"Yes," she answered; then, as she saw the burden the men were carrying, she cried: "My God! What's that? What are they bringing it here for?" The young Southerner managed to withdraw her into the front room of the flat, and he noticed that it was very clean and very tidy. "I am a doctor," he began, soothingly, "and I am sorry to say that there has been an accident--" "An accident?" she repeated. "Oh, my God! And is it Tim?" "You must summon all your courage, Mrs. McEcchran," the doctor returned. "This is a serious matter--a very serious matter." "Is he hurt very bad?" she cried. "Is it dangerous?" "I may as well tell you the truth, Mrs. McEcchran," said the physician. "I cannot say that your husband will ever be able to be out again." By that time the stretcher had been brought into the room, with the body on it entirely covered by a blanket. "You don't mean to tell me that he is going to die?" she shrieked, wringing her hands. "Don't say that, Doctor! don't say that!" The bearers set the stretcher down, and the woman threw herself on her knees beside it. "Tim!" she cried. "Speak to me, Tim!" Getting no response, she got to her feet and turned to the surgeon. "You don't mean he's dead?" And the last word died away in a wail. "I'm afraid there is no hope for him," the doctor replied. "He's dead! Tim's dead! Oh, my God!" she said, and then she dropped into a chair and threw her apron over her head and rocked to and fro, sobbing and mourning. The young Southerner was not yet hardened to such sights, and his heart was sore with sympathy. Yet it seemed to him that the woman's emotion was so violent that it would not last long. While he was getting ready to have the body removed from the stretcher to a bed in one of the other rooms, Mrs. McEcchran unexpectedly pulled the apron from her head. "Can I look at him?" she asked, as she slipped to the side of the body and stealthily lifted a corner of the covering to peek in. Suddenly she pulled it back abruptly. "Why, this ain't Tim!" she cried. "That is not your husband?" asked the doctor, in astonishment. "Are you sure?" "Of course I'm sure!" she answered, laughing hysterically. "Of course I'm sure! As if I didn't know Tim, the father of my children! Why, this ain't even like him!" The doctor did not know what to say. "Allow me to congratulate you, madam," he began. "No doubt Mr. McEcchran is still alive and well; no doubt he will return to you. But if this is not your husband, whose husband is he?" The room had filled with the neighbors, and in the crowd the small boy who had brought them there made his escape. "Can any one tell me who this is?" the surgeon asked. "I knew that weren't Mr. McEcchran as soon as I see him," said another boy. "That's Mr. Carroll." "And where does--did Mr. Carroll live?" the doctor pursued, repenting already of his zeal as he foresaw a repetition of the same painful scene in some other tenement-house.