he had as much liberty as a mission preacher to speak in the streets to
those who would stop to listen. He paused now in his walk at the door
of one house more than commonly dingy and tumble-down in appearance,
where a man lounged outside in his shirt-sleeves, smoking.

"Is all well with you, Matsin?" he asked gently.

"All is well!" answered the man called Matsin,--"better than last
night. The child is dead."

"Dead!" echoed Thord,--"And the mother----"

"Asleep!" answered Matsin. "I gave her opium to save her from madness.
She was hungry, too--the opium fed her and made her forget!"

Thord pushed him gently aside, and went into the house. There on the
floor lay the naked body of a dead child, so emaciated as to be almost
a skeleton; and across it, holding it close with one arm, was stretched
a woman, half clothed, her face hidden in her unbound dark hair,
breathing heavily in a drugged sleep. Great tears filled Thord's eyes.

"God exists!" he said,--"And He can bear to look upon a sight like
this! If I were God, I should hate myself for letting such things be!"

"Perhaps He does hate Himself!" said the man Matsin, who had also come
in, and now looked at the scene with sullen apathy--"That may be the
cause of all our troubles! I don't understand the ways of God; or the
ways of man either. I have done no harm. I married the woman--and we
had that one child. I worked hard for both. I could not get sufficient
money to keep us going; I did metal work--very well, so I was told. But