"Yes, and she has been just on the verge of eternity for fifteen years," replied the Doctor, coolly. "That's rather an interesting case, too. I've given it a good deal of study. It's hopeless, of course, but it's a marked case, and full of suggestion to a scientific man."
"Isn't it a pity," responded Jim, "that she isn't a scientific man herself? It might amuse her, you know."
The Doctor laughed, and led him on to the next cell, and here he found the most wretched creature he had ever seen. He greeted her as he had greeted the others, and she looked up to him with surprise, raised herself from the straw, and said:
"You speak like a Christian."
The tears came into Jim's eyes, for he saw in that little sentence, the cruelty of the treatment she had received.
"Well, I ain't no Christian, as I knows on," he responded, "an' I don't think they're very plenty in these parts; but I'm right sorry for ye. You look as if you might be a good sort of a woman."
"I should have been if it hadn't been for the pigeons," said the woman. "They flew over a whole day, in flocks, and flocks, and cursed the world. All the people have got the plague, and they don't know it. My children all died of it, and went to hell. Everybody is going to hell, and nothing can save them. Old Buffum'll go first. Robert Belcher'll go next. Dr. Radcliffe will go next."
"Look here, old woman, ye jest leave me out of that calkerlation," said Jim.
"Will you have the kindness to kill me, sir?" said the woman.
"I really can't, this mornin'," he replied, "for I've got a good ways to tramp to-day; but if I ever want to kill anybody I'll come round, p'r'aps, and 'commodate ye."