Christian had heard Heinzen’s words. What did those glances demand of him? What was their meaning? What did they desire? Were they angry? Was there something in him or about him that affronted or disturbed them? Yet they seemed timid and wondering rather than hostile. That old seal of his silence, his equivocal little smile, hovered about his lips. He looked up as though asking for help, and his eyes met Ruth’s; and in her eyes he saw that radiant understanding, that silvery, spiritual love that animated her wholly and at all times. The mother of the child uttered a cry. “How do you mean--takes your power? Pull yourself together, old man, for God’s sake!” “I can’t say nothing different,” murmured Heinzen. “There’s somebody here that takes my power away.” “And has he got the power?” the Salvationist cried shrilly. “I don’t know,” Heinzen answered, in an oppressed manner. “Maybe, but I don’t know.” Slowly Christian went up to Ruth, who was still holding the child in her arms, and bent over and gazed at the apparently lifeless form. At once the epileptic rigour relaxed, flecks of foam appeared on the child’s lips, and it began to weep softly. The emotion that passed through the room was like a great sigh. But noises from without broke in upon the silence here. Laughter and curses had been heard a while before. Now the sounds came nearer, and Niels Heinrich and Red Hetty appeared in the doorway. He tugged the woman into the room. She reeled drunkenly, waved her arms, and laughed shrilly. Pushed forward by Niels Heinrich, she stretched out her fingers for some support; but the people whom she touched drew back in vexation. Niels Heinrich caught her by the shoulders, and shoved her at Joachim Heinzen. He chuckled as he did so, and the noise he made was like the clucking of a hen. Joachim was scared, and gazed stupidly and angrily at the wild looking creature. She wound her arms about his neck and clung to him and babbled drunkenly. Her black, wide-brimmed hat, with its huge green feather, slipped grotesquely to the back of her head. Joachim tried to shake her off, fixing his half-crazed eyes on Ruth. But as the woman clung the more tenaciously, he struck her a blow full in the breast, so that she fell to the floor with a moan and lay there in an absurd posture.