They had reached the old, poorer section of the city, and the doctor
stopped before a weather-beaten cottage.

"This is where Bob receives," he said, holding out a hand to Ruth; "in all
truth it cannot be called a home."

Ruth had a peculiar, inexplicable feeling of mutual understanding with the
doctor as she went in with him. She hardly realized that she had been an
impressionable witness of some of his dominant moods, and that she herself
had been led on to an unrestrained display of feeling.


Chapter VI

They walked directly into a bare, dark hallway. There was no one stirring,
and Kemp softly opened the door of one of several rooms leading into the
passage. Here a broad band of yellow sunlight fell unrestrained athwart
the waxen-like face of the sleeping boy. The rest of the simple,
poor-looking room was in shadow. The doctor noiselessly closed the door
behind them, and stepped to the bed, which was covered with a heavy
horse-blanket.

The boy on the bed even in sleep could not be accounted good-looking; there
was a heaviness of feature, a plentitude of freckles, a shock of
lack-lustre hair, that made poor Bob Bard anything but a thing of beauty.
And yet, as Ruth looked at him, and saw Kemp's strong white hand placed
gently on the low forehead, a great wave of tender pity took possession of
her. Sleep puts the strongest at the mercy of the watcher; there is a
loneliness about it, a silent, expressive plea for protection, that appeals
unconsciously. Ruth would have liked to raise the rough, lonely head to