Still he sat motionless there in the dark.  At last he stirred heavily in his chair.

“I guess you’re right,” he told her.  “At least I’ll think it over—­and try to work out something along the lines you spoke of.”

Again there was a silence.  Then his daughter turned to him with a little deprecating smile.

“You’ll forgive my—­preaching to you, dad?”

“No preaching,” he said gruffly.  “Just ordinary common sense.”

* * * * *

A little later Allan came in, and Roger soon left them and went to bed.  Alone with Baird she was silent a moment.

“Well?  Have you thought it over?” she asked.  “Wasn’t I right in what I said?” At the anxious ring in her low clear voice, leaning over he took her hand; and he felt it hot and trembling as it quickly closed on his.  He stroked it slowly, soothingly.  In the semi-darkness he seemed doubly tall and powerful.

“Yes, I’m sure you were right,” he said.

“Spring at the latest—­I’ll marry you then—­”

Her eyes were intently fixed on his.

“Come here!” she whispered sharply, and Baird bent over and held her tight.  “Tighter!” she whispered.  “Tighter!...  There!...  I said, spring at the latest!  I can’t lose you, Allan—­now—­”

She suddenly quivered as though from fatigue.

“I’m going to watch you close down there,” he said in a moment, huskily.

CHAPTER XXV

Roger saw little of Deborah in the weeks that followed.  She was gathering her forces for the long struggle she saw ahead.  And his own worries filled his mind.  On his house he succeeded in borrowing five thousand dollars at ten per cent, and in his office he worked out a scheme along the lines of Deborah’s plan.  At first it was only a struggle to save the remnants of what was left.  Later the tide began to turn, new business came into the office again.  But only a little, and then it stopped.  Hard times were here for the winter.

Soon Edith would come with the children.  He wondered how sensible she would be.  It was going to mean a daily fight to make ends meet, he told himself, and guiltily he decided not to let his daughter know how matters stood in his office.  Take care of your own flesh and blood, and then be generous as you please—­that had always been his way.  And now Deborah had upset it by her emotional appeal.  “How dramatic she is at times!” he reflected in annoyance.  “Just lets herself out and enjoys herself!” He grew angry at her interference, and more than once he resolved to shut down.  But back in the office, before those watchful faces, still again he would put it off.

“Wait a little.  We’ll see,” he thought.

* * * * *

In the meantime, in this interplay, these shifting lights and shadows which played upon the history of the life of Roger’s home, there came to him a diversion from an unexpected source.  Laura and Harold returned from abroad.  Soon after landing they came to the house, and talking fast and eagerly they told how they had eluded the war.