It was after that that Graham saw his father, a strange, wild-eyed

Clayton who drove his pick with a sort of mad strength, and at the same

time gave orders in an unfamiliar voice. Graham, himself a disordered

figure, watched him for a moment. He was divided between fear and

resolution. Some place in that debacle there lay his own responsibility.

He was still bewildered, but the fact that Anna's father had done the

thing was ominous.

The urge to confession was stronger than his fears. Somehow, during the

night, he had become a man. But now he only felt, that somehow, during

the night, he had become a murderer.

Clayton looked up, and he moved toward him.

"Yes?"

"I've had some coffee made at a house down the street. Won't you come

and have it?"

Clayton straightened. He was very tired, and the yard was full of

volunteers now, each provided at the gate with a pick or shovel. A look

at the boy's face decided him.

"I'll come," he said, and turned his pick over to a man beside him. He

joined Graham, and for a moment he looked into the boy's eyes. Then he

put a hand on his shoulder, and together they walked out, past the line

of ambulances, into a street where the scattered houses showed not a

single unshattered window, and the pavements were littered with glass.

His father's touch comforted the boy, but it made even harder the thing

he had to do. For he could not go through life with this thing on his

soul. There had been a moment, after he learned of Herman's implication,

when he felt the best thing would be to kill himself, but he had put

that aside. It was too easy. If Herman Klein had done this thing because

of Anna and himself, then he was a murderer. If he had done it because

he was a German, then he--Graham--had no right to die. He would live to

make as many Germans as possible pay for this night's work.

"I've got something to tell you, father," he said, as they paused before

the house where the coffee was ready. Clayton nodded, and together they

went inside. Even this house was partially destroyed. A piece of masonry

had gone through the kitchen, and standing on fallen bricks and plaster,

a cheerful old woman was cooking over a stove which had somehow escaped

destruction.

"It's bad," she said to Graham, as she poured the coffee into cups, "but

it might have been worse, Mr. Spencer. We're all alive. And I guess I'll

understand what my boy's writing home about now. They've sure brought

the war here this night."




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