But she looked at the little pieces as if they had been dynamite; a faint colour stole up into her cheeks, her eyes dilated. 'Draw,' he said. She put out her hand and drew it back again trembling like a leaf and empty. 'Wait a minute,' she said with a little gasp. She covered her eyes for a second, then, suspiciously, 'how do I know you have not marked one so you may know it?' 'If you draw it will make no difference,' he answered patiently. She put out her hand again and touched them, first one and then the other. 'I _know_ I shall draw the wrong one,' she said in a choking voice, she turned them over and examined them with pitiful criticism. 'What did you make this one narrower than the other for?' 'Is it?' he said and looked. His hand was not trembling at all, but in his heart there was a great aching for his little son. 'I think I had better draw and have done with it.' The quick movement of her hand again showed her trust in him was not all it might have been--her fingers closed and unclosed round the wider piece. Her cheeks were burning, her breath coming in little quick pants. 'Get it over, Dot,' he said very gently. She shut her eyes, her hand groped forward, her face grew very white. Then she unclosed her fingers and showed both little slips lying in her palm. 'I _won't_ do it that way,' she said with sudden passion, 'as if he were a cushion in a bazaar, or a lottery ticket. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Larrie.' She tore the paper into a hundred fragments and looked at him with wide, angry eyes. 'But how shall we decide?' he said heavily. He put the little tray back on the table and mechanically replaced the pens and paper knife, the darning needle and broken bit of coral he had emptied from it a few minutes ago. 'He shall decide himself,' she said. She got up and went towards the door. 'Write two more pieces of paper, and he shall draw.' Larrie wrote L and D again with a heavy J nib, and again folded them up; then he followed his wife. She was standing by the cot in an inner room looking down at the little sleep-flushed face. One little curled up hand was flung out on the counterpane, the other, with a thumb still wet, was drooped just below his chin. Damp little rings of hair lay on his forehead, his lips were apart, his long eyelashes motionless. Larrie came in on tip-toe. 'You can't wake him,' he said in a low voice. She shook her head, there was almost a fierce look in her eyes. 'What will you do then?' he asked. And 'Wait,' she returned. He brought a wicker chair to the bedside for her, a stiff-backed one for himself.