with her mortal need of them, her need of all mothers, of
everybody--her mortal need of everybody! Why were they not there at his
bedside? Why had they not heard? Why had not all of them heard? Why had
anything else been talked of that day? Why were they not all massed
around the hospital doors, tearful with their sympathies? How could they
hold services in the cathedral--the usual services? Why was it not
crowded to the doors with the clergy of all faiths and the laymen of
every land, lifting one outcry against such destruction? Why did they
not stop building temples to God, to the God of life, to the God who
gave little children, until they had stopped the massacre of children,
His children in the streets!

Yes; everybody had been kind. Even his little rivals who had fought with
him over the sale of papers had given up some of their pennies and had
bought flowers for him, and one of them had brought their gift to the
main hospital entrance. Every day a shy group of them had gathered on
the street while one came to inquire how he was. Kindness had rained on
her; there was that in the sight of her that unsealed kindness in every
heart.

She had been too nearly crazed to think of this. Her bitterness and
anguish broke through the near cordon of sympathy and went out against
the whole brutal and careless world that did not care--to legislatures
that did not care, to magistrates that did not care, to juries that did
not care, to officials that did not care, to drivers that did not care,
to the whole city that did not care about the massacre in the streets.

Through the doors of the cathedral the people streamed out unconcerned.
Beneath her, along the street, young couples passed, flushed with their
climb of the park hillside, and flushed with young love, young health.
Sometimes they held each other's hands; they innocently mocked her agony
with their careless joy.

One last figure issued from the side door of the cathedral hurriedly and
looked eagerly across at the hospital--looked straight at her, at the
window, and came straight toward the entrance below--the choir-master.
She had not sent word to him or to any one about the accident; but he,
when his new pupil had failed to report as promised, had come down to
find out why. And he, like all the others, had been kind; and he was
coming now to inquire what he could do in a case where nothing could be
done. She knew only too well that nothing could be done.

*