Part 81 (1/2)

For some reason, perhaps, that the circ.u.mstances called up not wholly pleasant a.s.sociations, Mr. Rimmon's face fell a little at the picture drawn. He did not respond with the alacrity Mrs. Lancaster had expected.

”Of course, I will do it, if you wish it--or I could have some of our workers look up the case, and, if the facts warrant it, could apply some of our alms to its relief. I should think, however, the woman is rather a fit subject for a hospital. Why hasn't she been sent to a hospital, I wonder?”

”I don't know. No, that is not exactly what I meant,” declared Mrs.

Lancaster. ”I thought I would go myself and that, as Dr. Templeton is ill, perhaps you would go with me. She seems to be in great distress of mind, and possibly you might be able to comfort her. I have never forgotten what an unspeakable comfort your uncle was when we were in trouble years ago.”

”Oh, of course, I will go with you,” said the divine. ”There is no place, dear lady, where I would not go in such company,” he added, his head as much on one side as his stout neck would allow, and his eyes as languis.h.i.+ng as he dared make them.

Mrs. Lancaster, however, did not appear to notice this. Her face did not change.

”Very well, then: we will go to-morrow. I will come around and pick you up. I will get the address.”

So the following morning Mrs. Lancaster's carriage stopped in front of the comfortable house which adjoined Mr. Rimmon's church, and after a little while that gentleman came down the steps. He was not in a happy frame of mind, for stocks had fallen heavily the day before, and he had just received a note from Ferdy Wickersham. However, as he settled his plump person beside the lady, the Rev. William H. Rimmon was as well-satisfied-looking as any man on earth could be. Who can blame him if he thought how sweet it would be if he could drive thus always!

The carriage presently stopped at the entrance of a narrow street that ran down toward the river. The coachman appeared unwilling to drive down so wretched an alley, and waited for further instructions. After a few words the clergyman and Mrs. Lancaster got out.

”You wait here, James; we will walk.” They made their way down the street, through a mult.i.tude of curious children with one common attribute, dirt, examining the numbers on either side, and commiserating the poor creatures who had to live in such squalor.

Presently Mrs. Lancaster stopped.

”This is the number.”

It was an old house between two other old houses.

Mrs. Lancaster made some inquiries of a slatternly woman who sat sewing just inside the doorway, and the latter said there was such a person as she asked for in a room on the fourth floor. She knew nothing about her except that she was very sick and mostly out of her head. The health-doctor had been to see her, and talked about sending her to a hospital.

The three made their way up the narrow stairs and through the dark pa.s.sages, so dark that matches had to be lighted to show them the way.

Several times Mr. Rimmon protested against Mrs. Lancaster going farther.

Such holes were abominable; some one ought to be prosecuted for it.

Finally the woman stopped at a door.

”She's in here.” She pushed the door open without knocking, and walked in, followed by Mrs. Lancaster and Mr. Rimmon. It was a cupboard hardly more than ten feet square, with a little window that looked out on a dead-wall not more than an arm's-length away.

A bed, a table made of an old box, and another box which served as a stool, const.i.tuted most of the furniture, and in the bed, under a ragged coverlid, lay the form of the sick woman.

”There's a lady and a priest come to see you,” said the guide, not unkindly. She turned to Mrs. Lancaster. ”I don't know as you can make much of her. Sometimes she's right flighty.”

The sick woman turned her head a little and looked at them out of her sunken eyes.

”Thank you. Won't you be seated?” she said, with a politeness and a softness of tone that sounded almost uncanny coming from such a source.

”We heard that you were sick, and have come to see if we could not help you,” said Mrs. Lancaster, in a tone of sympathy, leaning over the bed.

”Yes,” said Mr. Rimmon, in his full, rich voice, which made the little room resound; ”it is our high province to minister to the sick, and through the kindness of this dear lady we may be able to remove you to more commodious quarters--to some one of the charitable inst.i.tutions which n.o.ble people like our friend here have endowed for such persons as yourself?”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”It is he! 'Tis he!” she cried.]

Something about the full-toned voice with its rising inflection caught the invalid's attention, and she turned her eyes on him with a quick glance, and, half raising her head, scanned his face closely.

”Mr. Rimmon, here, may be able to help you in other ways too,” Mrs.