I couldn't, sir."

He had a poignant realization of the agony behind the cry. She breathed
quickly through her parted lips, and from the yearning in her tired eyes
--as she gazed at the poor little form--he averted his glance.

"Now, Mrs. Garvin, you must be sensible," he said. "This is no place for
a sick child. And it is such a nice little hospital, the one I have in
mind, and so many children get well and strong there," he added,
cheerfully.

"He wouldn't hear of it." Hodder comprehended that she was referring to
her husband. She added inconsequently: "If I let him go, and he never
came back! Oh, I couldn't do it--I couldn't."

He saw that it was the part of wisdom not to press her, to give her time
to become accustomed to the idea. Come back--to what? His eye wandered
about the room, that bespoke the last shifts of poverty, for he knew that
none but the desperate were driven to these Dalton Street houses, once
the dwellings of the well-to-do, and all the more pitiful for the
contrast. The heated air reeked with the smell of stale cooking.
There was a gas stove at one side, a linoleum-covered table in the
centre, littered with bottles, plates, and pitchers, a bed and chairs
which had known better days, new obviously bruised and battered by many
enforced movings. In one corner was huddled a little group of toys.

He was suddenly and guiltily aware that the woman had followed his
glance.

"We had them in Alder Street," she said. "We might have been there yet,
if we hadn't been foolish. It's a pretty street, sir--perhaps you know
it--you take the Fanshawe Avenue cars to Sherman Heights. The air is
like the country there, and all the houses are new, and Dicky had a yard
to play in, and he used to be so healthy and happy in it. . . We were
rich then,--not what you'd call rich," she added apologetically, "but we
owned a little home with six rooms, and my husband had a good place as
bookkeeper in a grocery house, and every year for ten years we put
something by, and the boy came. We never knew how well off we were,
until it was taken away from us, I guess. And then Richard--he's my
husband--put his savings into a company--he thought it was so safe, and
we were to get eight per cent--and the company failed, and he fell sick
and lost his place, and we had to sell the house, and since he got well
again he's been going around trying for something else. Oh, he's tried
so hard,--every day, and all day long. You wouldn't bel