“Good night, Mrs. Miller.  I’ll be here in the morning.  Good night.”

“Good night, sir.  God bless you, sir!”

He turned around quickly.  The warm tears in his dark eyes had flowed on his face, which was pale; and his firm lip quivered.

“I hope He will, Mrs. Miller,—­I hope He will.  It should have been said oftener.”

He was on the outer threshold.  Mrs. Flanagan had, somehow, got there before him, with a lamp, and he followed her down through the dancing shadows, with blurred eyes.  On the lower landing he stopped to hear the jar of some noisy wrangle, thick with oaths, from the bar-room.  He listened for a moment, and then turned to the staring stupor of Mrs. Flanagan’s rugged visage.

“Sure, they’re at ut, docther, wud a wull,” she said, smiling.

“Yes.  Mrs. Flanagan, you’ll stay up with Mrs. Miller to-night, won’t you?”

“Dade an’ I wull, sur.”

“That’s right.  Do.  And make her try and sleep, for she must be tired.  Keep up a fire,—­not too warm, you understand.  There’ll be wood and coal coming to-morrow, and she’ll pay you back.”

“A-w, docther, dawn’t noo!”

“Well, well.  And—­look here; have you got anything to eat in the house?  Yes; well, take it up stairs.  Wake up those two boys, and give them something to eat.  Don’t let Mrs. Miller stop you.  Make her eat something.  Tell her I said she must.  And, first of all, get your bonnet, and go to that apothecary’s,—­Flint’s,—­for a bottle of port wine, for Mrs. Miller.  Hold on.  There’s the order.” (He had a leaf out of his pocket-book in a minute, and wrote it down.) “Go with this the first thing.  Ring Flint’s bell, and he’ll wake up.  And here’s something for your own Christmas dinner, to-morrow.”  Out of the roll of bills he drew one of the tens—­Globe Bank—­Boston—­and gave it to Mrs. Flanagan.

“A-w, dawn’t noo, docther.”

“Bother!  It’s for yourself, mind.  Take it.  There.  And now unlock the door.  That’s it.  Good night, Mrs. Flanagan.”

“An’ meh thuh Hawly Vurgin hape bless’n’s on ye, Docther Rinton, wud a-ll thuh compliments uv thuh sehzin, for yur thuh—­”

He lost the end of Mrs. Flanagan’s parting benedictions in the moonlit street.  He did not pause till he was at the door of the oyster-room.  He paused then, to make way for a tipsy company of four, who reeled out,—­the gaslight from the bar-room on the edges of their sodden, distorted faces,—­giving three shouts and a yell, as they slammed the door behind them.

He pushed after a party that was just entering.  They went at once for a drink to the upper end of the room, where a rowdy crew, with cigars in their mouths, and liquor in their hands, stood before the bar, in a knotty wrangle concerning some one who was killed.  Where is the keeper?  O, there he is, mixing hot brandy punch for two!  Here, you, sir, go up quietly, and tell Mr. Rollins Dr. Renton