“It is more than that.  If you knew, sir—­”

“Whatever it is,” he interrupted, a little sternly, “it must not interfere.  I will talk to your husband.”

She was silent, gazing at him now questioningly, yet with the dawning hope of one whose strength is all but gone, and who has found at last a stronger to lean upon.

The rector took the fan from her arrested hand and began to ply it.

“Listen, Mrs. Garvin.  If you had come to the church half an hour later, I should have been leaving the city for a place far distant.”

“You were going away?  You stayed on my account?”

“I much prefer to stay, if I can be of any use, and I think I can.  I am sure I can.  What is the matter with the child?”

“I don’t know, sir—­he just lies there listless and gets thinner and thinner and weaker and weaker.  Sometimes he feels sick, but not often.  The doctor don’t seem to know.”

What doctor have you?”

“His name is Welling.  He’s around the corner.”

“Exactly,” said the rector.  “This is a case for Dr. Jarvis, who is the best child specialist in the city.  He is a friend of mine, and I intend to send for him at once.  And the boy must go to a hospital—­”

“Oh, I couldn’t, sir.”

He had a poignant realization of the agony behind the cry.  She breathed quickly through her parted lips, and from the yearning in her tired eyes —­as she gazed at the poor little form—­he averted his glance.

“Now, Mrs. Garvin, you must be sensible,” he said.  “This is no place for a sick child.  And it is such a nice little hospital, the one I have in mind, and so many children get well and strong there,” he added, cheerfully.

“He wouldn’t hear of it.”  Hodder comprehended that she was referring to her husband.  She added inconsequently:  “If I let him go, and he never came back!  Oh, I couldn’t do it—­I couldn’t.”

He saw that it was the part of wisdom not to press her, to give her time to become accustomed to the idea.  Come back—­to what?  His eye wandered about the room, that bespoke the last shifts of poverty, for he knew that none but the desperate were driven to these Dalton Street houses, once the dwellings of the well-to-do, and all the more pitiful for the contrast.  The heated air reeked with the smell of stale cooking.  There was a gas stove at one side, a linoleum-covered table in the centre, littered with bottles, plates, and pitchers, a bed and chairs which had known better days, new obviously bruised and battered by many enforced movings.  In one corner was huddled a little group of toys.

He was suddenly and guiltily aware that the woman had followed his glance.