times he stopped, and bent his head to listen, then lifted his hand
in absolution; and Mark knew he was shriving another poor soul.

Suddenly the same thought seemed to come to both Mark and Saunders.
Quickly passing along the line of pain and death, they both looked for
the same face. It was not there. Yet _she_ had been in the wrecked
coach. The light of a relief train was showing far down the straight
track, as Mark turned to a brakeman.

"Are there any others?"

"Yes; two--across the track."

Mark and Saunders hastened to the other side. Two women were bending
over the forms laid on the ground. One glance was enough. The whole
world seemed to spin around Mark Griffin. Ruth and Madame Neuville
were lying there--both dead.

The strange women who were standing around seemed to understand. They
stepped back. Mark knelt beside the girl's body. He could not see
through his tears--but they helped him. He tried to pray, but found
that he could only weep. It seemed as though there were a flood within
pushing to find exit and bring comfort to him. He could think of her
now in but one setting--a great empty church at the end of springtime,
crowds passing outside, a desolate man behind a closed door, and a
little child, with the face of an angel, sitting alone in a carven pew.
He could hear her answer him in her childish prattle, could feel her
cool little hand slip into his as she asked about the lonely man
within. Then he remembered the kiss. The floods dried up. Mark's
sorrow was beyond the consolation of tears.

Saunders aroused him.

"Be careful, Griffin. The Padre will come. Don't let him see her yet.
He was hurt, you know, and he couldn't stand it."

Slowly Mark arose. He couldn't look at her again. Saunders said
something to the women, and they covered both bodies with blankets from
the wrecked car, just as the priest came up.

"Are there others?" the priest asked.

Saunders looked at Mark as if begging him to be silent.

"No, Father, no others."

"But these--" he pointed to the blanket-covered bodies.

"They are--already dead, Father."

"God rest them. I can do no more."

The priest turned to cross the track, and almost fell. Mark sprang to
support him. The relief train came in and another priest alighted,
with a Protestant clergyman, and the surgeons and nurses.

"It's all right, Father," said Father Murray to his confrere. "I found
them all and gave absolution. I'm afraid