ndifferent reply.

"Are you alone?"

"Dono."

They went down to the floor below, and there found a woman standing at
her door.

"What's the matter with her up there?" asked Mr. Woodstock.

"She's very bad, sir. Her Susan's gone to get a order for the parish
doctor, I b'lieve. I was just a-goin' to look after the children when
you came up. I've only just come 'ome myself, you see."

"What's that horrible stench down below?"

"I didn't notice nothink, sir," said the woman, looking over the
banisters as if the odour might be seen.

"Any one living in the kitchen?"

"There _was_ some one, I b'lieve, sir, but I don't exac'ly know if
they's there yet."

Presently they reached the region below. In absolute darkness they
descended steps which were covered with a sort of slime, and then, by
striking a light, found themselves in front of a closed door. Opening
this, they entered a vile hole where it could scarcely be said to be
daylight, so thickly was the little window patched with filth. Groping
about in the stifling atmosphere, they discovered in one corner a mass
of indescribable matter, from which arose, seemingly, the worst of the
effluvia.

"What is it?" asked Mr. Woodstock, holding a lighted match.

"Rotten fish, it seems to me," said the other, holding his nose.

Abraham turned away; then, as if his eye had suddenly caught something,
strode to another corner. There lay the body of a dead child, all but
naked, upon a piece of sacking.

"We'd better get out of this, sir," said the builder. "We shall be
poisoned. Wonder they haven't the plague here."

"Seems to me they have," returned Mr. Woodstock.

They went out into the street, and hailed the first policeman in sight.
Then, giving up his investigations for that morning, Mr. Woodstock
repaired to the police-station, and after a good deal of trouble,
succeeded in getting the attendance of a medical man, with the result
that the woman they had seen up in the garret was found to be in truth
dying of small-pox. If the contagion spread, as probably it had by this
time begun to, there would be a pleasant state of things in Litany Lane.

In the evening, before going home, Abraham had a bath. He was not a
nervous man, but the possibilities of the risk he had run were not
agreeable to contemplate. Two or three days went by without any
alarming symptoms, but as he learnt that another case of small-pox had
declared itself in the Lane, he postponed his personal