seemed as if she was not
drawing mortal breath. Her astonishing, expectant eyes closed
themselves, and yet in closing spoke expectancy still.

"Speak, Lord," she said softly, but as if she spoke to Something whose
nearness to her was such that her hand might have touched it. "Speak,
Lord, thy servant 'eareth."

Antony Dart almost felt his hair rise. He quaked as she came near, her
poor clothes brushing against him. He drew back to let her pass first,
and followed her leading.

The court was filled with men, women, and children, who surged about the
doorway, talking, crying, and protesting against each other's crowding.
Dart caught a glimpse of a policeman fighting his way through with a
doctor. A dishevelled woman with a child at her dirty, bare breast had
got in and was talking loudly.

"Just outside the court it was," she proclaimed, "an' I saw it. If
she'd bin 'erself it couldn't 'ave 'appened. 'No time for 'osspitles,'
ses I. She's not twenty breaths to dror; let 'er die in 'er own bed,
pore thing!" And both she and her baby breaking into wails at one and
the same time, other women, some hysteric, some maudlin with gin, joined
them in a terrified outburst.

"Get out, you women," commanded the doctor, who had forced his way
across the threshold. "Send them away, officer," to the policeman.

There were others to turn out of the room itself, which was crowded with
morbid or terrified creatures, all making for confusion. Glad had
seized the child and was forcing her way out into such air as there was
outside.

The bed--a strange and loathly thing--stood by the empty, rusty
fireplace. Drunken Bet lay on it, a bundle of clothing over which the
doctor bent for but a few minutes before he turned away.

Antony Dart, standing near the door, heard Miss Montaubyn speak to him
in a whisper.

"May I go to 'er?" and the doctor nodded.

She limped lightly forward and her small face was white, but expectant
still. What could she expect now--O Lord, what?

An extraordinary thing happened. An abnormal silence fell. The owners
of such faces as on stretched necks caught sight of her seemed in a
flash to communicate with others in the crowd.

"Jinny Montaubyn!" someone whispered. And "Jinny Montaubyn" was passed
along, leaving an awed stirring in its wake. Those whom the pressure
outside had crushed against the wall near the window in a passionate
hurry, breathed on and rubbed the panes that they might lay