The cripple misread the note in her voice as she asked him this. This flat now, it was infinitely cleaner than the abodes of nine-tenths of those among whom he was called to minister. To his man's eyes the furnishings, considering the neighbourhood, appeared almost luxurious. That bed yonder against the wall was very much whiter and looked very much softer than the one upon which he slept. And the woman herself was well clad. He had no patience with these scrimping, stingy foreigners--thank God he was himself native-born--these cheap, penurious aliens who would haggle over pennies when a life was the stake. And there was no patience in his uplifted, rumbling voice as he answered her: "Say, you don't want your sister to be a pauper patient, do you? If you do, just say so and I'll notify the department and they'll put her in a charity institution. She'd last just about a week there. Is that your idea?--if it is, say so!" "No, no, no," she said, "not charity--not for my sister." "I thought as much," he said, a little mollified. "All right then, I'll write a letter to the sanitarium people; they ought to make you a special rate. Oh, it'll cost you twenty-five dollars a week maybe--say, at the outside, thirty dollars a week. And that'll be cheap enough, figuring in the food she'll have to have and the care and the nursing and all. Then, of course, there'll be your railroad tickets on top of that. You'd better have some ready money on hand so we can get her shipped out of here before it's too--Well, before many days anyhow." She nodded. "I shall have the money," she promised. "All right," he said; "then you'd better hand me two dollars now. That's the price of my call. I don't figure on charging you for making the blood test. And the information about the sanitarium and the letter I'm going to write--I'll throw all that in too." She paid him his fee from a small handbag. At the hall door he paused on his stumping way out. "I think she'll be all right for to-night--I gave her something," he said with a jerk of his thumb toward the middle room. "If you just let her stay quiet that'll be the best thing for her. But you'd better run in my place the first thing in the morning and tell me how she passed the night. Good night." "Good night, doctor--and we thank you!"