"That's all. I sat there and talked to him for awhile."
"Well?" said Martie, as he stopped.
"Well, nothing," he answered, after a moment's pause. "Only I've been thinking about it ever since—what it would be to live there, and write, and walk about that little farm! Funny, isn't it? Eighteen hundred dollars—not much, only I'll never have it. And you are another poor man's wife—only not mine! Do you believe in God?"
"You know I do!" she answered, laughing, but a little shaken by his seriousness.
"You think GOD manages things this way?"
"John, don't talk like a high school boy!"
"I suppose it sounds that way," he said mildly, and he rose suddenly from his chair. "Well, I have to go!" He looked at her keenly. "But you don't look very well, Martie," he said. "You've no colour at all. Is it the weather?"
"John, what a baby you are!" But Martie was amazed, under her flush of laughter, at his simplicity. Could it be possible that he did not know? "I am expecting something very precious here one of these days," she said. He looked at her with a polite smile, entirely uncomprehending. "Surely you know that we—that I—am going to have another baby, John?" she asked.
She saw the muscles of his face stiffen, and the blood rise. He looked at her steadily. A curious silence hung between them.
"Didn't you know?" Martie pursued lightly.