Martie sat thinking for a long time with this letter in her hand.  For the first time thoughts consciously hostile to Wallace swept through her mind.  She analyzed the motives that had urged her into marriage; she had been taught to think of it as a woman’s surest refuge.  If she had not been so taught, what might she have done for herself in this year?  Was it fair of him to take what she had to give then, in quick and generous devotion, and to fail her so utterly now, when the old physical supremacy was gone, and when she must meet, in the future, not only her own needs but the needs of a child?  He had known more of life than she—­her mother and father had known more—­why had nobody helped her?

That evening, when Sally and Joe had gone to the moving pictures, leaving Martie to listen for ’Lizabeth’s little snuffle of awakening, should she unexpectedly awake, Martie cleared the dining-room table and wrote to Wallace.

This was not one of her cheerful, courageous letters, filled with affectionate solicitude for him, and brave hope for the future.  She wept over the pages, she reproached and blamed him.  For the first time she told him of the baby’s coming.  She was his wife, he must help her get away, at least until she was well again.  She was sick of waiting and hoping; now he must answer her, he must advise her.

Her face was wet with tears; she went that night to mail it at the corner.  Afterward she lay long awake, wondering in her ignorant girl’s heart if such an unwifely tirade were sufficient cause for divorce, wondering if he would ever love her again after reading it.

Wallace brought the answer himself, five days later.  Coming in from a lonely walk, Martie found him eating bread and jam and scrambled eggs in Sally’s kitchen.  The sight of him there in the flesh, smiling and handsome, was almost too much for her.  She rushed into his arms, and sobbed and laughed like a madwoman, as she assured herself of his blessed reality.

Sally, in sympathetic tears herself, tried to join in Wallace’s heartening laugh, and Martie, quieted, sat on the arm of her husband’s chair, feeling again the delicious comfort of his arm about her, and smiling with dark lashes still wet.

After a while they were alone, and then they talked freely.

“Wallie—­only tell me this!  Have you got enough money to get me away somewhere?  I can’t stay here!  You see that!  Oh, dearest, if you knew—–­”

“Get you away!  Why, you’re going with me!  We’re going to New York!”

Her bewildered eyes were fixed upon him with dawning hope.

“But Golda!” she said.

“Oh, Golda!” He dismissed the adventuress impatiently.  “Now I’ll tell you all about that some time, dear—–­”

“But, Wallace, it’s—­it’s all right?” Martie must turn the knife in the wound now, there must be no more doubt.

“All right?” The old bombastic, triumphant voice!  “Her husband’s alive, if you call that all right!”