d more
sonorous; and while it still dominated the murmured undertone of the
other's prayers, the last moment came.

Theron had stood face to face with death at many other bedsides; no
other final scene had stirred him like this. It must have been
the girl's Latin chant, with its clanging reiteration of the great
names--BEATUM MICHAELEM ARCHANGELUM, BEATUM JOANNEM BAPTISTAM, SANCTOS
APOSTOLOS PETRUM ET PAULUM--invoked with such proud confidence in this
squalid little shanty, which so strangely affected him.

He came out with the others at last--the candles and the folded hands
over the crucifix left behind--and walked as one in a dream. Even by
the time that he had gained the outer doorway, and stood blinking at
the bright light and filling his lungs with honest air once more, it had
begun to seem incredible to him that he had seen and done all this.

CHAPTER V

While Mr. Ware stood thus on the doorstep, through a minute of
formless musing, the priest and the girl came out, and, somewhat to his
confusion, made him one of their party. He felt himself flushing under
the idea that they would think he had waited for them--was thrusting
himself upon them. The notion prompted him to bow frigidly in response
to Father Forbes' pleasant "I am glad to meet you, sir," and his
outstretched hand.

"I dropped in by the--the merest accident," Theron said. "I met them
bringing the poor man home, and--and quite without thinking, I obeyed
the impulse to follow them in, and didn't realize--"

He stopped short, annoyed by the reflection that this was his second
apology. The girl smiled placidly at him, the while she put up her
parasol.

"It did me good to see you there," she said, quite as if she had known
him all her life. "And so it did the rest of us."

Father Forbes permitted himself a soft little chuckle, approving rather
than mirthful, and patted her on the shoulder with the air of being
fifty years her senior instead of fifteen. To the minister's relief, he
changed the subject as the three started together toward the road.

"Then, again, no doctor was sent for!" he exclaimed, as if resuming a
familiar subject with the girl. Then he turned to Theron. "I dare-say
you have no such trouble; but with our poorer people it is very
vexing. They will not call in a physician, but hurry off first for the
clergyman. I don't know that it is altogether to avoid doctor's bills,
but it amounts to that in effect. Of course in this ca