him into a lengthy dissertation on the foolishness of his son's marriage? Burke believed that, as he felt now, he could not stand that; but he could stand less easily going back to the Dale Street flat that night. He could go to a hotel, of course. But he did not want to do that. He wanted dad. But he did not want dad--to talk.