Meanwhile, on the floor below, sitting on the cold bare steps beside the door of the elevator, two white-faced women waited anxiously. All was silent in the high, narrow corridor except for the footsteps of passing nurses, and the occasional sharp cry of pain, or groan of weariness from some suffering patient. “That's him!” cried Myrtella hysterically as one of these cries reached her. “No, no. He is sound asleep by this time. He won't know anything until it is all over.” Then as another cry brought Myrtella to her feet, Miss Lady added, “Please, Myrtella, don't be so frightened. Those cries come from the floor below.” Myrtella shook off her hand impatiently. “How long have they been gone? Why didn't you tell me they was going to keep him hours and hours?” “It's only been twenty minutes. I know how anxious you are, but you must try to be calm. If you aren't they won't let you go in the room when they bring him down.” “Won't let me in the room!” Myrtella's face blazed with anger. “I'd like to see 'em stop me! Who's got a better right? The doctor? The nurse? You? There ain't none of you got the right to him I have. Ain't I his mother?” Miss Lady looked at her with amazement, and shrank instinctively from the desperate, defiant woman. “That's right!” cried Myrtella, almost beside herself. “Snatch your hand off my arm, shrink away from me like I was a leper! Tell everybody, tell the police that I throwed my baby in the ash barrel and abandoned it! It don't make no difference now, nothin' makes no difference but Chick. Oh, my God! How long have they been?” “They will be down very soon now, Myrtella. Don't tear your handkerchief like that. Here, take mine.” But Myrtella's eyes were too full of terror for tears; she sat with her hands locked about her knees swaying to and fro. “I've never told nobody,” she went on wildly; “all these years I've kept it bottled up in my soul 'til it's eat it plumb out. I never done it to Chick! He wasn't Chick then. He was just somethin' that belonged to a devil. Then he growed to be Chick, and all my hate turned to love, and now God's gittin' even, I knowed He would! He wouldn't let him live now, just to spite me!” “Myrtella!” Miss Lady's voice commanded indignantly. “Don't you dare say such things! Who knows but this very minute God's giving Chick back to you? Perhaps He is taking this way of showing you He forgives you. Pray to Him, Myrtella! Ask Him to do what's best for Chick, whatever it may be.” Myrtella's head had sunken on her knees, and her coarse, work-hardened hands were clinging to Miss Lady's slender ones. Suddenly they both started. The elevator descended creakingly and halted beside them. There was a shuffling of feet and the stretcher was wheeled past with a small, white-sheeted form lying motionless upon it.