that happen to you. I have seen it happen to so many people—some of them fine people like yourself, full of energy, imagination, intelligence, ability—all thrown away, frittered away like that,” he flung fat fingers in the air—“because they did not have the guts to use what God had given them—to make a new life for themselves—to stand on their own feet and not to lean upon another’s shoulder!… Don’t die the death!” he rasped coarsely, staring at her with his brutal face. “Don’t die the rotten, lousy, dirty death-in-life—the only death that’s really horrible! For God’s sake, don’t betray life and yourself and the people who love you by dying that kind of death! I’ve seen it happen to so many people—and it was always so damned useless, such a rotten waste! That’s what I was trying to say to you a few minutes ago—it’s not the death of the dying that is terrible, it is the death of the living. And we always die that death for the same reason:—because our father dies, and takes from us his own life, his world, his time—and we haven’t courage enough to make a new life, a new world for ourselves. I wonder if you know how often that thing happens—how often I have seen it happen—the wreck, the ruin, and the tragedy it has caused in life! When the father goes, the whole structure of the family life goes with him—and unless his children have the will, the stuff, the courage to make something of their own, they die too…. With you, it’s going to be very hard when your father dies; he was a man of great vitality and a strong personality who has left a deep impression on everyone who knew him. And for seven years now, your father’s death has been your life…. It has become a part of you, you have brooded over it, lived with it, soaked in it, been tainted by it—and now it is going to be hard for you to escape. But escape you must, and stand on your own feet—or you are lost…. Helen!” he barked sharply, and fixed her with his coarse and brutal stare—“listen to me:—your childhood, Woodson Street, getting your father over drunks, cooking for him, nursing him, feeding him, dressing and undressing him—I know about it all, I saw it all—and now!”—he paused, staring at her, then made a sudden gesture outward, palms downward, of his two thick hands—“over, done for, gone for ever! It’s no good any more, it won’t work any more, it can’t be brought back any more—forget about it!”
“Oh, I can’t! I can’t!” she said desperately. “I can’t give him up—I can’t let him go—he’s all I’ve got. Doctor McGuire,” she said earnestly, “ever since I was a kid of ten and you first came to get Papa over one of his sprees, I’ve fairly worshipped you! I’ve always felt down in my heart that you were one of
