pened to her mother.

Dave McFadden breathed heavily. "Then what?"

Janet took her hands from her face and, with a fresh assumption of
indifference, continued: "Oh, a crowd gathered, of course, and after
while a policeman came, and then the ambulance. And while we were in the
ambulance she--had another. And when we got to the hospital--another. It
was awful!" Janet dropped her head on the table and sobbed.

"Well?" demanded Dave gruffly.

Janet stifled her sobs. "They undressed her and put her to bed and gave
her something and she went to sleep. Then the doctor took me into
another room and wrote down what he said was a history of ma's case and
he asked me questions about everything."

Dave McFadden's sombre gaze wandered off unhappily about the room. "What
did you tell him?"

Janet's answer came a little slowly: "I told him everything."

Dave looked at her sharply. "Tell me what you told him!"

"All right. I'll tell you." There was a hint of unsteadiness in Janet's
voice but no sign of wavering in her manner. Her eyes stared across at
her father as sombre almost as his own. "He said from the looks of her
he thought ma was all run down from overwork and worry. I told him she
was. Then he asked me why and I told him why.... I told him my father
made good money but boozed every cent. I told him my mother had to
support herself and me and even had to feed my father. I told him that
when my father was sober he was cross and grouchy but he didn't hurt us
and that, when he came home drunk, he'd kick us or beat us or do
anything he could to hurt us."

With a roar like the roar of an angry animal, Dave McFadden reached
across the table and clutched Janet roughly by the shoulder. "You told
him that, you--you little skunk!"

His fury, instead of cowing Janet, roused her to like fury.

"Yes!" she shouted shrilly. "That's exactly what I told him and it's
exactly what I'm going to tell everybody! I'm never going to tell
another lie about you, Dave McFadden! Do you hear me? Never!"

At the unexpectedness of her attack, Dave's anger and strength seemed to
flow from him like water. His clutch relaxed; he fell back weakly into
his chair. For a moment confusion covered him utterly. Then he tried to
speak and at last succeeded in voicing that ancient reproach with which
unworthy parenthood has ever sought to beguile the just reproof of
outraged offspring: "And is this the way you talk to your own father?
Your--own--father!"