'I can only see a little way,' he said. 'Later--say in some months--we will decide further: feelings change wonderfully, perhaps I shall look at your act--differently; if we live together I can't; it would always look the same. It is best, I can see. We _couldn't_ just go on living as before. I couldn't, at least, so I will go, for a time at any rate, and you--you will be glad to be alone I know.' 'Yes, I shall be glad,' Dot said with great steadiness. Baby's portrait smiled at him from the stand on the table. 'There is the child, of course,' he said heavily. Dot sprang up. Husband had been so far before child that she had forgotten there was any one else in the world. But she remembered now. 'He is mine,' she said, 'mine, of course, there is no question about that. What are you thinking of? you can go if you like, but he is mine.' Her eyes glittered. He had known this would be the worst difficulty; him she gave up easily--gladly even, but the child she would fight for to the last. His anger came to white heat again. '_I_ shall keep the child,' he said slowly, 'he is mine equally, he will be better with me.' Dot laughed hysterically. 'The mother always keeps it in these cases. I believe you are going mad, Larrie.' 'I believe I am,' he said very quietly. He pulled up the blind for want of anything else to do, and the dawn struggled in and took away the brightness of the lamp. It was only this minute he had really meant to keep the child, his first idea had been merely to go away and leave them, not altogether, perhaps as he said, but until he could find life bearable again. But when he saw how quickly she consented and how her only care was to keep the child, he told himself he would move heaven and hell before she had it. 'I shall keep it,' he repeated, 'it is not a question of a mother's care, any nurse I get will know more about it than you do--I shall keep it. You have chosen your life, you can go on the stage altogether if you like, but I shall not let you have the child.' In all he said he would not degrade either of them by the mention of Wooster's name, but there was nothing else in his thoughts, and only everything else in the world in hers. A great weariness came to Dot, a weariness of all her present life. She dropped her chin on her hands, and stared out at the pale, creeping light. Her heart was quite cold, she did not seem to care about anything in the world. She looked at Larrie and away again. A tiny darn on her skirt caught her eye and she stared at it fixedly. It lifted all her tired thoughts back to the day it was made and pushed the present out of sight. It was her wedding morning, and she had put on the dress, she remembered she had said it was a 'holy' dress, it was so purely white and billowy and beautiful.