amily, with those subtle bonds from the past, began to press
steadily closer and closer around this one unmarried daughter, and help her
to make up her mind.

CHAPTER XVII

But she did not appear to care to be helped. Nor did Allan--he rarely came
to the house, and he went to Edith's not at all. He was even absent from
her Christmas tree for the children, a jolly little festivity which neither
he nor Deborah had missed in years.

"What has got into him?" Roger asked. And shortly after Christmas he called
the fellow up on the 'phone. "Drop in for dinner to-night," he urged. And
he added distinctly, "I'm alone."

"Are you? I'll be glad to."

"Thank you, Baird, I want your advice." And as he hung up the receiver he
said, "Now then!" to himself, in a tone of firm decision. But later, as the
day wore on, he cursed himself for what he had done. "Don't it beat the
devil," he thought, "how I'm always putting my foot in it?" And when Baird
came into the room that night he loomed, to Roger's anxious eye, if
anything taller than before. But his manner was so easy, his gruff voice so
natural, and he seemed to take this little party of two so quietly as a
matter of course, that Roger was soon reassured, and at table he and Allan
got on even better than before. Baird talked of his life as a student, in
Vienna, Bonn and Edinburgh, and of his first struggles in New York. His
talk was full of human bits, some tragic, more amusing. And Roger's liking
for the man increased with every story told.

"I asked you here," he bluntly began, when they had gone to the study to
smoke, "to talk to you about Deborah." Baird gave him a friendly look.

"All right. Let's talk about her."

"It strikes me you were right last year," said Roger, speaking slowly.
"She's already showing the strain of her work. She don't look to me as
strong as she was."

"She looks to me stronger," Allan replied. "You know, people fool doctors
now and then--and she seems to have taken a fresh start. I feel she may go
on for years." Roger was silent a moment, chagrined and disappointed.

"Have you had a good chance to watch her?" he asked.

"Yes, and I'm watching her still," said Baird. "I see her down there at the
school. She tells me you've been there yourself."

"Yes," said Roger, determinedly, "and I mean to keep on going. I'm trying
not to lose hold of her," he added with harsh emphasis. Baird turned and
frankly smiled at him.

"Then you have probab