Hodder marvelled, and was silent.

“You will come here, often,—­every day if you can.  There are many men and women, friends of mine, whom I should like you to know, who would like to know you.”

“I will, and thank you,” Hodder answered.  Words were inadequate for the occasion . . . .

CHAPTER XII

THE WOMAN OF THE SONG

On leaving Mr. Bentley, Hodder went slowly down Dalton Street, wondering that mere contact with another human being should have given him the resolution to turn his face once again toward the house whither he was bound.  And this man had given him something more.  It might hardly have been called faith; a new courage to fare forth across the Unknown—­that was it; hope, faint but revived.

Presently he stopped on the sidewalk, looked around him, and read a sign in glaring, electric letters, Hotel Albert.  Despite the heat, the place was ablaze with lights.  Men and women were passing, pausing—­going in.  A motor, with a liveried chauffeur whom he remembered having seen before, was standing in front of the Rathskeller.  The nightly carousal was beginning.

Hodder retraced his steps, crossed the street diagonally, came to the dilapidated gate he remembered so well, and looked up through the dusk at the house.  If death had entered it, there was no sign:  death must be a frequent visitor hereabouts.  On the doorsteps he saw figures outlined, slatternly women and men in shirt-sleeves who rose in silence to make way for him, staring at him curiously.  He plunged into the hot darkness of the hall, groped his way up the stairs and through the passage, and hesitated.  A single gas jet burned low in the stagnant air, and after a moment he made out, by its dim light, a woman on her knees beside the couch, mechanically moving the tattered palm-leaf over the motionless little figure.  The child was still alive.  He drew a deep breath, and entered; at the sound of his step Mrs. Garvin suddenly started up.

“Richard!” she cried, and then stood staring at the rector.  “Have you seen my husband, sir?  He went away soon after you left.”

Hodder, taken by surprise, replied that he had not.  Her tone, her gesture of anxiety he found vaguely disquieting.

“The doctor has been here?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered absently.  “I don’t know where he can be—­Richard.  He didn’t even wait to see the doctor.  And he thinks so much of Dicky, sir, he sits here of an evening—­”

Hodder sat down beside her, and taking the palm-leaf from her hand, began himself to fan the child.  Something of her misgiving had communicated itself to him.

“Don’t worry,” he said.  “Remember that you have been through a great deal, and it is natural that you should be overwrought.  Your husband feels strongly.  I don’t blame him.  And the sight of me this afternoon upset him.  He has gone out to walk.”