he hot summer air and sunshine lay on all like a
charm. There was another cat, he noticed, on a doorstep a few yards
away, and he wondered how any living creature in this heat could
possibly lie like that, face coiled round to the feet, and the tail laid
neatly across the nose. A dreaming cock crooned heart-brokenly somewhere
out of sight, and a little hot breeze scooped up a feather of dust in
the middle of the road and dropped again.

Even the presbytery looked inviting on a day like this. He had walked a
good twenty-five miles to-day, and the suggestion of a dark, cool room
was delicious. It was a little pinched-looking house, of brick, like the
church, squeezed between the church and a large grocery with a
flamboyant inscription over its closed shutters. All the windows were
open, hung inside with cheap lace curtains, and protected with
dust-screens. He pictured the cold food probably laid out within, and
his imagination struck into being a tall glass jug of something like
claret-cup, still half-full. Frank had not dined to-day.

Then he limped boldly across the street, rapped with the cast-iron
knocker, and waited.

Nothing at all happened.

* * * * *

Presently the cat from the notice-board appeared round the corner, eyed
Frank suspiciously, decided that he was not dangerous, came on, walking
delicately, stepped up on to the further end of the brick stair, and
began to arch itself about and rub its back against the warm angle of
the doorpost. Frank rapped again, interrupting the cat for an instant,
and then stooped down to scratch it under the ear. The cat crooned
delightedly. Steps sounded inside the house; the cat stopped writhing,
and as the door opened, darted in noiselessly with tail erect past the
woman who held the door uninvitingly half open.

She had a thin, lined face and quick black eyes.

"What do you want?" she asked sharply, looking up and down Frank's
figure with suspicion. Her eyes dwelt for a moment on the bruise on his
cheek-bone.

"I want to see the priest, please," said Frank.

"You can't see him."

"I am very sorry," said Frank, "but I must see him."

"Coming here begging!" exclaimed the woman bitterly. "I'd be ashamed! Be
off with you!"

Frank's dignity asserted itself a little.

"Don't speak to me in that tone, please. I am a Catholic, and I wish to
see the priest."

The woman snorted; but before she could speak there came the sound of an
ope