Just then it began to rain again. The sudden plash of the downpour and Phillida's instinctive impulse to get quickly under shelter interrupted the conversation. A minute later Miss Callender was standing in the vestibule with a weeping umbrella in her hand, while she heard Mr. Martin's retreating footsteps, no whit hurried by the fitful gusts of rain, or the late hour, or the illness at home.
She thought of running after him, but of what use would that be, seeing his obstination against treating diseases on the mortal plane? She would have liked to go home with him and beg the mother to send for a doctor; but she could not feel sure that this would serve the purpose, and while she debated the rain came on in driving torrents, and the steady beat of Mr. Martin's steps was lost in the distance and the rush of waters. In vain she told her mother that the child did not seem very ill, in vain she told herself during the night that Tommy had only an ordinary cold. She was restless and wakeful the night long; two or three times she lighted a match and looked at the slow-going clock on the mantelpiece.
In that hour unbelief in the validity of her cures came into her mind with a rush that bore down all barriers before it. Her mind went over to Dr. Beswick's side of the question, and she saw her success in some cases as the mere effect on the nervous system. In the bitterness of something like despair she thought herself a deluded and culpable enthusiast, worthy of ridicule, of contempt, of condemnation. There were no longer any oscillations of her mind toward the old belief; the foundations of sand had been swept away, and there was no space to make a reconstruction. Scarcely could she pray; unbelief tardily admitted threatened to revenge itself for the long siege by sacking the whole city. She was almost ready to plunge into Philip's general skepticism, which had seemed hitherto a horrible abyss. At a quarter to five o'clock she lighted the gas, turning it low so as not to disturb the others. She dressed herself quickly, then she wrote a little note in which she said:
I am uneasy about Mrs. Martin's child, and have gone down there. Back to breakfast. Phillida.
This she pinned to Agatha's stocking, so that it would certainly be seen. Then she threw an old gray shawl over her hat, drawing it about her head, in order to look as much as possible like a tenement-house dweller running an early morning errand, hoping thus to escape the curiosity that a well-dressed lady might encounter if seen on the street at so early an hour. The storm and the clouds had gone, but the air was moist from the recent rain. When she sallied forth no dawn was perceptible, though the street lamps were most of them already out. Just as the sky above Greenpoint began to glow and the reeking streets took on a little gray, Phillida entered the stairway up which she stumbled in black darkness to the Martin apartment.
The Martins were already up, and breakfast was cooking on the stove.
"Is that you, Miss Callender?" said Mrs. Martin. "I didn't expect you at this hour. How did you get here alone?"
"Oh, well enough," said Phillida. "But how is little Tommy?"
"I'm afraid he is worse. I was just trying to persuade Mr. Martin to go for you."
"I came to give up the case," said Phillida, hurriedly, "and to beg you to get a doctor. I have done with faith-cures. I've lost my faith in them entirely, and I'm afraid from what Mr. Martin told me last night that this is diphtheria."