cross his forehead.

"Dicky!" she whispered fearfully, "Dicky!"

He opened his eyes and smiled at her; feebly.

The stout woman, who had been looking on with that intensity of
sympathy of which the poor are capable, began waving gently the
palm-leaf fan. She was German.

"He is so good, is Dicky. He smile at me when I fan him--once, twice. He
complains not at all."

The mother took the fan from her, hand.

"Thank you for staying with him, Mrs. Breitmann. I was gone longer than
I expected." The fact that the child still lived, that she was again in
his presence, the absorbing act of caring for him seemed to have calmed
her.

"It is nothing, what I do," answered Mrs. Breitmann, and turned away
reluctantly, the tears running on her cheeks. "When you go again, I come
always, Mrs. Garvin. Ach!"

Her exclamation was caused by the sight of the tall figure and black
coat of the rector, and as she left the room, Mrs. Garvin turned. And he
noticed in her eyes the same expression of dread they had held when she
had protested against his coming.

"Please don't think that I'm not thankful--" she faltered.

"I am not offering you charity," he said. "Can you not take from other
human beings what you have accepted from this woman who has just left?"

"Oh, sir, it isn't that!" she cried, with a look of trust, of appeal
that was new, "I would do anything--I will do anything. But my
husband--he is so bitter against the church, against ministers! If he
came home and found you here--"

"I know--many people feel that way," he assented, "too many. But you
cannot let a prejudice stand in the way of saving the boy's life, Mrs.
Garvin."

"It is more than that. If you knew, sir--"

"Whatever it is," he interrupted, a little sternly, "it must not
interfere. I will talk to your husband."

She was silent, gazing at him now questioningly, yet with the dawning
hope of one whose strength is all but gone, and who has found at last a
stronger to lean upon.

The rector took the fan from her arrested hand and began to ply it.

"Listen, Mrs. Garvin. If you had come to the church half an hour later,
I should have been leaving the city for a place far distant."

"You were going away? You stayed on my account?"

"I much prefer to stay, if I can be of any use, and I think I can. I am
sure I can. What is the matter with the child?"

"I don't know, sir--he just lies there listless and gets thinner and
thinner and weaker and weaker. Somet