In his bedroom, while he slowly undressed, his glance was caught by the picture upon the wall opposite his bed, a little landscape poster done in restful tones of blue, of two herdsmen and their cattle far up on a mountainside in the hour just before the dawn, tiny clear-cut silhouettes against the awakening eastern sky.  So immense and still, this birth of the day—­the picture always gave him the feeling of life everlasting.  Judith his wife had placed it there.

From his bed through the window close beside him he looked up at the cliff-like wall of the new apartment building, with tier upon tier of windows from which murmurous voices dropped out of the dark:  now soft, now suddenly angry, loud; now droning, sullen, bitter, hard; now gay with little screams of mirth; now low and amorous, drowsy sounds.  Tier upon tier of modern homes, all overhanging Roger’s house as though presently to crush it down.

But Roger was not thinking of that.  He was thinking of his children—­of Edith’s approaching confinement and all her anxious hunting about to find what was best for her family, of Bruce and the way he was driving himself in the unnatural world downtown where men were at each other’s throats, of Deborah and that school of hers in the heart of a vast foul region of tenement buildings swarming with strange, dirty little urchins.  And last he thought of Laura, his youngest daughter, wild as a hawk, gadding about the Lord knew where.  She even danced in restaurants!  Through his children he felt flowing into his house the seething life of this new town.  And drowsily he told himself he must make a real effort, and make it soon, to know his family better.  For in spite of the storm of long ago which had swept away his faith in God, the feeling had come to him of late that somewhere, in some manner, he was to meet his wife again.  He rarely tried to think this out, for as soon as he did it became a mere wish, a hungry longing, nothing more.  So he had learned to let it lie, deep down inside of him.  Sometimes he vividly saw her face.  After all, who could tell?  And she would want to hear of her children.  Yes, he must know them better.  Some day soon he must begin.

Suddenly he remembered that Laura had not yet come home.  With a sigh of discomfort he got out of bed and went downstairs, re-lit the gas in the hallway, unfastened the locks and the chain at the door.  He came back and was soon asleep.  He must have dozed for an hour or two.  He was roused by hearing the front door close and a big motor thundering.  And then like a flash of light in the dark came Laura’s rippling laughter.

CHAPTER III

On the next evening, Saturday, while Roger ate his dinner, Laura came to sit with him.  She herself was dining out.  That she should have dressed so early in order to keep him company had caused her father some surprise, and a faint suspicion entered his mind that she had overdrawn at the bank, as she had the last time she sat with him like this.  Her manner certainly was a bit strange.