"I 'ain't no belief in drugs," she returned. "But I don't want to go alone, with nobody round but the child."
He held the withered hand in his as he rose. "Don't be afraid," he answered. "I will come if you want me. Has the milk been good? And do you remember to watch the unfolding of that bud on the geranium? It will soon blossom."
He descended the stairs and went out into the street. At Madison Avenue he took the car to Fortieth Street. Near the corner, on the west side, there was a large brown-stone house, with curtains showing like gossamer webs against the lighted interiors of the rooms. He mounted the steps, rang the bell, and entered through an archway of palms the carpeted hall.
"Say to Miss Vernish that it is Father Algarcife," he said, and passed into the drawing-room.
A woman, buried amid the pillows of a divan, rose as he entered and came towards him, her trailing skirts rustling over the velvet carpet. She was thin and gray-haired, with a faded beauty of face and a bitter mouth. She walked as if impatient of a slight lameness in her foot.
"So you got my message," she said. "I waited for you all day yesterday. I am ill—ill and chained to this couch. I have not been to church for eight weeks, and I have needed the confessional. See, my nerves are trying me. If you had only come sooner."
She threw herself upon the couch and he seated himself on a chair beside her. The heavily shaded lamplight fell over the richness of the room, over the Turkish rugs scattered upon the floor, over the hangings of old tapestries on the walls, and over the shining bric-à-brac reflected in long mirrors. As he leaned forward it fell upon his features and softened them to sudden beauty.
"I am sorry," he answered, "but I could not come yesterday, and to-day a woman dying of cancer sent for me."
She crushed a pillow beneath her arm, smiling a little bitterly.