round St. Luke's Hospital quiet reigned. The day was
very still up there on the heights under the blue curtain of the sky.

When he had been hurled against the curb on the dark street, had been
rolled over and tossed there and left there with no outcry, no movement,
as limp and senseless as a mangled weed, the careless crowd which
somewhere in the city every day gathers about such scenes quickly
gathered about him. In this throng was the physician whose car stood
near by; and he, used to sights of suffering but touched by that tragedy
of unconscious child and half-crazed mother, had hurried them in his
own car to St. Luke's--to St. Luke's, which is always open, always
ready, and always free to those who lack means.

Just before they stopped at the entrance she had pleaded in the doctor's
ear for a luxury.

"To the private ward," he said to those who lifted the lad to the
stretcher, speaking as though in response to her entreaty.

"One of the best rooms," he said before the operation, speaking as
though he shouldered the responsibility of the further expense. "And a
room for her near by," he added. "Everything for them! Everything!"

* * * * *

So there he was now, the lad, or what there was left of him, this quiet
Sunday, in a pleasant room opposite the cathedral. The air was like
early summer. The windows were open. He lay on his back, not seeing
anything. The skin of his forehead had been torn off; there was a
bandage over his eyes. And there were bruises on his body and bruises on
his face, which was horribly disfigured. The lips were swollen two or
three thicknesses; it was agony for him to speak. When he realized what
had happened, after the operation, his first mumbled words to her were:

"They will never have me now."

About the middle of the forenoon of this still Sunday morning, when the
doctor left, she followed him into the hall as usual, and questioned him
as usual with her eyes. He encouraged her and encouraged himself:

"I believe he is going to get well. He has the will to get well, he has
the bravery to get well. He is brave about it; he is as brave as he can
be."

"Of course he is brave," she said scornfully. "Of course he is brave."

"The love of such a mother would call him back to life," he added, and
he laid one of his hands on her head for a moment.

"Don't do that," she said, as though the least tenderness toward herself
at such a moment would unnerve h