“It’s cheerfler.”  Glad thrust out her sharp chin uncertainly again.  “There’s no ‘ell fire in it.  An’ there ain’t no blime laid on Godamighty.” (The word as she uttered it seemed to have no connection whatever with her usual colloquial invocation of the Deity.) “When a dray run over little Billy an’ crushed ‘im inter a rag, an’ ’is mother was screamin’ an’ draggin’ ’er ’air down, the curick ’e ses, ’It’s Gawd’s will,’ ‘e ses—­an’ ‘e ain’t no bad sort neither, an’ ’is fice was white an’ wet with sweat—­’Gawd done it,’ ‘e ses.  An’ me, I’d nussed the child an’ I clawed me ’air sime as if I was ‘is mother an’ I screamed out, ’Then damn ‘im!’ An’ the curick ‘e dropped sittin’ down on the curbstone an’ ’id ’is fice in ’is ’ands.”

Dart hid his own face after the manner of the wretched curate.

“No wonder,” he groaned.  His blood turned cold.

“But,” said Glad, “Miss Montaubyn’s lidy she says Godamighty never done it nor never intended it, an’ if we kep’ sayin’ an’ believin’ ’e’s close to us an’ not millyuns o’ miles away, we’d be took care of whilst we was alive an’ not ’ave to wait till we was dead.”

She got up on her feet and threw up her arms with a sudden jerk and involuntary gesture.

“I ’m alive!  I ’m alive!” she cried out, “I’ve got ter be took care of now!  That’s why I like wot she tells about it.  So does the women.  We ain’t no more reason ter be sure of wot the curick says than ter be sure o’ this.  Dunno as I’ve got ter choose either way, but if I ’ad, I’d choose the cheerflest.”

Dart had sat staring at her—­so had Polly—­so had the thief.  Dart rubbed his forehead.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“‘T ain’t understanding!  It’s believin’.  Bless yer, she doesn’t understand.  I say, let’s go an’ talk to ’er a bit.  She don’t mind nothin’, an’ she’ll let us in.  We can leave Polly an’ ’im ’ere.  They can make some more tea an’ drink it.”

It ended in their going out of the room together again and stumbling once more down the stairway’s crookedness.  At the bottom of the first short flight they stopped in the darkness and Glad knocked at a door with a summons manifestly expectant of cheerful welcome.  She used the formula she had used before.

“’S on’y me, Miss Montaubyn,” she cried out. “’S on’y Glad.”

The door opened in wide welcome, and confronting them as she held its handle stood a small old woman with an astonishing face.  It was astonishing because while it was withered and wrinkled with marks of past years which had once stamped their reckless unsavoriness upon its every line, some strange redeeming thing had happened to it and its expression was that of a creature to whom the opening of a door could only mean the entrance—­the tumbling in as it were—­of hopes realized.  Its surface was swept clean of even the vaguest anticipation of anything not to be desired.  Smiling as it did through the black doorway into the unrelieved shadow of the passage, it struck Antony Dart at once that it actually implied this—­and that in this place—­and indeed in any place—­nothing could have been more astonishing.  What could, indeed?