He stood voiceless while she looked.

In that tense half-minute when she stared at the objects he held it seemed to him that her heart-strings must snap under the strain.

Then she drew back from them, her eyes filled with horror, her hands raised as if to shut out the sight of them, and a panting, sobbing cry broke from between her pallid lips.
"Oh, my God!" she breathed.

"Take them away--take them away!" She staggered back to the tent, and stood there with her hands covering her face.

Aldous turned to the old hunter and gave him the things he held.
A moment later he stood alone where the three had been, staring now as Joanne had stared, his heart beating wildly.
For Joanne, in entering the tent, had uncovered her face; it was not grief that he saw there, but the soul of a woman new-born.