hich had been mounting steadily. It was made up of
Laura's bills, the ones she had not remembered. Send them after her to Rome
for that Italian fellow to pay? No, it could not be thought of. Roger
turned to his dwindling bank account. He was not yet making money, he was
still losing a little each week. But he would not cut expenses. To the few
who were left in his employ, to be turned away would mean dire need. And
angrily he determined that they should not starve to pay Laura's bills.
"The world for the strong, eh? Not in my office!" In Rome or Berlin or
Vienna, all right! But not over here!

Grimly, when he had made out the checks, Roger eyed his balance. By spring
he would be penniless. And he had no one to turn to now, no rich young
son-in-law who could aid.

He set himself doggedly to the task of forcing up his business, and
meanwhile in the evenings he tried with Edith to get back upon their former
footing. To do this was not easy at first, for his bitterness still rankled
deep: "When you were in trouble I took you in, but when she was in trouble
you turned her out, as you turned out John before her." In the room again
vacated, young George had been reinstalled. One night Edith found her
father there looking in through the open doorway, and the look on his
massive face was hard.

"Better have the room disinfected again," he muttered when he saw her. He
turned and went slowly down the stairs. And she was late for dinner that
night.

But Edith had her children. And as he watched her night by night hearing
their lessons patiently, reading them fairy stories and holding them
smilingly in her arms, the old appeal of her motherhood regained its hold
upon him. One evening when the clock struck nine, putting down his paper he
suggested gruffly,

"Well, daughter, how about some chess?"

Edith flushed a little:

"Why, yes, dear, I'd be glad to."

She rose and went to get the board. So the games were resumed, and part at
least of their old affection came to life. But only a part. It could never
be quite the same again.

And though he saw little of Deborah, slowly, almost unawares to them both,
she assumed the old place she had had in his home--as the one who had been
right here in the house through all the years since her mother had died,
the one who had helped and never asked help, keeping her own troubles to
herself. He fell back into his habit of going before dinner to his
daughter's bedroom door to ask whether