"And your work?
"It's going splendidly. I'll tell you about it this evening, after you give me the news from the farm."
They chatted on for a short while, but he saw she was barely listening.
"Can't you guess what it means," she asked him softly, "to a woman of my age—after she has been so afraid she was too old, that she'd married too late—to know at last—to be sure at last—that she's to have a baby, dad?" He drew back a little, and a lump rose in his throat.
"By George!" he huskily exclaimed. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" And he held her close in his arms for some time, till both of them grew sensible.
Soon after she had gone to her room, he heard Allan coming upstairs. He heard her low sweet cry of welcome, a silence, then their voices. He heard them laughing together and later Deborah humming a song. And still thinking of what she had told him, he felt himself so close to it all. And again the feeling came to him that surely he would live here for years.
Allan came in and they had a talk.
"Deborah says she has told you the news."
"Yes. Everything's all right, I suppose—her condition, I mean," said Roger.