Yes; everybody had been kind.  Even his little rivals who had fought with him over the sale of papers had given up some of their pennies and had bought flowers for him, and one of them had brought their gift to the main hospital entrance.  Every day a shy group of them had gathered on the street while one came to inquire how he was.  Kindness had rained on her; there was that in the sight of her that unsealed kindness in every heart.

She had been too nearly crazed to think of this.  Her bitterness and anguish broke through the near cordon of sympathy and went out against the whole brutal and careless world that did not care—­to legislatures that did not care, to magistrates that did not care, to juries that did not care, to officials that did not care, to drivers that did not care, to the whole city that did not care about the massacre in the streets.

Through the doors of the cathedral the people streamed out unconcerned.  Beneath her, along the street, young couples passed, flushed with their climb of the park hillside, and flushed with young love, young health.  Sometimes they held each other’s hands; they innocently mocked her agony with their careless joy.

One last figure issued from the side door of the cathedral hurriedly and looked eagerly across at the hospital—­looked straight at her, at the window, and came straight toward the entrance below—­the choir-master.  She had not sent word to him or to any one about the accident; but he, when his new pupil had failed to report as promised, had come down to find out why.  And he, like all the others, had been kind; and he was coming now to inquire what he could do in a case where nothing could be done.  She knew only too well that nothing could be done.

* * * * *

The bright serene hours of the day passed one by one with nature’s carelessness about the human tragedy.  It was afternoon and near the hour for the choral even-song across the way at the cathedral, the temporary windows of which were open.

She had relieved the nurse, and was alone with him.  Often during these days he had put out one of his hands and groped about with it to touch her, turning his head a little toward her under his bandaged eyes, and apparently feeling much mystified about her, but saying nothing.  She kept her bandaged hands out of his reach but leaned over him in response and talked ever to him, barely stroking him with the tips of her stiffened fingers.

The afternoon was so quiet that by and by through the opened windows a deep note sent a thrill into the room—­the awakened soul of the organ.  And as the two listened to it in silence, soon there floated over to them the voices of the choir as the line moved slowly down the aisle, the blended voices of the chosen band, his school-fellows of the altar.  By the bedside she suddenly rocked to and fro, and then she bent over and said with a smile in her tone: