The Able McLaughlins
He felt her wretchedness. He hardened his heart against her sentimentality. Presently she said imploringly;
"We can't do this, Wully. We must go back!"
"I will not!" He spoke passionately.
When she spoke again, it was to warn him.
"If you don't go back, I will!"
"No you won't!" he cried.
She was silent for several minutes then. He felt her bending down to see if the baby was covered. Then she sat still. She was hesitating. Then after a minute, before he could realize what was going on, she had climbed over the side of the wagon, her foot was on the hub, then, skirts and cloak and all, she had alighted, backwards, stumblingly, from the wagon. By the time he had pulled up the horses, she was the length of the wagon from him. Ignoring him, defying him, she was calling to him over her shoulder;
"He made me do evil once. You made me do evil once. But nobody can make me do it again!" Down the road she ran. "I'm going back to him!" she cried.
He had never been really angry with her before. Sometimes at first, before the baby had been born, he had grown very weary of her importunity, her determination to make him tell his mother the truth. But of late she had not done that. She had. been so satisfactory—so lovely. Now his rage burst forth against her.
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