"Oh, isn't it?" she answered, and she drew a quivering breath. Rising from the table she went into the living room, and there a few moments later he found her walking up and down. "I think I will tell you now," she said. "I'm afraid of being alone to-night, of keeping this matter to myself." He looked at her apprehensively. "Very well, my dear," he said. "This is the trouble," she began. "Down in my school we've a family of about three thousand children. A few I get to know so well I try to follow them when they leave. And one of these, an Italian boy--his name is Joe Bolini--was one of the best I ever had, and one of the most appealing. But Joe took to drinking and got in with a gang of boys who blackmailed small shopkeepers. He used to come to me at times in occasional moods of repentance. He was a splendid physical type and he'd been a leader in our athletics, so I took him back into the school to manage our teams in basket-ball. He left the gang and stopped drinking, and we had long talks together about his great ambition. He wanted to enter the Fire Department as soon as he was twenty-one. And I promised to use my influence." She stopped, still frowning slightly. "What happened?" Roger asked her. "His girl took up with another man, and Joe has hot Italian blood. He got drunk one night and--shot them both." There was another silence. "I did what I could," she said harshly, "but he had a bad record behind him, and the young assistant district attorney had his own record to think of, too. So Joe got a death sentence. We appealed the case but it did no good. He was sent up the river and is in the death house now--and he sent for me to come to-day. His letter hinted he was scared, he wrote that his priest was no good to him. So I went up this afternoon. Joe goes to the chair to-morrow at six." Deborah went to the sofa and sat down inertly. Roger remained motionless, and a dull chill crept over him. "So you see my work is personal," he heard her mutter presently. All at once she seemed so far away, such a stranger to him in this life of hers. "By George, it's horrible!" he said. "I'm sorry you went to see the boy!" "I'm glad," was his daughter's quick retort. "I've been getting much too sure of myself--of my school, I mean, and what it can do. I needed this to bring me back to the kind of world we live in!" "What do you mean?" he roughly asked. "I mean there are schools and prisons! And gallows and electric chairs! And I'm for schools! They've tried their jails and gallows for whole black hideous centuries! What good have they done? If they'd given Joe back to the school and me, I'd have had him a fireman in a year! I know, because I studied him hard! He'd have _grown_ fighting fires, he would have _saved_ lives!" Again she stopped, with a catch of her breath. In suspense he watched her angry struggle to regain control of herself. She sat bolt upright, rigid; her birthmark showed a fiery red. In a few moments he saw her relax.