When Mr. Winter came down the next evening, Philip asked him to come in and wait a few minutes, as he was detained in his study-room by a caller.  The mill-owner sat down and visited with Mrs. Strong a little while.  Finally she was called into the other room and Mr. Winter was left alone.  The door into the sick man’s room was partly open, and he could not help hearing the conversation between the Brother Man and his son.  Something that was said made him curious, and when Philip came down he asked him a question concerning his strange boarder.

“Come in and see him,” said Philip.

He brought Mr. Winter into the little room and introduced him to the patient.  He was able to sit up now.  At mention of Mr. Winter’s name he flushed and trembled.  It then occurred to Philip for the first time that it was the mill-owner that his assailant that night had intended to waylay and rob.  For a second he was very much embarrassed.  Then he recovered himself, and after a few quiet words with Brother Man he and Mr. Winter went out of the room to start on their night visit through the tenements.

CHAPTER XXII.

As they were going out of the house the patient called Philip back.  He went in again and the man said, “Mr. Strong, I wish you would tell Mr. Winter all about it.”

“Would you feel easier?” Philip asked gently.

“Yes.”

“All right; I’ll tell him—­don’t worry.  Brother Man, take good care of him.  I shall not be back until late.”  He kissed his wife and joined Mr. Winter, and together they made the round of the district.

As they were going through the court near by the place where Philip had been attacked, he told the mill-owner the story.  It affected him greatly; but as they went on through the tenements the sights that met him there wiped out the recollection of everything else.

It was all familiar to Philip; but it always looked to him just as terrible.  The heartache for humanity was just as deep in him at sight of suffering and injustice as if it was the first instead of the hundredth time he had ever seen them.  But to the mill-owner the whole thing came like a revelation.  He had not dreamed of such a condition possible.

“How many people are there in our church that know anything about this plague spot from personal knowledge, Mr. Winter?” Philip asked after they had been out about two hours.

“I don’t know.  Very few, I presume.”

“And yet they ought to know about it.  How else shall all this sin and misery be done away?”

“I suppose the law could do something,” replied Mr. Winter, feebly.

“The law!” Philip said the two words and then stopped.  They stumbled over a heap of refuse thrown out into the doorway of a miserable structure.  “Oh, what this place needs is not law and ordinances and statutes so much as live, loving Christian men and women who will give themselves and a large part of their means to cleanse the souls and bodies and houses of this wretched district.  We have reached a crisis in Milton when Christians must give themselves to humanity!  Mr. Winter, I am going to tell Calvary Church so next Sunday.”