'Couldn't you go in and get a pair?' he asked, but she shuddered and shook her head. 'I am afraid,' she said--'of Peggie.' 'Sit down here then,' he said, and found her a seat on some piled wood by the roadside. 'I will try to take the other heel off.' Dot smothered an exclamation. Peggie herself was leaning over the little side gate fifty yards away, and the figure of the district butcher was discernible on the footpath. 'You could go in yourself,' he whispered, 'and get wraps as well.' 'I am afraid,' she said again, and looked at the lamplight with strange eyes. 'There's a pair in the hall stand box.' He opened the gate very quietly and went over the grass; she saw him push open the half closed front door, and go into the hall. Peggie's voice came over the garden beds. 'Get out with you,' she was saying to her lover. Dot watched her with frightened eyes, for no quick shadow fell on the lighted patch near the door. How long he was! Perhaps he could not find the shoes, perhaps Larrie had flung them out. It might be he was looking for another wrap for her. 'Ga'rn,' said Peggie, 'I'm goin' in.' But Dot trembled needlessly, she did not move. The frilled curtain blew through the drawing-room window in its old accustomed way; the broken wistaria lattice swayed and creaked as it had done for months. Something rose in Dot's throat, the wildness died out of her eyes. Then the long shadow fell on the lighted patch, and he came across the grass again, straight over the mignonette bed and Larrie's primroses. She shivered violently, a sick feeling of fear came over her. He was speaking to her, bending down to her, she could not see his face in the darkness, but she knew he was holding something in his arms. He put it gently down on her knees. How warm it was, how soft, how very small! Such a little pitiful cry of broken sleep it gave! 'Oh, God bless you!' she said, 'God bless you!' There came a rush of warm, relieving, grateful tears. 'Oh, God bless you!' she said again. But he had gone. THE END Transcriber's notes: Inconsistent hyphenation (indiarubber/india-rubber, roseleaf/rose-leaf, tiptoe/tip-toe, weatherboard/weather-board, workbasket/work-basket) retained. Inconsistent spelling of Laurence/Lawrence has been retained. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of a Baby, by Ethel Turner