He was moaning in his sleep, one hand brushing frantically over his blanket. Catherine's hand closed over his. "There, Spencer," she said, softly, "it's all right, dear." He did not wake, but the moaning dropped into regular, quiet breathing, and his hand relaxed warmly in hers. She stood a moment, listening. Then she stole to the other two beds, bending over each. Letty's breathing was so soft that her heart stood still an instant as she listened. At the door of the porch she clasped her hands over her breast. "Am I wicked?" she thought. "When I have them--to care about--" A passion of tenderness for them shook her; she felt as if the three of them lay at the very core of her being, and she enclosed them, crouching above them, fiercely maternal. Slowly she went back to the living room. She heard Bill's low voice, and then Henrietta's, "Catherine can do it. She has brains and strength----" Her entrance broke off the sentence. "I'll light a lamp," she said briefly. "This firelight's too sentimental. I want hard common sense." "Here, let me." Bill flicked a match with his thumb nail, and Catherine fitted the heavy orange globe down over the lamp. She seated herself in the straight chair near the desk. "Well," said Henrietta, "I don't see any more clearly than I did in the dark. If you have the nerve to try this, Catherine, go ahead. I'm all for you." "You think, professionally, that it won't harm the children?" "You can hire some woman, can't you, to take your place as slave? I suppose you still can look at them occasionally." "Yes. I suppose"--Catherine twisted her fingers together--"I suppose I am as conceited as most mothers, wondering whether they can get along eight hours a day without me." "You aren't happy, are you?" Henrietta flung at her, abruptly. "You have the blues, black as ink. You have to hang on to yourself about trifles. You----" "Oh, yes, yes!" Catherine's laugh shrilled a little. "Don't go on with my disgraceful disposition. I admit it. But don't women have to put up with that?" "My Lord, no. No longer than they are willing to. Most of them find it easier to lie down. You've got too much brains to be sentimental, Catherine Hammond." "What do you think, Bill?" Catherine appealed to him suddenly. She felt him, in his motionless silence, probing, inspecting, and never saying what he saw. "It is for you to decide," he answered. "You know you can't get advice out of Bill! It's a wonder he ever can serve on an engineering commission." Henrietta laughed at him, in friendly, appreciative amusement. "He has to offer technical advice there. He won't give any other kind." "You won't consider my specifications?" Catherine was a trifle piteous, under her light tone. "Even if I need--well, it is rebuilding, isn't it?" She wondered why his opinion seemed so necessary. She had Henrietta's, and Henrietta was a woman. But she wanted to reach across, to pull at those passive, restrained hands, to beg him to speak.