"They cannot do my work," he answered. "That is for me. As for consequences--well, the race is worth them. If Death wins or I--who knows?" His rich voice rang with an intonation that was almost reckless. Then his tone changed. "I go a block or two farther," he said. "Good-day." And he passed on, the old lethargy settling upon his face. At some distance he stopped, and, entering a doorway, ascended the stairs to the second landing. A knock at the first door brought a blear-eyed child with straight wisps of hair and a chronic cold in the head. She looked at him with dull recognition. "Is Mrs. Watson worse?" he asked, gently. A voice from the room beyond reached him in the shrill tones of one unreconciled to continual suffering. "Is it the father?" it said. "Show him in. Ain't I been lying here and expecting him all day?" The voice was querulous and sharp. Father Algarcife entered the room and crossed to where the woman lay. The bed was squalid, and the unclean odors of the disease consuming her flesh hung about the quilt and the furniture. The yellow and haggard face upon the pillow was half-obscured by a bandage across the left cheek. As he looked down at her there was neither pity nor repulsion in his glance. It was merely negative in quality. "Has the nurse been here to-day?" he asked, in the same gentle voice. The woman nodded, rolling her bandaged head upon the pillow. "Ain't you going to sit down, now you've come?" she said. He drew a chair to the bedside and sat down, laying his hand on the burning one that played nervously upon the quilt. "Are you in pain?" "Always--night and day." He looked at her for a moment in silence; then he spoke soothingly. "You sent for me," he said. "I came as soon as the services were over." She answered timidly, with a faint deprecation: "I thought I was going. It came all faint-like, and then it went away." A compassion more mental than emotional awoke in his glance. "It was weakness," he answered. "You know this is the tenth time in the last fortnight that you have felt it. When it comes, do you take the medicine?" She stirred pettishly. "I 'ain't no belief in drugs," she returned. "But I don't want to go alone, with nobody round but the child." He held the withered hand in his as he rose. "Don't be afraid," he answered. "I will come if you want me. Has the milk been good? And do you remember to watch the unfolding of that bud on the geranium? It will soon blossom." He descended the stairs and went out into the street. At Madison Avenue he took the car to Fortieth Street. Near the corner, on the west side, there was a large brown-stone house, with curtains showing like gossamer webs against the lighted interiors of the rooms. He mounted the steps, rang the bell, and entered through an archway of palms the carpeted hall. "Say to Miss Vernish that it is Father Algarcife," he said, and passed into the drawing-room.