When August came and she knew that any day might bring the test, she felt her courage ebbing just a little. As a panting man longs for more alkali in his blood, so she longed for new courage.

She fancied ways out. Suppose she fled from her lover and hid herself in a city. But that would leave her father alone, a desertion not to be thought of. Suppose she carried her father off and earned a living for them both. But that would break his heart. Suppose she lied to Marvin and said that she had ceased to love him. But she really did not know how to lie.

She turned back to history and harrowed her soul with horrors. She reminded herself that excess of population has driven every race to expose its children. She saw Sicilian graveyards opened and hundreds of babies that had been buried alive in earthen pots. She saw the silver sails of Athens unloading excess of life on every island, and the rock called Tyre unloading its slums on Africa. She saw Europe unloading itself on America. She even hunted up in Plato and Aristotle the passages in which both those noble writers sanction abortion for the good of the state.