One night with a sigh he went to his desk, lit a cigar and laid his hand upon a pile of letters which 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 she would be home that night.  At one such time, getting no response and thinking Deborah was not there, he opened the door part way to make sure.  And he saw her at her dresser, staring at herself in the glass, rigid as though in a trance.  Later in the dining room he heard her step upon the stairs.  She came in quietly and sat down; and as soon as dinner was over, she said her good-nights and left the house.  But when she came home at midnight, he was waiting up for her.  He had foraged in the kitchen, and on his study table he had set out some supper.  While she sat there eating, her father watched her from his chair.