He went to his daughter to say
good-night. And in her room the talk he had heard became to him suddenly
remote, that restless world of small account. For in Edith, in the one
brief hour since her father had seen her last, there had come a great
transformation, into her face an eager light. She was slipping down into a
weird small world which for a brief but fearful season was to be utterly
her own, with agony and bloody sweat, and joy and a deep mystery. Clumsily
he took her hand. It was moist and he felt it clutch his own. He heard her
breathing rapidly.
"Good-night," he said in a husky tone. "I'll be so glad, my dear, so
glad."
For answer she gave him a hurried smile, a glance from her bright restless
eyes. Then he went heavily from the room.
* * * * *
At home he found Deborah sitting alone, with a pile of school papers in her
lap. As he entered she slowly turned her head.
"How is Edith?" she asked him. Roger told of his visit uptown, and spoke of
Edith's anxiety over getting the children up to the farm.
"I'll take them myself," said Deborah.
"But how can you get away from school?"
"Oh, I think I can manage it. We'll leave on Friday morning and I can be
back by Sunday night. I'll love it," Deborah answered.
"It'll be a great relief to her," said Roger, lighting a cigar. Deborah
resumed her work, and there was silence for a time.
"I let George sit up with me till an hour after his bedtime," she told her
father presently.
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