She rose reluctantly, saying as she did so, “If I get cold, it makes no matter, I suppose.”

“Everything about you is of the greatest importance to me, I suppose you know that.”

“It may be so or it may not be so.  You have scarcely noticed me for nearly a week.  I am going to London.  There, I hope, I shall receive a little more love and attention.”

“But you are not going to London.”

“I am going to London.  I have written to Lady Harlow saying I would be with her on next Monday evening.”

“Write to Lady Harlow at once and tell her you will not be able to leave home.”

“That is no excuse for breaking my word.”

“Tell her I, your husband, need you here.  No other excuse is necessary.”

Jane laughed as if she was highly amused.  “Does ‘I, my husband,’ expect Lady Harlow and Jane Hatton to change their plans for his whim?”

“Not for any whim of mine, Jane, would I ask you to change your plans.  I have heard something which will compel me to pay more attention to you.”

“Goodness knows, I am thankful for that!  During my late illness, I think you were exceedingly negligent.”

“Why did you make yourself so ill?  Tell me that.”

“Such a preposterous question!” she replied, but she was startled and frightened by it and more so by the anger in John’s face and voice.  In a moment the truth flashed upon her consciousness and it roused just as quickly an intense contradiction and a willful determination not only to stand her ground but to justify her position.

“If this is your catechism, John, I have not yet learned it.”

“Sit down, Jane.  You must tell me the truth if it takes all the day.  You had better sit down.”

Then she threw herself into the large easy chair he pushed towards her; for she felt strangely weak and trembling and John’s sorrowful, angry manner terrified her.

“Jane,” he said, “I have heard to my great grief and shame that it is your fault we have no more children.”

“I think Martha is one too many.”  At the moment she uttered these words she was sorry.  She did not mean them.  She had only intended to annoy John.

And John cried out, “Good God, Jane.  Do you know what you are saying?  Suppose God should take the dear one from us this night.”

“I do not suppose things about God.  I do not think it is right to inquire as to what He may do.”

“Jane, it is useless to twist my question into another meaning.  Suppose you had not destroyed our other children before they saw the light?”

“John,” she cried, “how dare you say such dreadful things to me?  I will not listen to you.  Open the door.  You might well put the key in your pocket—­and I have been so ill.  I have suffered so much—­it is dreadful”—­and she fell into a fit of hysterical weeping.

John waited patiently until she had sobbed herself quiet, then he continued, “When I think of my sons or daughters, written down in God’s Book and blotted out by you.”