Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/311

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into your arms, as you say she used to come at the end of your minor quarrels."

This was like a sudden letting in of light of reasonable hope upon a chaos of utter darkness: "Oh, God! If she only would!" George Judson was reflecting fervently, when another ghastly perception stabbed him, and he burst out with, "But if she does not, I will be turning her out to go with—with—" Speech halted in his constricted throat. He could not utter the name that had become a symbol of horror.

"She might not go with him," meditated the doctor.

"Might not!"

"From the glimpses of her nature I have had, and from the long resistance she has put up, I do not think she would go with him at first. She would be more likely to go away from both of you—far away. One of these mad trips most likely. Well? If she does that, you have an even break—more than an even break—for distance lends enchantment, and besides you are the father of her boy."

"Junior!" George remembered poignantly. "Why, that's another reason why she couldn't leave me—Junior. He is ours. She might be mad enough to wish to undo her marriage, but she couldn't wish to undo Junior. Not possibly."

"But she might decide that an unhappy home