she knew that what he saw,
or thought he saw, lay beyond her agnostic vision.

Father Damon was an Englishman, a member of a London Anglican order, who
had taken the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, who had
been for some years in New York, and had finally come to live on the
East Side, where his work was. In a way he had identified himself with
the people; he attended their clubs; he was a Christian socialist; he
spoke on the inequalities of taxation; the strikers were pretty sure of
his sympathy; he argued the injustice of the present ownership of land.
Some said that he had joined a lodge of the Knights of Labor. Perhaps
it was these things, quite as much as his singleness of purpose and his
spiritual fervor, that drew Dr. Leigh to him with a feeling that verged
on devotion. The ladies up-town, at whose tables Father Damon was an
infrequent guest, were as fully in sympathy with this handsome and
aristocratic young priest, and thought it beautiful that he should
devote himself to the poor and the sinful; but they did not see why he
should adopt their views.

It was at the mission that Father Damon had first seen the girl. She had
ventured in not long ago at twilight, with her cough and her pale face,
in a silk gown and flower-garden of a hat, and crept into one of the
confessional boxes, and told him her story.

"Do you think, Father," said the girl, looking up wistfully, "that I
can--can be forgiven?"

Father Damon looked down sadly, pitifully. "Yes, my daughter, if you
repent. It is all with our Father. He never refuses."

He knelt down, with his cross in his hand, and in a low voice repeated
the prayer for the dying. As the sweet, thrilling voice went on in
supplication the girl's eyes closed again, and a sweet smile played
about her mouth; it was the innocent smile of the little girl long ago,
when she might have awakened in the morning and heard the singing of
birds at her window.

When Father Damon arose she seemed to be sleeping. They all stood in
silence for a moment.

"You will remain?" he asked the doctor.

"Yes," she said, with the faintest wan smile on her face. "It is I, you
know, who have care of the body."

At the door he turned and said, quite low, "Peace be to this house!"

VI

Father Damon came dangerously near to being popular. The austerity
of his life and his known self-chastening vigils contributed to this
effect. His severely formal, simple ecclesiastical dress,