Waiting, Leon checked over accounts in one of the record books on the desk. All his figures were in, but such had been the pressures of the autumn season, it would take a time to bring accounting matters up to date. While she waited, Sarah stood at a window, from which she presently saw Roman and Floyd walking with Rachel between them. Rachel and Floyd had quickly become friends and, Sarah was glad to observe, so had Floyd and Roman. She had been aware all the summer of Roman’s troubled spirits, but she had not known how to help him, and she had, besides, been so very busy with other affairs, she put off thinking about him seriously from one day to the next.

Now Roman seemed to be himself again, sure and lively and content. He had needed more than attention from her, she realized; he had needed friending by a man he could like and admire, and from whom he could learn how to be such a man. In all but physical fact, he’d had no father.

At the appointed hour of four, there was a knock on the door. They turned from their separate preoccupations to look at each other, a look that only asked, “Are you there?” Reassured, they faced the door, and Leon requested the knocker to “Come in!”

Sarah had sat down at a little distance from Leon, so that when Roscoe entered, he did not at first see her. He came in briskly, closing the door with a firmness that made its own small comment. It was only when Leon said, “What is it you wish to tell us, or ask us?” that Roscoe turned his head and saw her. The assurance of his step diminished a little as he went to a point in the room almost equidistant between them, favoring Leon just enough to indicate that it was intended. Sarah smiled so faintly only she knew she smiled.

“Yes!” Roscoe said. After one of his calculated pauses he began, “Mr. Kendrick. Mrs. Kendrick. As our work at Beulah Land has more or less ended—or slowed down, let us say, for this year—I have found my mind turning to certain problems and possibilities of my own affairs—without, however, neglecting in any way my larger responsibilities here.”

He paused.