There was a quick step in the hall. "Poddle!" The Dog-faced Man started. There was alarm in the voice--despair, resentment. On the threshold stood the woman--distraught: one hand against the door-post, the other on her heart. "Poddle, he's----" Mr. Poddle, thrown into a paroxysm of fright by the pause, struggled to his elbow, but fell back, gasping. "What's he doin'?" he managed to whisper. "Prayin'!" she answered, hoarsely. Mr. Poddle was utterly nonplussed. The situation was unprecedented: not to be dealt with on the basis of past experience. "'Religion In Haste,'" he sighed, sadly confounded. "'Repent At Leisure.'" "Prayin'!" she repeated, entering on tiptoe. "He's down on his knees--_prayin'_!" She began to pace the floor--wringing her hands: a tragic figure. "It's come, Poddle!" she whimpered, beginning now to bite at her fingernails. "He's changed. He never seen me pray. _I_ never told him how. Oh, he's--different. And he'll change more. I got to face it. He'll soon be like the people that--that--don't understand us. I couldn't stand it to see that stare in his eyes. It'll kill me, Poddle! I knew it would come," she continued, uninterrupted, Mr. Poddle being unable to come to her assistance for lack of breath. "But I didn't think it would be so--awful soon. And I didn't know how much it would hurt. I didn't _think_ about it. I didn't dare. Oh, my baby!" she sobbed. "You'll not love your mother any more--when you find her out. You'll be just like--all them people!" She came to a full stop. "Poddle," she declared, trembling, her voice rising harshly, "I got to do something. I got to do it--_quick_! What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?" Mr. Poddle drew a long breath. "Likewise!" he gasped. She did not understand. "Likewise!" Mr. Poddle repeated. "'Fought the Devil With Fire.' Quick!" He weakly beckoned her to be off. "Don't--let him know--you're different. Go and--pray yourself. Don't--let on you--never done it--before." She gave him a glad glance of comprehension--and disappeared... The boy had risen. "Oh!" she exclaimed, brightly. "You got through, didn't you, dear?" He was now sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling--still reluctant to crawl within. And he was very gravely regarding her, a cloud of anxious wonder in his eyes.