time's come, and I'm so frightened. You won't leave me long? I can't
be left. Come back quickly and help me, Osborn.... I daren't stay
alone."

As Osborn ran, roughly dressed, and sick with fear, down the road to
the doctor's house, the irritations, the trials and domestic troubles
of the past half-year were swept away by comparison with this that
loomed infinitely greater. It had seemed to him, though he had borne
it more or less silently, very pitiable that a man, the breadwinner,
should ever come home weary of evenings to find his dinner not ready;
it had seemed to him sometimes, well as he had concealed the feeling
for the most part, almost intolerably irksome to bear the strain of
the fads and fancies, the nerves and frets of a delicate,
child-bearing woman; he had wondered more than once if jolly cynics
like Rokeby weren't right after all; the numerous small inroads upon
his pocket had been unexpected, pin-pricking sort of shocks. But all
this now receded; the hour was upon them, upon him, and the woman he
loved; what did a spoiled dinner matter? What did a fretful quarrel
matter, if only she won through? He begged the doctor's immediate
presence as a man begging life; but he himself hurried ahead, back to
Marie. When with trembling lips and trembling hands he had kissed and
caressed her, he lighted the fires in the flat, in the dining-room,
her bedroom, the bathroom geyser and the kitchen stove; he didn't know
what else to do, and he had vague ideas about plenty of hot water for
some purpose unknown. He brought Marie tea and she would not let him
leave her again; she clung to him as to a saviour, but he felt so
helpless.

The doctor arrived before the nurse; the nurse while he was still
there. "It won't happen yet," he told them. "You must be a brave girl;