ooked hopelessly at his pipe. He did not recollect where to
put it. Nellie, understanding, took it from his fingers and pushed him
gently by the arm towards his wife. He knelt down by the weeping woman's
side and put his hands on the head that was bent to the ground. "Sue," he
said, huskily, not knowing what to say. "Don't take on so! It's better
for 'im."

"It's not better," she cried in answer, kneeling up and frantically
throwing her arms across the bed. "How can it be better? Oh, God! I wish
I was dead. Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

"Don't, Sue!" begged Mr. Hobbs, weeping in a clumsy way, as men usually do.

"It's not right," cried the mother, rolling her head, half-crazed. "It's
not right, Jack. It's not right. It didn't ought to have died. It didn't
ought to have died, Jack. It wouldn't if it had a chance, but it hadn't a
chance. It didn't have a chance, Jack. It didn't have a chance."

"Don't, Sue!" begged Mr. Hobbs again. "You did what you could."

"I didn't," she moaned. "I didn't. I didn't do what I could. There were
lots of things I might have done that I didn't. I wasn't as kind as I
might have been. I was cross to it and hasty. Oh, my God, my God! Why
couldn't I have died instead? Why couldn't I? Why don't we all die? It's
not right. It's not right. Oh, my God, my God!"

And she thought God, whatever that is, did not hear and would not answer,
she not knowing that in her own pain and anguish were the seeds of
progression and in her cries the whetting of the sickle wherewith all
wrongs are cut down when they are ripe for the reaper. So she wept and
lamented, bewailing her dead, rebellious and self-reproachful.

"Take the baby, dear?" quoth Mrs. Macanany, reappearing from a descent to
the kitchen with a six months' infant squalling in her arms. "Give it a
drink now! It'll make you feel better."

Poor Mrs. Hobbs clutched the baby-in-arms convulsively and sobbed over
it, finding some comfort in the exertion. To Mrs. Macanany's muttered
wrath Nellie intervened, however, with warnings of "fits" as likely to
follow the nursing of the child while its mother was so excited and
feverish. Mr. Hobbs loyally seconded Nellie's amendment and with
unexpected shrewdness urged the mother to control her grief for the dead
for the sake of the living. Which succeeding, to some extent, they got
the poor woman downstairs and comforted her with a cup of tea, Nellie
undressing and soothing the crying children, who sobbed because