"I mean you won't be happy--not unless you have a child! It's what
you need--it'll fill your life! It'll settle you--deepen you--tone you
down!"
"Suppose I don't want to be toned down!" The girl was almost hysterical.
"I'm no Puritan--I want to live! I tell you we are different now! We're not
all like Edith--and we're not like our mothers! We want to live! And we
have a right to! Why don't you go? Can't you see I'm nearly crazy? It's my
last night, my very last! I don't want to talk to you--I don't even know
what I'm saying! And you come and try to frighten me!" Her voice caught
and broke into sobs. "You know nothing about me! You never did! Leave me
alone, can't you--leave me alone!"
"Father?" He heard Deborah's voice, abrupt and stern, outside the door.
"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. He went in blind fashion out of the room and
down to his study. He lit a cigar and smoked wretchedly there. When
presently Deborah appeared he saw that her face was set and hard; but as
she caught the baffled look, the angry tortured light in his eyes, her own
expression softened.
"Poor father," she said, in a pitying way. "If Edith had only let you
alone."
"I certainly didn't do much good."
"Of course you didn't--you did harm--oh, so much more harm than you know."
Into the quiet voice of his daughter crept a note of keen regret. "I wanted
to make her last days in this house a time she could look back on, so that
she'd want to come home for help if ever she's in trouble.
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