Mrs. Simmons sat through the meal, white faced and silent. Her eyes followed her husband’s nervous movements, but she did not seem to be listening to his incessant talk. He was trying to talk away the disagreeable thing between them, and apparently she had not the strength to join him in the effort. She saw him across the table, strangely apart from her,--not the lover and husband who had been woven into her life. He was a large, tall man, with clear black eyes, a resounding laugh, and vehement, expressive movements. Compared with Dr. Vessinger he had almost a foreign intensity and emotionality about him, which it occurred to her suddenly had become more prominent during the years of their marriage, just as his chest had broadened, his arms and hands had become thicker, his whole person had grown mature. She recalled him as he was when she had first seen him, in Colorado Springs, eight years before, tall, large-boned, awkward. He had gained from civilization. The power that she had felt then in the rough, she had tested in the common manner of marriage and had never found it wanting--until now! Now, from this fear which beset her, this trouble growing from them both in the person and soul of the child, she could feel no help in him. He was turning away his gaze and chattering, believing only in gross physical ills, such as sickness and sudden death, loss of money and accident,--calamities which one might name to one’s neighbors, discuss with one’s doctor, and bemoan quite aloud. But for this which was unnamable, the fear of destiny, he had no courage: he refused to see! She must grope her way to the understanding of the riddle; she must begin, alone, the struggle with the future.... The maid poured Simmons a second glass of whiskey and water, and handed him a box of cigars. He leaned back in his chair, stretching forward his feet in physical comfort, emphasized by the roar of the summer tempest, which had finally broken in full fury outside. Forked streaks of light illumined the pallid curtains; furious bursts of rain hit sharply the casement windows, as with the thongs of whips. Lull and sullen quiet; then the fury of the tempest--thus it repeated itself. Mrs. Simmons left the room, noiselessly crossing the hall and mounting the stairs. By the time her husband finished his cigar she had returned, with the same stealthy, restless step, the same questioning eyes. “He is lying so quietly, Olaf,” she said. “His arm is doubled under his head, and his little fingers are open. His lips tremble with his breath. He is my angel again! I cannot believe anything else. Why should _my_ child be that demon?” Her husband put his arm about her affectionately and led her into the drawing-room. “There! You are coming to look at it sensibly, Evelyn,” he said encouragingly. She drew away from his caress. “No, no! I know what is there. I had rather see him dead in his bed there to-night than to see that fire in his eyes grow and burn and kill him!”