"She is waiting in the street—I brought her with me."
"I will see her myself: one minute and I am ready."
The Commissioner took up his hat, crossed the room, spoke a few words to the woman who sat weeping on the sofa, told an old man who stood waiting by the door that he would return in a very few minutes and attend to him, then with a light, active step he left the room, followed by the stranger.
They found Mrs. Chester in the carriage, grasping the cushion beneath her head with both hands, and muttering wildly to herself. The last few hours had brought her disease into its most malignant state. She was incapable of a single connected thought.
The Commissioner stepped into the carriage and helped to arrange the cushions.
"She is delirious; it is the fever. Typhus, I should think, in its worst form," he said. "She must have prompt care."
"She must, indeed," replied the stranger. "The noise, the hot sun, all are making her worse."
"And you do not know her name?"
"No; she has muttered over several names, but I could not tell which was hers."
"Nor her home, of course?"