"Don't be," she retorted. "I'm too sorry for myself as it is! That's another part of me!" Again she broke off with a hard little laugh. "Let's forget me for a minute. What has this sweet strike done to _you_?" "I'm not sure yet," I answered. "Where is Dad?" "Up in his room." "Tell me about him," I said. Sue drew an anxious little breath: "Oh Billy, he has been getting so queer. It has all been such a strain on his mind. Every day he kept reading the news of the strike--and some days he would stamp and rage about till I was afraid to be with him. He talked about that death cell until I thought that I'd go mad. Sometimes when we were talking I thought that we had both gone mad." I went upstairs and found him in a chair by the window. With unnatural, clumsy motions he rose and came to meet me. "I'm all right, my boy." His voice had a mumbling quality and I noticed the strangeness in his eyes. "I'm all right. I'm glad to see you." Then his face clouded and hardened a little, and he tried to speak to me sternly: "I'm glad you're clean out of that strike and its notions--glad you've come to your senses," he said. "You're lucky in having such a wife. She's been over here often lately--and she's worth a dozen like you and Sue. Have you seen Sue?" "Yes." "Well, _she's_ all right." I said nothing to this, and he shot a sidelong look at me: "I had quite a time, my boy--I had to keep right at her." Another quick look. "I suppose she's told you how I went at her." "Never mind, Dad, it's over now." "I had to make her feel the noose, I mean the chair," he went on in those thick, mumbling tones, "and that she'd have to choose between that and a decent Christian home--like the home her mother had. She was a wonderful woman, your mother," he wandered off abruptly. "If she'd only understood me--seen what it was I was trying to do--for American shipping--Yankee sails!" He sank down in his chair exhausted, and I noticed he was breathing hard. "I'm all right, my boy, I'm quite all right----" With a sudden rush of pity and of love and deep alarm, I bent gently over him: "Of course you are--why Dad, old boy--just take it easy--quiet, you know--we're going to pull right out of this----" The tears welled suddenly up in his eyes: "I'm lonely, boy--I'm glad you're here!" Presently I went down to Sue: "When is the doctor coming next?" "Not till this afternoon," she said. "I'll be home to-night for supper. Phone me what he says." "All right--where are you going now? To Joe?" "Yes, Sis," I said. She turned and went quickly out of the room. * * * * * In the Tombs, when Joe was brought out to me, I saw that he, too, had been through a deep change. He had been quiet enough all through the strike, except for that one big speech of his--but he had been _tensely_ quiet. Now the tension appeared to be gone. He seemed wrapped up in thoughts of his own. "Have you seen Sue?" he asked me at once.