"It's so silly!" she muttered unsteadily. "Just my condition, I suppose. I feel as though I had done with school for the remainder of my days!... Better leave me now, dearie," she added. "I'm not very proud of myself to-night--but I'll be all right in the morning." The next day she was herself again, and went quietly on with her preparations for the coming of her child. But still the ceaseless interests of those hordes of other children followed her into the house. Not only her successor but principals and teachers came for counsel or assistance. And later, when reluctantly she refused to see such visitors, still the telephone kept ringing and letters poured in by every mail. For in her larger family there were weddings, births and deaths, and the endless savage struggle for life; and there were many climaxes of dreams and aspirations, of loves and bitter jealousies. And out of all this straining and this fever of humanity, came messages to Deborah: last appeals for aid and advice, and gifts for the child who was to be born; tiny garments quaintly made by women and girls from Italy, from Russia and from Poland; baby blankets, wraps and toys and curious charms and amulets. There were so many of these gifts. "There's enough for forty babies," Deborah told her father. "What on earth am I to do, to avoid hurting anyone's feelings? And isn't it rather awful, the way these inequalities will crop up in spite of you? I know of eight tenement babies born down there in this one week. How much fuss and feathers is made over them, and their coming into the world, poor mites?" Roger smiled at his daughter. "You remind me of Jekyll and Hyde," he said. "Father! What a horrible thought! What have Jekyll and Hyde to do with me?" "Nothing, my dear," he answered. "Only it's queer and a little uncanny, something I've never seen before, this double mother life of yours." * * * * * It was only a few days later when coming home one evening he found that Deborah's doctor had put her to bed and installed a nurse. There followed a week of keen suspense when Roger stayed home from the office. She liked to have him with her, and sitting at her bedside he saw how changed his daughter was, how far in these few hours she had drawn into herself. He had suspected for some time that all was not well with Deborah, and Allan confirmed his suspicions. There was to be grave danger both for the mother and the child. It would come out all right, of course, he strove to reassure himself. Nothing else could happen now, with her life so splendidly settled at last. 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!"