“And write me, John, and send me books!” she urged, as he turned away.

He was at the door:  meditating with his hand on the knob, and his back turned to her.  Martie watched him, expecting some parting word.  But he did not even turn to smile a farewell.  He let himself quietly out without another glance, and was gone.  A moment later she heard the outer door close.

She sat on, in the darkening room, her book forgotten.  The storm was coming fast now.  Women in the backyards were drawing in their clothes-lines with a great creaking and rattling, and the first rush of warm, sullen drops struck the dusty dining-room window.  Curtains streamed, and pictures on the wall stirred in the damp, warm wind.

Half an hour of furious musketry passed:  blue dashes lighted the room with an eerie splendour, thunder clapped and rolled; died away toward the south as a fresh onslaught poured in from the north.

Martie heeded nothing.  Her soul was wrapped in a deep peace, and as the cooling air swept in, she dropped her tired head against the chair’s cushion, and drifted into a dream of river and orchard, and of a white house set in green grass.

She knew that John would write her:  she held the unopened envelope in her fingers the next morning, a strange, sweet emotion at her heart.  The beautiful, odd handwriting, the cleanly chosen words, these made the commonplace little note significant.

“Who’s your letter from?” Wallace asked idly.  She tossed it to him unconcernedly:  she had told him of John’s call.  “He must have a case on you, Mart!” Wallace said indifferently.

“Well, in his curious way, perhaps he has,” she answered honestly.

Ten days later she wrote him an answer.  She thanked him for the books, and announced that her daughter Margaret was just a week old, and sent her love to Uncle John.  Adele immediately sent baby roses and a card to say that she was dying to see the baby, and would come soon.  She never came:  but after that John wrote occasionally to Martie, and she answered his notes.  They did not try to meet.

CHAPTER VI

Wallace was playing a few weeks’ engagement in the vaudeville houses of New Jersey and Brooklyn when his second child was born.  He had been at home for a few hours that morning, coming in for clean linen, a good breakfast, and a talk with his wife.  He was getting fifty dollars a week, as support for a woman star, and was happy and confident.  The hard work—­twelve performances a week—­left small time for idling or drinking, and Martie’s eager praise added the last touch to his content.

She was happy, too, as she walked back into the darkened, orderly house.  It was just noon.  Isabeau, having finished her work, had departed with Teddy to see a friend in West One Hundredth Street; John had sent Martie Maeterlinck’s “Life of the Bee,” and a fat, inviting brown book, “All the Days of My Life.”  She had planned to go to the hospital next week, Wallace coming home on Sunday to act as escort, and she determined to keep the larger book for the stupid days of convalescence.