dder followed, with a sense of curious faces
staring at them from the thresholds as they passed; they reached the
upper passage, and the room, and paused: the shutters were closed,
the little couch where the child had been was empty. On the bed lay a
form--covered with a sheet, and beside it a woman kneeling, shaken by
sobs, ceaselessly calling a name....

A stout figure, hitherto unperceived, rose from a corner and came
silently toward them--Mrs. Breitmann. She beckoned to them, and they
followed her into a room on the same floor, where she told them what she
knew, heedless of the tears coursing ceaselessly down her cheeks.

It seemed that Mrs. Garvin had had a premonition which she had not
wholly confided to the rector. She had believed her husband never would
come back; and early in the morning, in spite of all that Mrs. Breitmann
could do, had insisted at intervals upon running downstairs and scanning
the street. At half past seven Dr. Jarvis had come and himself carried
down the child and put him in the back of his automobile. The doctor had
had a nurse with him, and had begged the mother to accompany them to
the hospital, saying that he would send her back. But she would not be
persuaded to leave the house. The doctor could not wait, and had finally
gone off with little. Dicky, leaving a powder with Mrs. Breitmann for
the mother. Then she had become uncontrollable.

"Ach, it was terrible!" said the kind woman. "She was crazy, yes--she
was not in her mind. I make a little coffee, but she will not touch it.
All those things about her home she would talk of, and how good he was,
and how she loved him more again than the child.

"Und then the wheels in the street, and she makes a cry and runs to
see--I cannot hold her...."

"It would be well not to disturb her for a while," said Mr. Bentley,
seating himself on one of the dilapidated chairs which formed apart of
the German woman's meagre furniture. "I will remain here if you, Mr.
Hodder, will make the necessary arrangements for the funeral. Have you
any objections, sir?"

"Not at all," replied the rector, and left the house, the occupants of
which had already returned to the daily round of their lives: the rattle
of dishes and the noise of voices were heard in the 'ci devant' parlour,
and on the steps he met the little waif with the pitcher of beer; in
the street the boys who had gathered around the ambulance were playing
baseball. Hodder glanced up, involuntaril