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everything to me. I can’t stop loving her just because she’s... left me.”

“What about Biddy and Jo?”

His face worked convulsively for a moment.

“The insurance company would provide for them—far better than I can now. My policy would hold even if I...”

His hands went up to his face again. His shoulders moved and Ann knew that he was sobbing—the difficult, hard sobs of a man. In a second her arms were round him. In the face of deep human suffering, sex is non-existent. He was a child, and Ann a mother. She was conscious of nothing but an overwhelming, yearning pity—an urgent desire to comfort, and to heal. And this she did. She had no clear memory of the words she spoke—the arguments she used. But at last she had his promise. He would never attempt to find that way out again.

She went back to her room in the dawn, knowing that at least she had accomplished something. She had saved their father for Biddy and Jo.

It was after seven when she was awakened by a knock. Mrs. Pratt entered.

“You’re all right then, Mrs. Pratt?” said Ann cheerfully. “Able to be up again?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Mrs. Pratt, her good-natured face set primly. She shut the door behind her, and advanced into the room. “I should be glad if you would get up, as I’ve sent Emily back to the cottage, and as soon as I been paid my wages, I should like to go.”

“Go!” echoed Ann, bewildered. “Whatever for? Don’t you feel well enough to———”

“It isn’t any question of my ’ealth,” said Mrs. Pratt