s he felt now,
the chances were all against it.

Turning the corner, and walking off into the shadows along the side
of the huge church building, Theron noted, almost at the end of the
edifice, a small door--the entrance to a porch coming out to the
sidewalk--which stood wide open. A thin, pale, vertical line of light
showed that the inner door, too, was ajar.

Through this wee aperture the organ-music, reduced and mellowed by
distance, came to him again with that same curious, intimate, personal
relation which had so moved him at the start, before the doctor closed
the window. It was as if it was being played for him alone.

He paused for a doubting minute or two, with bowed head, listening to
the exquisite harmony which floated out to caress and soothe and enfold
him. There was no spiritual, or at least pious, effect in it now.
He fancied that it must be secular music, or, if not, then something
adapted to marriage ceremonies--rich, vivid, passionate, a celebration
of beauty and the glory of possession, with its ruling note of joy only
heightened by soft, wooing interludes, and here and there the tremor of
a fond, timid little sob.

Theron turned away irresolutely, half frightened at the undreamt-of
impression this music was making upon him. Then, all at once, he wheeled
and stepped boldly into the porch, pushing the inner door open and
hearing it rustle against its leathern frame as it swung to behind him.

He had never been inside a Catholic church before.

CHAPTER IX

Jeremiah Madden was supposed to be probably the richest man in Octavius.
There was no doubt at all about his being its least pretentious citizen.

The huge and ornate modern mansion which he had built, putting to shame
every other house in the place, gave an effect of ostentation to the
Maddens as a family; it seemed only to accentuate the air of humility
which enveloped Jeremiah as with a garment. Everybody knew some version
of the many tales afloat which, in a kindly spirit, illustrated the
incongruity between him and his splendid habitation. Some had it that he
slept in the shed. Others told whimsical stories of his sitting alone in
the kitchen evenings, smoking his old clay pipe, and sorrowing because
the second Mrs. Madden would not suffer the pigs and chickens to come
in and bear him company. But no matter how comic the exaggeration,
these legends were invariably amiable. It lay in no man's mouth to speak
harshly of Jeremiah Madde