he answered cheerfully. "Things are at their worst
just now, but there is always a glimmer of light in the East. Keep your
eyes that way and you will soon see the sun rising to send the shadows
and the black thoughts helter skelter back into the darkness.... May I
see him?"

"I will ask nurse," said Kathleen. "She is the commander-in-chief."

"Oh, you great-hearted women--angels of self-sacrifice," said Denis,
after she had left the room. "You make me feel such a mean and
contemptible worm."

Molly laughed at this outburst.

"Sure you are not so bad--for a man," she said. "The Lord gave you the
physical strength, and us poor women the moral virtues. You can't help
it that you were not made a woman. Just do your best to put up with
yourself."

In a few minutes Kathleen returned.

"Nurse says you may go in to him for five minutes. He is quiet and
sensible now," she said.

Denis entered the sick room very quietly. It was darkened and cool;
about it there was the scent of fresh flowers brought daily from
Jackson's garden. The bed linen was scrupulously white, and the room
itself bare of furniture, but exceedingly tidy. Desmond O'Connor was
lying in a peaceful doze, low in the bed, in the prostration that had
followed a period of wild delirium. As Denis entered he opened his eyes
and smiled.

"Is it you, Dad?" he asked. "I fancied you would come to me. I have been
a disgrace to you!"

Denis did not answer, fearing to break the chain of thought that had
taken his friend back to his childish days.

"A disgrace to you and to the O'Connors," Desmond continued. "Didn't you
tell me that in the dark days the O'Connors clung to the Faith; that
never a one of them ever fell away? Well, I have been the first; just
from pique, dad; pique and pride.... Why don't you speak to me?"

Still did Denis refrain from answering him, and Desmond continued:

"But I begin to see again. It was all darkness for a time ... after
Sylvia had left me hopeless.... Where is Sylvia?"

He turned his head to search the room.

The nurse, hearing the name by which he addressed her, entered the room,
and stood beside his bed.

"Ah, there she is! Don't go away from me, Sylvia."

"Only into the next room," she answered.

"Yes, that will do.... Isn't she splendid, dad?... I intend to come
round, when I am well again, to make my peace with God, and live like an
O'Connor.... Why don't you send for a priest?" he asked, in an irritable
voice.