a red-hot iron.

We crossed a great river by a great bridge--a mysterious and mighty
stream; and then the streets closed in on us again. And at last, after
hours and hours, the omnibus swerved into a dark road and
stopped--stopped finally.

'Putney!' cried the conductor, like fate.

I descended. Far off, at the end of the vista of the dark road, I saw a
red lamp. I knew that in large cities a red lamp indicated a doctor: it
was the one useful thing that I did know.

I approached the red lamp, cautiously, on the other side of the street.
Then some power forced me to cross the street and open a wicket. And in
the red glow of the lamp I saw an ivory button which I pushed. I could
plainly hear the result; it made me tremble. I had a narrow escape of
running away. The door was flung wide, and a middle-aged woman appeared
in the bright light of the interior of the house. She had a kind face. It
is astounding, the number of kind faces one meets.

'Is the doctor in?' I asked.

I would have given a year of my life to hear her say 'No.'

'Yes, miss,' she said. 'Will you step in?'

Events seemed to be moving all too rapidly.

I passed into a narrow hall, with an empty hat-rack, and so into the
surgery. From the back of the house came the sound of a piano--scales,
played very slowly. The surgery was empty. I noticed a card with letters
of the alphabet printed on it in different sizes; and then the piano
ceased, and there was the humming of an air in the passage, and a tall
man in a frock-coat, slippered and spectacled, came into the surgery.

'Good-evening, madam,' he said gruffly. 'Won't you sit down?'

'I--I--I want to ask you--'

He put a chair for me, and I dropped into it.

'There!' he said, after a moment. 'You felt as if you might faint,
didn't you?'

I nodded. The tears came into my eyes.

'I thought so,' he said. 'I'll just give you a draught, if you
don't mind.'

He busied himself behind me, and presently I was drinking something out
of a conical-shaped glass.

My heart beat furiously, but I felt strong.

'I want you to tell me, doctor,' I spoke firmly, 'whether I am about to
become a mother.'

'Ah?' he answered interrogatively, and then he hummed a fragment
of an air.

'I have lost my husband,' I was about to add; but suddenly I scorned such
a weakness and shut my lips.

'Since when--' the doctor began.

* * * * *

'No,' I heard him saying. 'You have been qui