Mamise nodded. Abbie gasped: "Why, you're positively immor'l! Posi-_tive_-ly! He's the father of my childern! I'll stick to Jake through thick and thin." "Through treason and murder, too? You were an American, you know, before you ever met him. And I was an American before he became my brother-in-law. And I don't intend to let him make me a partner in his guilt just because he made you give him a few children." "I won't listen to another word," cried Abbie. "You're too indecent to talk to." And she slammed the door after her. "Poor Abbie!" said Mamise, and closed her book, rubbed the light out of her cigarette, and went to bed. But not to sleep. Abbie had not argued well, but sometimes that is best for the arguments, for then the judge becomes their attorney. Mamise tossed on a grid of perplexities. Neither her mind nor her body could find comfort. She rose early to escape her thoughts. It was a cold, raw morning, and Abbie came dashing through the drizzle with her shawl over her head and her cheeks besprent with tears and rain. She flung herself on Mamise and sobbed: "I ain't slep' a wink all night. I been thinkin' of Jake and the childern. I was mad at you last night, but I'm sorry for what I said. You're my own sister--all I got in the world besides the three childern. And I'm all you got, and I know it ain't in you to go and send the father o' my childern to jail and ruin my life. I've had a hard life, and so've you, Mamise honey, but we got to be friends and love one another, for we're all that's left of our fambly, and it couldn't be that one sister would drive the other to distraction and drag the family name in the mud. It couldn't be, could it, Mamise? Tell me you was only teasin' me! I didn't mean what I said last night about you bein' indecent, and you didn't mean what you said about Jake, did you, Mamise? Say you didn't, or I'll just die right here." She had left the door open, and a gust of windy rain came lashing in. The world outside was cold and wet, and Abbie was warm and afraid and irresistibly pitiful. Mamise could only hug and kiss her and say: "I'll see! I'll see!" When people do not know what their chief mysteries, themselves, will do they say, "I'll see." Mamise thought of Davidge, and she could not promise to leave him in ignorance of the menace imminent above him. But when at last she tore herself from Abbie's clutching hands and hurried away to the office she looked back and saw Abbie out in the rain, staring after her in terror and shaking her head helplessly. She could not promise herself that she would tell Davidge. CHAPTER VII She reached the office late in spite of her early start. Davidge had gone. He had gone to Pittsburgh to try to plead for more steel for more ships.