The next afternoon, armed with her flowers and fruit, Nance was setting forth for Calvary Alley, when Mrs. Clarke called to her from an upper window. "If you will wait ten minutes, I will take you down in the machine." "But I want the walk," Nance insisted. "I need the exercise." "Nonsense, you are on your feet nearly all the time. I won't be long." Nance made a wry face at an unoffending sparrow and glanced regretfully at the long white road that wound invitingly in and out of the woods until it dropped sharply to the little station in the valley a mile below. She had been looking forward to that walk all morning. She wanted to get away from the hot-house atmosphere of the Clarke establishment, away from Mac's incessant appeals and his mother's increasing dependence. Aside from amusing her patient and seeing that he obeyed Dr. Adair's orders, her duties for the past few weeks had been too light to be interesting. The luxury that at first had so thrilled her was already beginning to pall. She wanted to be out in the open alone, to feel the sharp wind of reality in her face, while she thought things out. "I am going to the cathedral," said Mrs. Clarke, emerging from the door, followed by a maid carrying coats and rugs. "But I can drop you wherever you say." "I'll go there, too," said Nance as she took her seat in the car. "The old gentleman I'm taking the things to lives just back of there, in the very house Dr. Adair is trying to get for the clinic." "Poor soul!" said Mrs. Clarke idly, as she viewed with approval Nance's small brown hat that so admirably set off the lights in her hair and the warm red tints of her skin. "He's been up against it something fierce for over a year now," Nance went on. "We've helped him all he'd let us since he stopped playing at the theater." "Playing?" Mrs. Clarke repeated the one word that had caught her wandering attention. "Is he an actor?" "No; he is a musician. He used to play in big orchestras in New York and Boston. He plays the fiddle." For the rest of the way into town Mrs. Clarke was strangely preoccupied. She sat very straight, with eyes slightly contracted, and looked absently out of the window. Once or twice she began a sentence without finishing it. At the cathedral steps she laid a detaining hand on Nance's arm. "By the way, what did you say was the name of the old man you are going to see?" "I never said. It's Demry." "Demry--Never mind, I just missed the step. I'm quite all right. I think I will go with you to see this--this--house they are talking about." "But it's in the alley. Mrs. Clarke; it's awfully dirty." "Yes, yes, but I'm coming. Can we go through here?" So impatient was she that she did not wait for Nance to lead the way, but hurried around the bishop's study and down the concrete walk to the gate that opened into the alley.