her
upstairs--about a poor devil she has on her mind. A chap named
Berry--dying--lungs. She asked me to go and see him."

"Yes?"

"I found it was only a matter of days." The tragic pity in Baird's quiet
voice was so deep as barely to be heard.

"So I shot him full of morphine. He won't wake up. Please tell her that."

Tall, ungainly, motionless, he loomed there in the doorway. With a little
shrug and a smile he turned and went slowly out of the house.

CHAPTER XIII

Deborah's recovery was rapid and determined. The next night she was sitting
up and making light of her illness. On the third day she dismissed her
nurse, and when her father came home from his office he found gathered
about her bed not only her stenographer but both her assistant principals.
He frowned severely and went to his room, and a few minutes later he heard
them leave. Presently she called to him, and he came to her bedside. She
was lying back on the pillow with rather a guilty expression.

"Up to your old antics, eh?" he remarked.

"Exactly. It couldn't be helped, you see. It's the last week of our school
year, and there are so many little things that have to be attended to. It's
simply now or never."

"Humph!" was Roger's comment. "It's now or never with you," he thought. He
went down to his dinner, and when he came back he found her exhausted. In
the dim soft light of her room her face looked flushed and feverish, and
vaguely he felt she was in a mood where she might listen to reason. He felt
her hot dry hand on his. Her eyes were closed, she was smiling.

"Tell me the news from the mountains," she said. And he gave her the gossip
of the farm in a letter he had had from George. It told of a picnic supper,
the first one of the season. They had had it in the usual place, down by
the dam on the river, "with a bonfire--a perfect peach--down by the big
yellow rock--the one you call the Elephant." As Roger read the letter he
could feel his daughter listening, vividly picturing to herself the great
dark boulders by the creek, the shadowy firs, the stars above and the cool
fresh tang of the mountain night.

"After this little sickness of yours--and that harum scarum wedding," he
said, "I feel we're both entitled to a good long rest in mountain air."

"We'll have it, too," she murmured.

"With Edith's little youngsters. They're all the medicine you need." He
paused for a moment, hesitating. But it was now or never. "The only trouble