“Suppose I ask Allan Baird to come,” Deborah suggested.  “He’s wonderful with children, you know.”

Edith curtly accepted his services.  She felt he had been sent for to prevent her getting Doctor Lake.  But she said nothing.  She would wait.  Through long hard days and longer nights she slaved upstairs.  All Deborah’s proffers of aid she declined.  She kept Elizabeth home from school to help her with the many meals, the medicines and the endless task of keeping her lively patients in bed.  She herself played with them by the hour, while the ache in her head was a torment.  At night she was up at the slightest sound.  Heavy circles came under her eyes.  Within a few days her baby, Bruce, had developed pneumonia.

That evening after dinner, while Deborah was sitting with Roger in the living room, she heard her sister coming downstairs.  She listened acutely, and glancing around she saw that Roger was listening, too.  Edith passed the doorway and went on down the hall, where they heard her voice at the telephone.  She came back and looked in at the door.

“I’ve called Doctor Lake,” she said.  “I’ve just taken Bruce’s temperature.  It’s a hundred and five and two fifths.”  Deborah glanced up with a start.

“Oh, Edith!” she said softly.  Her sister turned and looked at her.

“I ought to have had him before,” she said.  “When he comes, please bring him right up to the room.”  And she hurried upstairs.

“Pshaw!” breathed Roger anxiously.  He had seen Bruce an hour ago; and the sight of the tiny boy, so exhausted and so still, had given him a sudden scare.  Could it be that this would happen?  Roger rose and walked the floor.  Edith was right, he told himself, they should have had Lake long before.  And they would have, by George, if it had not been for Deborah’s interference!  He glanced at her indignantly.  Bringing in Baird to save money, eh?  Well, it was just about time they stopped saving money on their own flesh and blood!  What had Bruce to do with tenement babies?  But he had had tenement treatment, just that!  Deborah had had her way at last with Edith’s children, and one of them might have to pay with its life!  Again Roger glared at his silent daughter.  And now, even in his excited state, he noticed how still and rigid she was, how unnatural the look she bent on the book held tightly in her hands.

Still Deborah said nothing.  She could feel her father’s anger.  Both he and Edith held her to blame.  She felt herself in a position where she could not move a hand.  She was stunned, and could not think clearly.  A vivid picture was in her mind, vivid as a burning flame which left everything else in darkness.  It was of Bruce, one adorable baby, fighting for breath.  “What would I do if he were mine?”

When the doctor arrived she took him upstairs and then came down to her father.

“Well?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.  We’ll have to wait.”  And they both sat silent.  At last they heard a door open and close, and presently steps coming down the stairs.  Roger went out into the hall: