. He began making up his mind.

It was evidently a most disreputable neighborhood. A sickening,
nauseating revulsion crept over him: Zara--the beautiful, refined
Zara--to be willing to meet a lover here! The brute was probably ill,
and that was why she had looked so distressed. He walked up and down
rapidly twice, and then he crossed the road and rang the bell; the taxi
was still at the door. It was opened almost immediately by the little,
dirty maid--very dirty in the early morning like this.

He controlled his voice and asked politely to be taken to the lady who
had just gone in. With a snivel of tears Jenny asked him to follow her,
and, while she was mounting in front of him, she turned and said: "It
ain't no good, doctor, I ken tell yer; my mother was took just like
that, and after she'd once broke the vessel she didn't live a hour." And
by this time they had reached the attic door which, without knocking
Jenny opened a little, and, with another snivel, announced, "The doctor,
missis."

And Tristram entered the room.

CHAPTER XXXIX

And this is what he saw.

The poor, mean room, with its scrupulous neatness slightly disturbed by
the evidences of the boiling of milk and the warming of flannel, and
Zara, kneeling by the low, iron bed where lay the little body of a
child. For Mirko had dwindled, these last weeks of his constant fever,
so that his poor, small frame, undersized for his age at any time,
looked now no more than that of a boy of six years old. He was evidently
dying. Zara held his tiny hand, and the divine love and sorrowful agony
in her face wrung her husband's soul. A towel soaked with blood had
fallen to the floor, and lay there, a ghastly evidence of the "broken
vessel" Jenny had spoken of. Mimo, with his tall, military figure
shaking with dry sobs, stood on the other side, and Zara murmured in a
tender voice of anguish: "My little one! My Mirko!" She was oblivious in
her grief of any other presence--and the dying child opened his eyes and
called faintly, "Maman!"

Then Mimo saw Tristram by the door, and advanced with his finger on his
quivering lips to meet him.

"Ah, sir," he said. "Alas! you have come too late. My child is going to
God!"

And all the manhood in Tristram's heart rose up in pity. Here was a
tragedy too deep for human judgment, too deep for thoughts of vengeance,
and without a word he turned and stole from the room. And as he
stumbled down the dark, narrow stairs he he