Jason advanced toward her, holding out the baby. It had awakened with the flashes of lightning and the jarring of the thunder. Throwing up its little arms, it pushed the blanket back, revealing its face, the soft, curling brown hair, the pink cheeks, the delicately veined temples. The little fellow knew Mahala. She was his beloved playmate. He reached his hands toward her, crowing and laughing and begging to be taken for one of the romps he was accustomed to indulging in with her. He liked spatting her cheeks with his hands. He liked to tousle her hair. He liked her kisses on his hands and his feet and the back of his neck and all over his little head. Mahala retreated until she was pressed flat against the wall. Even her hands, as they stretched out at her sides, were hard pressed, palm to the wall, behind her. She could go no farther. She was a tortured thing brought to bay. Jason advanced. “You’ve got to take him,” he said in a voice torn with suffering. “You’ve got to take him!” Then Mahala began to cry. She looked at Jason imploringly. “What does my heart know of the heart of a child beating beneath it?” she said to him. “How are my dry breasts to furnish life for another woman’s baby?” Jason still pressed the child toward her. Mahala became primitive. The strength of temper that had always characterized her swept through her. She lifted her head shamelessly. She used the lids of her eyes to squeeze the tears from them. Her voice was stern and relentless as she said to Jason: “You big fool! Ellen can’t give away her baby. Haven’t you got the sense to see it? It’s bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh. Take it back to her and make her listen to reason! Make her see that a real woman couldn’t possibly give up her baby. You would drive her as insane as your father did Rebecca.” “You’re right,” said Jason. He wrapped the blanket around the child, turned its face to his breast, and started toward the door. As he opened it, there was a horrible crash. He was blinded with running streaks of lightning till he staggered back. There was the ripping sound of a bolt that had struck something solid so close that it rocked the house. He turned appealingly to Mahala. She darted past him and pushed shut the door. “Wait!” she said. “Wait till I get the lantern, I’ll go to Ellen with you. I can make her understand better than you can.” Jason looked down at the small bundle struggling in his arms. “I ought not take the boy out in this,” he said. “We might be struck.” Mahala shook her head. “Ellen can’t be left alone. We’ve got to go. Some terrible thing will happen.”