"Why didn't you tell me this sooner, Winnie? Something might have been done. You know how unwise this is in your state."
Winnie stared at her mother. "I'm going to die."
Again tears swam in Mrs. Price's eyes, but she would not unbend herself. "No dear, you are not going to die. We will take good care of you and you will come through this terrible thing."
Winnie stirred wearily and impatiently. "I don't care. I'm going to die." She was stubborn and calm now. Die was a stupid word like dust. It settled dully upon her pain.
Mrs. Price wrote a letter to Mrs. Farley. "Winnie is evidently going to have another baby. This is a great misfortune. I cannot understand how Laurence allowed this to occur. In her state you may imagine!"
It was apparent that Mrs. Price was alarmed and that in writing the letter her hand had trembled, but it was plain too that in her veiled reproaches she was still delicately gratifying her hatred of Laurence.
Winnie, waiting for Dr. Beach, refused to stay in bed. She got up and put on a flowered négligé and sat by the open window. Looking down the long wet road, she hated the hill that set itself up heavily between her and the sky. She hated life that came to the end of itself abruptly like the road to the horizon at the end of the hill.
When Dr. Beach came in Winnie spoke to him resentfully, and when her mother told him what was the matter, blushed a defiant crimson.