art, was a great gaping wound, fresh, as if a broad,
heavy blade had pierced it.

There was a clatter on the ice as a gun dropped and another clatter as a
similar weapon struck the stone opposite. The two men bent forward,
their hands outstretched. They took a step as if to touch the figure and
there was nothing there! The hands met. They clasped warmly in the cold
against each other.

"My God, what was that?" said the stalker.

"I don't know," answered the other.

"A pierced side!"

"Was it--"

"No. It couldn't be."

"Well, we worship the same God and--"

Ah, they were seen. There were quick words of command from the
trenches, a staccato of rifle-shots, and two bodies lay side by side,
hands still clasped, while the snow reddened and reddened beneath them.

And it was Christmas eve.

IX

The Forgiver of Sins

"I SAY UNTO THEE UNTIL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN"

IX

The Forgiver of Sins

"A Priest, for Christ's sake, a priest," moaned the man.

A white-faced sister of charity upon whom had developed the appalling
task of caring for the long rows of wounded at the dressing station
before they were entrained and sent south to the hospital, hovered over
the stretcher.

"My poor man," she whispered, "there is no priest here."

"I can't die without confession--absolution," was the answer. "A priest,
get me a priest."

Next to and almost touching the cot on which the speaker writhed in his
death agony lay another man apparently in a profound stupor. He wore
the uniform of a private soldier and his eyes were bandaged. His face
had been torn to pieces by shrapnel, fragments of which had blinded him.
At that instant he came out of that stupor. Perhaps the familiar words
recalled him to himself. He moved his hand slightly. The sister saw his
lips tremble. She bent low.

"Who seeks confession, absolution?" he whispered. "I am a priest."

"You are wounded, dying, father."

"How can I die better than shriving a fellow sinner?"

That was true. The heroic woman turned to the man who still kept up his
monotonous appeal.

"The man next to you," she said, "dying like you, is a priest."

"Father," cried the first man with sudden strength. "I must confess
before I die."

"Lift me up," said the priest.

The woman slipped her arm about his shoulders and raised him.

"The sister?" began the other.

"I shall be blind and deaf," said the woman.

"Speak on," whispered the priest.

"I have b