He walked on past dark open doorways, where some of the miserable inhabitants of the dens within, stood to inhale the fresh wet air of the rainy night. His tall form was familiar to most of them,--if they were considered as wolves of humanity in the sight of the law, they were all faithful dogs to him; doing as he bade, running where he commanded, ready at any moment to assemble at any given point and burn and pillage, or rob and slay. There were no leaders in the political government,--but this one leader of the massed poor could, had he chosen, have burned down the city. But he did not choose. He had a far-sighted, clear brain,--and though he had sworn to destroy abuses wherever he could find them, he moved always with caution; and his plans were guided, not by impulse alone, but by earnest consideration for the future. He was marked out by the police as a dangerous Socialist; and his movements were constantly tracked and dodged, but so far, he had done nothing which could empower his arrest. He was a free subject in a free country; and provided he created no open disturbance he had as much liberty as a mission preacher to speak in the streets to those who would stop to listen. He paused now in his walk at the door of one house more than commonly dingy and tumble-down in appearance, where a man lounged outside in his shirt-sleeves, smoking. “Is all well with you, Matsin?” he asked gently. “All is well!” answered the man called Matsin,--“better than last night. The child is dead.” “Dead!” echoed Thord,--“And the mother----” “Asleep!” answered Matsin. “I gave her opium to save her from madness. She was hungry, too--the opium fed her and made her forget!” Thord pushed him gently aside, and went into the house. There on the floor lay the naked body of a dead child, so emaciated as to be almost a skeleton; and across it, holding it close with one arm, was stretched a woman, half clothed, her face hidden in her unbound dark hair, breathing heavily in a drugged sleep. Great tears filled Thord’s eyes. “God exists!” he said,--“And He can bear to look upon a sight like this! If I were God, I should hate myself for letting such things be!” “Perhaps He does hate Himself!” said the man Matsin, who had also come in, and now looked at the scene with sullen apathy--“That may be the cause of all our troubles! I don’t understand the ways of God; or the ways of man either. I have done no harm. I married the woman--and we had that one child. I worked hard for both. I could not get sufficient money to keep us going; I did metal work--very well, so I was told. But they make it all abroad now by machinery--I cannot compete. They don’t want new designs they say--the old will serve. I do anything now that I can--but it is difficult. You, too,--you starve with us!”