it of life
engendered by the vow, was an insuperable barrier. And besides, and this
was the touchstone of her conception of life and duty, she felt that if
he were to break his vow, though she might love him, her respect for him
would be impaired.

It was a singular phenomenon--very much remarked at the time--that the
women who did not in the least share Father Damon's spiritual faith, and
would have called themselves in contradistinction materialists, were
those who admired him most, were in a way his followers, loved to attend
his services, were inspired by his personality, and drawn to him in a
loving loyalty. The attraction to these very women was his
unworldliness, his separateness, his devotion to an ideal which in their
reason seemed a delusion. And no women would have been more sensitive
than they to his fall from his spiritual pinnacle.

It was easy with a little contrivance to avoid meeting him. She did not
go to the chapel or in its neighborhood when he was likely to be going to
or from service. She let others send for him when in her calls his
ministration was required, and she was careful not to linger where he was
likely to come. A little change in the time of her rounds was made
without neglecting her work, for that she would not do, and she trusted
that if accident threw him in her way, circumstances would make it
natural and not embarrassing. And yet his image was never long absent
from her thoughts; she wondered if he were dejected, if he were ill, if
he were lonely, and mostly there was for him a great pity in her heart, a
pity born, alas! of her own sense of loneliness.

How much she was repressing her own emotions she knew one evening when
she returned from her visits and found a letter in his handwriting. The
sight of it was a momentary rapture, and then the expectation of what it
might contain gave her a feeling of faintness. The letter was long. Its
coming needs a word of explanation.

Father Damon had begun to use the Margaret Fund. He found that its
judicious use was more perplexing than he had supposed. He needed
advice, the advice of those who had more knowledge than he had of the
merits of relief cases. And then there might be many sufferers whom he
in his limited field neglected. It occurred to him that Dr. Leigh would
be a most helpful co-almoner. No sooner did this idea come to him than
he was spurred to put it into effect. This common labor would be a sort
of bond between them, a bon