“Who’ll take my business when I’m gone?”

If his small son had only lived, with what new zest and vigor it might have been made to grow and expand.  If only his son had been here by his side....

CHAPTER IX

DEBORAH needed rest, he thought, for the bright attractive face of his daughter was looking rather pale of late, and the birthmark on her forehead showed a faint thin line of red.  One night at dinner, watching her, he wondered what was on her mind.  She had come in late, and though several times she had made an effort to keep up the conversation, her cheeks were almost colorless and more than once in her deepset eyes came a flash of pain that startled him.

“Look here.  What’s the matter with you?” he asked.  Deborah looked up quickly.

“I’d rather not talk about it, dad—­”

“Very well,” he answered.  And with a slight hesitation, “But I think I know the trouble,” he said.  “And perhaps some other time—­when you do feel like talking—­” He stopped, for on her wide sensitive lips he saw a twitch of amusement.

“What do you think is the trouble?” she asked.  And Roger looked at her squarely.

“Loneliness,” he answered.

“Why?” she asked him.

“Well, there’s Edith’s baby—­and Laura getting married—­”

“I see—­and so I’m lonely for a family of my own.  But you’re forgetting my school,” she said.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he retorted.  “But that’s not at all the same.  Interesting work, no doubt, but—­well, it isn’t personal.”

“Oh, isn’t it?” she answered, and she drew a quivering breath.  Rising from the table she went into the living room, and there a few moments later he found her walking up and down.  “I think I will tell you now,” she said.  “I’m afraid of being alone to-night, of keeping this matter to myself.”  He looked at her apprehensively.

“Very well, my dear,” he said.

“This is the trouble,” she began.  “Down in my school we’ve a family of about three thousand children.  A few I get to know so well I try to follow them when they leave.  And one of these, an Italian boy—­his name is Joe Bolini—­was one of the best I ever had, and one of the most appealing.  But Joe took to drinking and got in with a gang of boys who blackmailed small shopkeepers.  He used to come to me at times in occasional moods of repentance.  He was a splendid physical type and he’d been a leader in our athletics, so I took him back into the school to manage our teams in basket-ball.  He left the gang and stopped drinking, and we had long talks together about his great ambition.  He wanted to enter the Fire Department as soon as he was twenty-one.  And I promised to use my influence.”  She stopped, still frowning slightly.

“What happened?” Roger asked her.