_ the Good Samaritan!"

She pointed at the building, and he stared. He could not comprehend at
all, but she had switched him off the current of his deadly fear.

"Now you just wait 'ere by the steps," she commanded, "an' 'Dolph'll
wait by you an' see you come to no 'arm. Understand, 'Dolph? I'm goin'
inside for a minute--only a minute, mind; but if anybody touches Arthur
Miles, you _pin_ 'im!"

'Dolph looked up at his mistress, then at the boy. He wagged his tail,
not enthusiastically. He would fain have followed her, but he
understood, and would obey.

Tilda went up the steps, and up the stairs. On the landing, as chance
would have it, she met the Second Nurse coming out from the ward, with a
sheet in one hand and a tray of medicines in the other.

"You extremely naughty child!" began the Second Nurse, but not in the
shrill tone nor with quite the stern disapproval the child had expected.
"When the doctor told you half an hour exactly, and you have been
_hours!_ What _have_ you been doing?"

"Lookin' up the old folks," she answered, and took note first that the
medicine bottles were those that had stood on the sick woman's table,
and next that the Second Nurse, as she came out, transferred the sheet
to her arm and closed the door behind her.

"You must wait here for a moment, now you have come so late. I have had
to give you another bed; and now I've to fetch some hot water, but I'll
be back in a minute."

"Folks don't make beds up with hot water," thought Tilda.

She watched the nurse down the passage, stepped to the door, and turned
the handle softly.

There was no change in the ward except that a tall screen stood by the
sick woman's bed. Tilda crept to the screen on tip-toe, and peered
around it.

Ten seconds--twenty seconds--passed, and then she drew back and stole
out to the landing, closing the door as softly as she had opened it.
In the light of the great staircase window her face was pale and
serious.

She went down the stairs slowly.

"Seems I made a mistake," she said, speaking as carelessly as she could,
but avoiding the boy's eyes. "You wasn' wanted up there, after all."

But he gazed at her, and flung out both arms with a strangling sob.

"You won't take me back! You'll hide me--you won't take me back!"

"Oh, 'ush!" said Tilda. "No, I won't take yer back, an' I'll do my
best, but--oh, 'Dolph!"--she brushed the back of her hand across her
eyes and turned to the dog with the