I had a good doctor, I was
sure of that, and he told me he had an excellent nurse. But what good
were all these puny precautions? The tenement room in Brooklyn kept
rising in my mind.

She sat by the window that last night, and looking down on the far-away
lights of the river we planned another trip abroad.

A few hours later I stood over her, holding her hand, and with her white
lips pressed close together and her eyes shut, she went through one of
those terrible spasms. Then she looked up in the moment's relief. And
suddenly here was that smile of hers. And she said low, between clenched
teeth,

"Well, dearie, another starting out----"

CHAPTER XIX

The next morning, after the rush of relief at the news of Eleanore's
safety and the strange sight of our tiny son, I felt keyed gloriously
high, ready for anything under the sun. But there seemed to be nothing
whatever to do, I felt in the way each time that I moved, so I took to
my old refuge, work. And then into my small workroom came Eleanore's
father for a long talk. He too had been up all night, his lean face was
heavily marked from the strain, but their usual deep serenity had come
back into his quiet eyes.

"Let's take a day off," he said, smiling. "We're both so tired we don't
know it."

"Tired?" I demanded.

"Yes," he said, "you're tired--more than you've ever been in your life.
You'll feel like a rag by to-morrow, and then I hope you'll take a good
rest. But to-day, while you are still way up, I want to talk about your
work. Do you mind?"

"Mind? No," I replied, a bit anxiously. "It's just what I'm trying to
figure out."

"I know you are. You've figured for months and you've worked yourself
thin. I don't mind that, I like it, because I know the reason. But I
don't think the result has been good. It seems to me you've been so
anxious to get on, because of this large family of yours, that you've
shut yourself up and written too fast, you've gotten rather away from
life. Shall I go right on?"

"Yes," I said, watching intently.

"Well," he continued, "you've been using what name you've already made
and writing short stories of harbor life."

"That's what the editors want," I said. "When a man makes a hit in one
vein of writing they want that and nothing else."

"At this rate you'll soon work out the vein," he said. "I'd like to see
you stop writing now, take time to find new ground--and dig."

"There's not an awful lot of time," I remark