"Oh, probably not, but people want to know about it. Don't you remember what I told you? The PRESS is a powerful task master. He asks hard duties of us, but we must obey. We've got to give the people what they want. There's a reporter down from Burlington already, but he couldn't get anything out of them. We've got a clear scoop on it."
Lark glanced fearfully over her shoulder. A huge menacing shadow lowered black behind her. THE PRESS! She shuddered again.
"I can't write it up," she faltered. "Mrs. Daly—she—Oh, I held her in my arms, Mr. Raider, and kissed her, and we cried all morning, and I can't write it up. I—I am the minister's daughter, you know. I can't."
"Nonsense, now, Lark," he said, "be sensible. You needn't give all the sob part. I'll touch it up for you. Just write out what you saw, and what they said, and I'll do the rest. Run along now. Be sensible."
Lark glanced over her shoulder again. The PRESS seemed tremendously big, leering at her, threatening her. Lark gasped, sobbingly.
Then she sat down at Mr. Raider's desk, and drew a pad of paper toward her. For five minutes she sat immovable, body tense, face stern, breathless, rigid. Mr. Raider after one curious, satisfied glance, slipped out and closed the door softly after him. He felt he could trust to the newspaper instinct to get that story out of her.
Finally Lark, despairingly, clutched a pencil and wrote
"Terrible Tragedy of the Early Morning. Daly Family Crushed with Sorrow." Her mind passed rapidly back over the story she had heard, the father's occasional wild bursts of temper, the pitiful efforts of the family to keep his weakness hidden, the insignificant altercation at the breakfast table, the cry of the startled baby, and then the sudden ungovernable fury that lashed him, the two children—! Lark shuddered! She glanced over her shoulder again. The fearful dark shadow was very close, very terrible, ready to envelope her in its smothering depths. She sprang to her feet and rushed out of the office. Mr. Raider was in the doorway. She flung herself upon him, crushing the paper in his hand.
"I can't," she cried, looking in terror over her shoulder as she spoke, "I can't. I don't want to be a newspaper woman. I don't want any literary career. I am a minister's daughter, Mr. Raider, I can't talk about people's troubles. I want to go home."
Mr. Raider looked searchingly into the white face, and noted the frightened eyes. "There now," he said soothingly, "never mind the Daly story. I'll cover it myself. I guess it was too hard an assignment to begin with, and you a friend of the family, and all. Let it go. You stay at home this afternoon. Come back to-morrow and I'll start you again. Maybe I was too hard on you to-day."