hough she had been crying.

"Where have you been?" she inquired.

"At Edith's," her father answered. She reached up and took his hand, and
held it slowly tighter.

"You aren't going to find it too lonely here, with Laura gone?" she asked
him. And the wistfulness in her deep sweet voice made something thrill in
Roger.

"Why should I?" he retorted. Deborah gave a queer little laugh.

"Oh, I'm just silly, that's all," she said. "I've been having a fit of
blues. I've been feeling so old this afternoon--a regular old woman. I
wanted you, dearie, and I was afraid that you--" she broke off.

"Look here," said Roger sharply. "Do you really want to keep this house?"

"Keep this house? Why, father!"

"You think you can stand it here alone, just the two of us?" he demanded.

"I can," cried Deborah happily. Her father walked to the window. There as
he looked blindly out, his eyes were assaulted by the lights of all those
titty-tatty flats. And a look of vicious triumph appeared for a moment on
his face.

"Very well," he said quietly, turning back. "Then we're both suited." He
went to the door. "I'll go and wash up for supper," he said.

CHAPTER VIII

It was a relief to him to find how smoothly he and Deborah dropped back
into their old relations. It was good to get home those evenings; for in
this new stage of its existence, with its family of two, the house appeared
to have filled itself with a deep reposeful feeling. Laura had gone out of
its life. He glanced into her room one night, and it looked like a guest
room now. The sight of it brought him a pang of regret. But the big ship
which was bearing her swiftly away to "Paris in June" seemed bearing off
Roger's uneasiness too. He could smile at his former fears, for Laura was
safely married and wildly in love with her husband. Time, he thought, would
take care of the rest. Occasionally he missed her here--her voice,
high-pitched but musical, chatting and laughing at the 'phone, her bustle
of dressing to go out, glimpses of her extravagances, of her smart suits
and evening gowns, of all the joyous color and dash that she had given to
his home. But these regrets soon died away. The old house shed them easily,
as though glad to enter this long rest.

For the story of his family, from Roger's point of view at least, was a
long uneven narrative, with prolonged periods of peace and again with
events piling one on the other. And now there came one of those peaceful