The Lamp at Noon

The couple had quarrelled bitterly, and Ellen is longing to make everything right between them. She is lonely and stressed by the constant dust that permeates their home. She is worried about the health of their child.

Yesterday, and again at breakfast this morning, they had quarreled bitterly. She wanted him now, the assurance of his strength and nearness, but he would stand aloof, wary, remembering the words she had flung at him in her anger, unable to understand it was only the dust and wing that had driven her.