She set the lamp down on the brown-marble top of a wash-stand, pushed back her hair with both hands, and sat down on the bed-edge, heavily breathing from a run through deserted night's streets.
"I gotta talk to you, Burkhardt—now—to-night."
"Now's no time, Hanna. Come to bed."
"Things can't go on like this, John."
He lay back slowly.
"Maybe you're right, Hanna. I been layin' up here and thinkin' the same myself. What's to be done?"
"I've got to the end of my rope."
"With so much that God has given us, Hanna—health and prosperity—it's a sin before Him that unhappiness should take root in this home."
"If you're smart, you won't try to feed me up on gospel to-night!"
"I'm willin' to meet you, Hanna, on any proposition you say. How'd it be to move down to Schaefer's boardin'-house for the winter, where it'll be a little recreation for you evenings, or say we take a trip down to Cincinnati for a week. I—"