“You mean you’ll tell him?”

“Yes,” she replied, “and he’ll understand it perfectly.  I think he has been expecting it.  I have, for a good many weeks,” she added, with some bitterness.  “And I know some people who will be glad enough to take him in.  I’ll see that he’s made comfortable.  Only—­” her face clouded.

“It has meant a lot to him, being here,” her father put in gruffly.

“Oh, John’s used to getting knocks in this world.”  Her quiet voice grew hard and stern.  “I wasn’t thinking of John just now.  What frightens me at times like this is Edith,” she said slowly.  “No, not just Edith—­motherhood.  I see it in so many mothers these days—­in the women downtown, in their fight for their children against all other children on earth.  It’s the hardest thing we have to do—­to try to make them see and feel outside of their own small tenement homes—­and help each other—­pull together.  They can’t see it’s their only chance!  And all because of this mother love!  It’s so blind sometimes, like an animal!” She broke off, and for a moment she seemed to be looking deep into herself.  “And I suppose we’re all like that, we women are,” she muttered, “when we marry and have children.  If the pinch is ever hard enough—­”

“You wouldn’t be,” said Allan.  And a sudden sharp uneasiness came into Roger’s mind.

“When are you two to be married?” he asked, without stopping to think.  And at once he regretted his question.  With a quick impatient look at him, Allan bent over a book on the table.

“I don’t know,” Deborah answered.  “Next spring, I hope.”  The frown was still on her face.

“Don’t make it too long,” said her father brusquely.  He left them and went up to bed.

* * * * *

Deborah sat motionless.  She wished Allan would go, for she guessed what was coming and did not feel equal to it to-night.  All at once she felt tired and unnerved from her long exciting evening.  If only she could let go of herself and have a good cry.  She locked her hands together and looked up at him with impatience.  He was still at the table, his back was turned.

“Don’t you know I love you?” she was thinking fiercely.  “Can’t you see it—­haven’t you seen it—­growing, growing—­day after day?  But I don’t want you here to-night!  Why can’t you see you must leave me alone?  Now!  This minute!”

He turned and came over in front of her, and stood looking steadily down.

“I wonder,” he said slowly, “how well you understand yourself.”

“I think I do,” she muttered.  With a sudden twitching of her lip she looked quickly up at him.  “Go on, Allan—­let’s talk it all over now if you must!”

“Not if you feel like that,” he said.  At his tone of displeasure she caught his hand.

“Yes, yes, I want to!  Please!” she cried.  “It’s better—­really!  Believe me, it is—­”

He hesitated a moment, his wide generous mouth set hard, and then in a tone as sharp as hers he demanded, “Are you sure you’ll marry me next spring?  Are you sure you hope you will next spring?  Are you sure this sister of yours in the house, on your nerves day and night, with this blind narrow motherhood, this motherhood which frightens you—­isn’t frightening you too much?”