leave a tiny, defenseless baby all alone in the big world! There was Eddie, of course, but he would be bewildered, frightened, helpless as the baby. What would he do? He had no relatives. He would not give the baby to Edna even if she would take it. What would he do? He would probably put it in a "home."
She tore her mind to pieces with conjectures. She tossed her head about in an agony of worry. She saw her baby's identity forgotten, Eddie far from New York, herself cold and useless in her grave. Sleep released her at last, but she cried in her sleep, and Eddie, standing quietly by, wondered what she was dreaming.
When she awakened, he had dinner all ready. The corn had boiled too long, and the steak was too rare; but she appreciated his effort. Not that she was hungry. It was hard to eat when visions of the baby—whose mother had made him a dozen web-fine dresses all by hand—growing up in an institution were so close.
"Ain't supper all right?" asked Eddie.
"Sure. It's fine."
She wasn't eating even as well as her diet permitted. Eddie wondered what that meant. Was something wrong with her, after all? Suppose something happened to her?
Now, for the first time in months, he pictured her lying white and dead. He couldn't bear the thought of it. He moved restlessly and uttered an oath.
"What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Honest, Eddie, dinner is fine. Don't be sore that I ain't eating. It's only because that trip kinda tired me out."
"I ain't sore."
"Then what's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"There is, too, something the matter. Do you get the blues when you think how close we are to having a kid?"
