enter every reckoning. "Is Fidelia bearing a child?" was what she meant when she asked David, "How is Fidelia?" at the time she first met him after his marriage; it was what stirred her whenever she caught sight of David or Fidelia later and whenever any one spoke to her of them. Now a child must end every hope for Alice; but the months and the years, three of them, were gone and Fidelia remained childless; and this—so Alice began to believe could not be from choice. She became certain that Fidelia, in spite of her splendid body, was barren.
So Alice had her moments of feeling triumph over Fidelia; Alice had complete faith that she, though weaker than Fidelia, could bear. Never had she doubted that; nor had David. How confidently had David and she made their plans together on the certainty of children! She thought of him as having transferred her plan and his to Fidelia and himself and she was sure that he must, therefore, be disappointed. She thought of talks which he and she had together, when he was in his moods of self-reproach and examination, and she thought, "He must miss me, sometimes."
That telephone call, when he rang her number from the railroad station, proved to her that he did. Of course she knew that he had not intentionally called her, but instinctively he had! What had he told her? "Father was just here." That meant he was having trouble with his father again; probably it was more serious trouble than usual and, in his trouble, he had needed her.
It was a small incident to build upon but it be
