"She is not much changed?" asked the Captain, as they moved down the
street arm in arm.
"Eh? You were saying? No, not changed. A beautiful face."
Though middle-aged and lined with trouble it was, as Dr. Beckerleg
said, a beautiful face that slept behind the dusty window above the
court where the sparrows chattered. From a chamber at the back of
the house the two men were met, as they climbed the stairs, by the
sound of an infant's wailing. Dr. Beckerleg went towards this, after
opening for the Captain the door of a room wherein no sound was at
all.
When, half an hour later, Captain Barker came out and closed this
door gently, Dr. Beckerleg, who waited on the landing, forbore to
look a second time at his face. Instead he stared fixedly at the
staircase wall and observed:
"I think it is time we turned our attention upon the child."
"Take me to him by all means."
Margaret's son was reclining, very red and angry, in the arms of
an old woman who attempted vainly to soothe him by tottering up
and down the room as fast as her decrepit legs would carry her.
The serving-girl, who had opened the door on the previous evening,
stood beside the window, her eyes swollen with weeping.
"He is extremely small," said the Captain.
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