hospital. The boy had
arrived, and was seemingly no worse for the journey.

All this Hodder performed mechanically. Not until he was returning--not,
indeed, until he entered the house did the whiff of its degrading, heated
odours bring home to him the tragedy which it held, and he grasped the
banister on the stairs. The thought that shook him now was of the
cumulative misery of the city, of the world, of which this history on
which he had stumbled was but one insignificant incident. But he went on
into Mrs. Breitmann's room, and saw Mr. Bentley still seated where he had
left him. The old gentleman looked up at him.

"Mrs. Breitmann and I are agreed, Mr. Hodder, that Mrs. Garvin ought not
to remain in there. What do you think?"

"By all means, no," said the rector.

The German woman burst into a soliloquy of sympathy that became
incoherent.

"She will not leave him,--nein--she will not come. . . ."

They went, the three of them, to the doorway of the death chamber and
stood gazing at the huddled figure of the woman by the bedside. She had
ceased to cry out: she was as one grown numb under torture; occasionally
a convulsive shudder shook her. But when Mrs. Breitmann touched her,
spoke to her, her grief awoke again in all its violence, and it was more
by force than persuasion that she was finally removed. Mrs. Breitmann
held one arm, Mr. Bentley another, and between them they fairly carried
her out, for she was frail indeed.

As for Hodder, something held him back--some dread that he could not at
once define. And while he groped for it, he stood staring at the man on
the bed, for the hand of love had drawn back the sheet from the face.
The battle was over of this poor weakling against the world; the torments
of haunting fear and hate, of drink and despair had triumphed. The sight
of the little group of toys brought up the image of the home in Alder
Street as the wife had pictured it. Was it possible that this man, who
had gone alone to the bridge in the night, had once been happy, content
with life, grateful for it, possessed of a simple trust in his
fellow-men--in Eldon Parr? Once more, unsummoned, came the memory of that
evening of rain and thunder in the boy's room at the top of the great
horse in Park Street. He had pitied Eldon Parr then. Did he now?

He crossed the room, on tiptoe, as though he feared to wake once more
this poor wretch to his misery and hate, Gently he covered again the face
with the sheet.