“Oh, I’m not sorry we left the Family, if that’s what you mean. There’s some chance, here, and there everything went by rule; you had your share of the work, and you knew just what you had to expect every day. I used to say I wished something _wrong_ would happen, just so as to have _something_ happen. I believe it was more than half that that got father out, too,” she said, with a look at her sister. “I thought,” said Ray, “but perhaps I didn’t understand him, that your father wanted to make the world over on the image of your community.” “I guess he wanted to have the fun of chancing it, too,” said Mrs. Denton. “Of course he wants to make the world over, but he has a pretty good time as it is; and I’m glad of all I did and said to get him into it. He had no chance to bring his ideas to bear on it in the Family.” “Then it was you who got him out of the community,” said Ray. “I did my best,” said Mrs. Denton. “But I can’t say I did it, altogether.” “Did you help?” he asked Peace. “I wished father to do what he thought was right. He had been doubtful about the life there for a good while--whether it was really doing anything for humanity.” She used the word with no sense of cant in it; Ray could perceive that. “And do you ever wish you were back in the Family?” Mrs. Denton called out joyously: “Why, there is no Family to be back in, I’m thankful to say! Didn’t you know that?” “I forgot.” Ray smiled, as he pursued, “Well, if there was one to be back in, would you like to be there, Miss Hughes?” “I can’t tell,” she answered, with a trouble in her voice. “When I’m not feeling very strong or well, I should. And when I see so many people struggling so hard here, and failing after all they do, I wish they could be where there was no failure, and no danger of it. In the Family we were safe, and we hadn’t any care.” “We hadn’t any choice, either,” said her sister. “What choice has a man who doesn’t know where the next day’s work is coming from?” Ray looked round to find that Denton had entered behind them from the room where he had been, and was sitting beside the window apparently listening to their talk. There was something uncanny in the fact of his unknown presence, though neither of the sisters seemed to feel it. “Oh, you’re there,” said Mrs. Denton, without turning from her cat. “Well, I suppose that’s a question that must come home to you more and more. Did you ever hear of such a dreadful predicament as my husband’s in, Mr. Ray? He’s just hit on an invention that’s going to make us rich, and throw all the few remaining engravers out of work, when he gets it finished.” Her husband’s face clouded, but she went on: “His only hope is that the invention will turn out a failure. You don’t have any such complications in your work, do you, Mr. Ray?”