te. Her father kept tight
hold of her hands, and he felt them trembling, growing cold.

"You're soon to be free of everyone," he continued painfully. "I know this
is hurting you, but I see so plain, so plain, my child, just what it is
I've got to do. I'm trying to clear the way for you to make a simple
definite choice--a choice which is going to settle your life one way or the
other. I want to make sure you see what you're doing. Because you mean so
much to me. We're flesh and blood--eh, my daughter?--and in this family of
ours we've been the closest ones of all!" She seemed to sway a little.

"_You're not going to die_!" she whispered.

"So it hurts you to lose me," he replied. "It will be hard to be so free.
Would you rather not have had me at all? I've been quite a load on your
back, you know. A fearful job you had of it, dragging me up when I was
down. And since then Edith and Bruce and the rest, what burdens they have
been at times. What sharp worries, heavy sorrows, days and nights you and I
have gone through, when we should have been quietly resting--free--to keep
up our strength for our next day's work. Suppose you had missed them, lived
alone, would you have worked better? You don't know. But you will know
soon, you're to give it a trial. For I've cleared the way--so that if you
throw over Baird to be free you shall get the freedom you feel you need!"

"Father! Please! Is this fair? Is this kind?" She asked in a harsh
frightened tone. Her eyes were wet with angry tears.

"This isn't a time to be kind, my dear." His voice was quivering like her
own. "I'm bungling it--I'm bungling it--but you must let me stumble along
and try to show you what I mean. You will have your work, your crowded
schools, to which you'll be able to give your life. But I look ahead, I
who know you--and I don't see you happy, I don't even see you whole. For
you there will be no family. None of the intimate sorrows and joys that
have been in this house will come to you. I look back and I see them
all--for a man who has come so near the end gets a larger vision." He shut
his eyes, his jaw set tight. "I look into my family back and back, and I
see how it has been made of many generations. Certain figures stand out in
my mind--they cover over a hundred years. And I see how much they've meant
to me. I see that I've been one of them--a link in a long chain of
lives--all inter-bound and reaching on. In my life they have all been
here--as I shal