he Healer, stood for an
instant like one with all his senses arrested. Then he gasped and
exclaimed, "Well, I'm eternally--!" and broke off with a low laugh, which
was at first mirthful, and then became ominous and hard.

"Oh, magnificent!--magnificent!--jerickety!" he said into the sky above
him.

His friends who were not "saved" closed in on him to find the meaning of
his words, but he pulled himself together, looked blankly at them, and
asked them questions. They told him so much more than he cared to hear
that his face flushed a deep red--the bronze of it most like the color of
Laura Sloly's hair; then he turned pale. Men saw that he was roused beyond
any feeling in themselves.

"'Sh!" he said. "Let's see what he can do." With the many who were
silently praying, as they had been bidden to do, the invincible ones
leaned forward, watching the little room where healing--or tragedy--was
afoot. As in a picture, framed by the window, they saw the kneeling
figures, the Healer standing with outstretched arms. They heard his voice,
sonorous and appealing, then commanding--and yet Mary Jewell did not rise
from her bed and walk. Again, and yet again, the voice rang out, and still
the woman lay motionless. Then he laid his hands upon her, and again he
commanded her to rise.

There was a faint movement, a desperate struggle to obey, but Nature and
Time and Disease had their way.

Yet again there was the call. An agony stirred the bed. Then another great
Healer came between and mercifully dealt the sufferer a blow--Death has a
gentle hand sometimes. Mary Jewell was bedridden still--and forever.

Like a wind from the mountains the chill knowledge of death wailed through
the window and over the heads of the crowd. All the figures were upright
now in the little room. Then those outside saw Laura Sloly lean over and
close the sightless eyes. This done, she came to the door and opened it,
and motioned for the Healer to leave. He hesitated, hearing the harsh
murmur from the outskirts of the crowd. Once again she motioned, and he
came. With a face deadly pale she surveyed the people before her silently
for a moment, her eyes all huge and staring. Presently she turned to
Ingles and spoke to him quickly in a low voice; then, descending the
steps, passed out through the lane made for her by the crowd, he following
with shaking limbs and bowed head.

Warning words had passed among the few invincible ones who waited where
the Healer