The woman led him up another flight of steps to the open door of the house, through a hallway covered with a ragged carpet, where a dilapidated walnut hat-rack stood, up the stairs, threading a dark passage that led into a low-ceiled, stifling room at the very back. A stout, slatternly person in a wrapper rose as they entered, but the mother cast herself down beside the lounge where the child was. Hodder had a moment of fear that she was indeed too late, so still the boy lay, so pathetically wan was the little face and wasted the form under the cotton nightgown. The mother passed her hand across his forehead. "Dicky!" she whispered fearfully, "Dicky!" He opened his eyes and smiled at her; feebly. The, stout woman, who had been looking on with that intensity of sympathy of which the poor are capable, began waving gently the palm-leaf fan. She was German. "He is so good, is Dicky. He smile at me when I fan him--once, twice. He complains not at all." The mother took the fan from her, hand. "Thank you for staying with him, Mrs. Breitmann. I was gone longer than I expected." The fact that the child still lived, that she was again in his presence, the absorbing act of caring for him seemed to have calmed her. "It is nothing, what I do," answered Mrs. Breitmann, and turned away reluctantly, the tears running on her cheeks. "When you go again, I come always, Mrs. Garvin. Ach!" Her exclamation was caused by the sight of the tall figure and black coat of the rector, and as she left the room, Mrs. Garvin turned. And he noticed in her eyes the same expression of dread they had held when she had protested against his coming. "Please don't think that I'm not thankful--" she faltered. "I am not offering you charity," he said. "Can you not take from other human beings what you have accepted from this woman who has just left?" "Oh, sir, it isn't that!" she cried, with a look of trust, of appeal that was new, "I would do anything--I will do anything. But my husband--he is so bitter against the church, against ministers! If he came home and found you here--" "I know--many people feel that way," he assented, "too many. But you cannot let a prejudice stand in the way of saving the boy's life, Mrs. Garvin." "It is more than that. If you knew, sir--" "Whatever it is," he interrupted, a little sternly, "it must not interfere. I will talk to your husband." She was silent, gazing at him now questioningly, yet with the dawning hope of one whose strength is all but gone, and who has found at last a stronger to lean upon. The rector took the fan from her arrested hand and began to ply it. "Listen, Mrs. Garvin. If you had come to the church half an hour later, I should have been leaving the city for a place far distant." "You were going away? You stayed on my account?" "I much prefer to stay, if I can be of any use, and I think I can. I am sure I can. What is the matter with the child?"