e little child to sleep, one of the five she herself had borne, in agony,
without complaint. How Edith had slaved and sacrificed, how bravely she had
rallied after the death of her husband. He remembered her a few hours ago
on the bed upstairs, spent and in anguish, sobbing, alone. And remorse came
over him. Deborah's talk at dinner had twisted his thinking, he told
himself. Well, that was Deborah's way of life. She had her enormous family
and Edith had her small one, and in this hell of misery which war was
spreading over the earth each mother was up in arms for her brood. And, by
George, of the two he didn't know but that he preferred his own flesh and
blood. All very noble, Miss Deborah, and very dramatic, to open your arms
to all the children under the moon and get your name in the papers. But
there was something pretty fine in just sitting at home and singing to one.

"All right, little mother, you go straight ahead. This is war and panic and
hard times. You're perfectly right to look after your own."

He would show Edith he did not begrudge her this use of her small
property. And more than that, he would do what he could to take her out of
her loneliness. How about reading aloud to her? He had been a capital
reader, during Judith's lifetime, for he had always enjoyed it so. Roger
rose and went to his shelves and began to look over the volumes there.
Perhaps a book of travel.... Stoddard's "Lectures on Japan."

Meanwhile Edith came into the room, sat down and took up her sewing. As she
did so he turned and glanced at her, and she smiled brightly back at him.
Yes, he thought with a genial glow, from this night on he would do his
part. He came back to his chair with a book in his hand, prepared to start
on his new course.

"Father," she said quietly. Her eyes were on the work in her lap.

"Yes, my child, what is it?"

"It's about John," she answered. And with a movement of alarm he looked at
his daughter intently.

"What's the matter with John?" he inquired.

"He has tuberculosis," she said.

"He has no such thing!" her father retorted. "John has Pott's Disease of
the spine!"

"Yes, I know he has," she replied. "And I'm sorry for him, poor lad. But in
the last year," she added, "certain complications have come. And now he's
tubercular as well."

"How do you know? He doesn't cough--his lungs are sound as yours or mine!"

"No, it's--" Edith pursed her lips. "It's different," she said softly.

"Who told yo