"Leave me alone!" Meredith sprang to her feet. "How dare you?"

And again Thornton laughed.

"Dare? You--you little idiot! You'll come with me to-morrow--by God!"

* * * * *

But Meredith did not go with Thornton on the morrow, and if the other
took her place she did not seek to know.

The weeks and months dragged on and she was thankful for time to think
and plot. It took so much time for one who had never acted before. And
then--she knew the worst!

Thornton might return at any time and soon--her child would be born!
First terror, then a growing calmness, possessed Meredith. She forgot
Thornton in her planning, forgot her own misery and sense of wrong. She
did not hate her child as she might have--she learned in the end to
consider it as the one opportunity left to her of saving whatever was
good in her and Thornton. She clung to that good, she was just, at last,
to Thornton as well as herself. Both he and she were victims of
ignorance--the little coming child must be saved from that ignorance;
the father's and--yes, her own, for Meredith was convinced that she
would not live through her ordeal.

Thornton must not have the child--he was unfit for that sacred duty of
giving it the chance that had been denied the parents. The new life must
have its roots in cleaner and purer soil. Doris must save it. Doris!