dilapidated gate he remembered so well, and looked up through the dusk at
the house. If death had entered it, there was no sign: death must be a
frequent visitor hereabouts. On the doorsteps he saw figures outlined,
slatternly women and men in shirt-sleeves who rose in silence to make way
for him, staring at him curiously. He plunged into the hot darkness of
the hall, groped his way up the stairs and through the passage, and
hesitated. A single gas jet burned low in the stagnant air, and after a
moment he made out, by its dim light, a woman on her knees beside the
couch, mechanically moving the tattered palm-leaf over the motionless
little figure. The child was still alive. He drew a deep breath, and
entered; at the sound of his step Mrs. Garvin suddenly started up.

"Richard!" she cried, and then stood staring at the rector. "Have you
seen my husband, sir? He went away soon after you left."

Hodder, taken by surprise, replied that he had not. Her tone, her
gesture of anxiety he found vaguely disquieting.

"The doctor has been here?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered absently. "I don't know where he can be--Richard.
He didn't even wait to see the doctor. And he thinks so much of Dicky,
sir, he sits here of an evening--"

Hodder sat down beside her, and taking the palm-leaf from her hand, began
himself to fan the child. Something of her misgiving had communicated
itself to him.

"Don't worry," he said. "Remember that you have been through a great
deal, and it is natural that you should be overwrought. Your husband