Every day she went among them. Certain of the women--chiefly those who had suffered most with least fault--were as warmly her friends as before. Amongst them was just one who had some experience of the Christian life, and she had begun to learn long before Hester came to know her: she did not seem, however, to have gained any influence even with those who lived in the same house; only who can trace the slow working of leaven? CHAPTER XXVII. RENCONTRES. There was no news of Cornelius. In vain the detective to whom the major had made liberal promises continued his inquiries. There was a rumour of a young woman in whose company he had lately been seen, but she too had disappeared from public sight. Sarah did her best to make Hester comfortable, and behaved the better that she was humbled by the consciousness of having made a bad job of her caretaking with Cornelius. One afternoon--it had rained, but the sun was now shining, and Hester's heart felt lighter as she took deep breaths of the clean-washed air--she turned into a passage to visit the wife of a book-binder who had been long laid up with rheumatism so severe as to render him quite unable to work. They had therefore been on the borders of want, and for Hester it was one of those happy cases in which she felt at full liberty to help with money. The part of the house occupied by them was pretty decent, but the rest of it was in bad repair and occupied by yet poorer people, of none of whom she knew much. It was in fact a little way beyond what she had come to count her limit. She knocked at the door. It was opened by the parish doctor. "You cannot come in, Miss Raymount," he said. "We have a very bad case of small-pox here. You good ladies must make up your minds to keep away from these parts for a while. Their bodies are in more danger than their souls now." "That may very well be," replied Hester. "My foot may be in more danger than my head, but I can better afford to lose the one than the other." The doctor did not see the point, and thought there was none. "You will only carry the infection," he said. "I will take every precaution," answered Hester. "I always take more, I am certain, than it can be possible for you to take. Why should not I also do my part to help them through?" "While the parish is in my care," answered the doctor, "I must object to whatever increases the risk of infection. It is hard while we are doing all we can to stamp out the disease, to have you, with the best of motives I admit, carrying it from one house to another. How are we to keep it out of the West End, if you ladies carry the seeds of it?" The hard-worked man spoke with some heat. "So the poor brothers are to be left for fear of hurting the rich ones?" "That's not fair--you know it is not!" said the doctor. "We are set here to fight the disease, and fight it we must." "And I am set here to fight something worse," returned Hester with a smile. The doctor came out and shut the door.