That Fate could be so pitiless--no, it was
unthinkable!
"This is what comes of your modern woman!" Roger exclaimed to Allan one
night. "This is the price she's paying for those nerve-racking years of
work!"
The crisis came toward the end of the week. And while for one entire night
and through the day that followed and far into the next night the doctors
and nurses fought for life in the room upstairs, Roger waited, left to
himself, sitting in his study or restlessly moving through the house. And
still that thought was with him--the price! It was kept in his mind by the
anxious demands which her big family made for news. The telephone kept
ringing. Women in motors from uptown and humbler visitors young and old
kept coming to make inquiries. More gifts were brought and flowers. And
Roger saw these people, and as he answered their questions he fairly
scowled in their faces--unconsciously, for his mind was not clear.
Reporters came. Barely an hour passed without bringing a man or a woman
from some one of the papers. He gave them only brief replies. Why couldn't
they leave his house alone? He saw her name in headlines: "Deborah Gale at
Point of Death." And he turned angrily away. Vividly, on the second night,
there came to him a picture of Deborah's birth so long ago in this same
house. How safe it had been, how different, how secluded and shut in. No
world had clamored _then_ for news. And so vivid did this picture grow,
that when at last there came to his ears the shrill clear cry of a new
life, it was some time before he could be sure whether this were not still
his dream of that other night so long ago.
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