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 "Now, Jason. . . ."

"All right, but how old are they?"

"Four months . . . nearly five."

"I must say that Philip took 'is time about it. Married five years. . . . Well, we didn't waste any time, did we, Em."

"Jason!"

She hated him when he was vulgar. She decided not to go into the reasons why Philip and Naomi had been married four years without children, because it was a thing which Jason wouldn't understand—sacrificing the chance of children to devote yourself to God. There was nothing spiritual about Jason. It was one of his countless faults.

"But who did 'e marry, Em? You haven't told me."

"Her name was Naomi Potts. You wouldn't know who she was. Her people were missionaries, and she was a missionary too."

"Oh, my God!"

"I won't have you blaspheming."

"And what's Philip like?"

"He was a missionary too. . . . He was three years in Africa . . . until his health broke."

"Oh, my God!" He grew suddenly thoughtful, moved perhaps by the suspicion that she had succeeded in doing to his son what she had failed to do to him.

She was at the door now. "I won't listen to you talking like that any longer." She turned in the doorway. "Don't go out till I come back. You mustn't be seen till we've worked this thing out. I've got to send word to them all."

When she had gone, he picked up his hat, took a cigar from his vest pocket and lighted it. In the hall-