ancial disturbance. Increased
number of cases for the doctor followed want of sufficient food and the
eating of cheap, unwholesome food. She was often obliged to draw upon
the Margaret Fund, and to invoke the aid of Father Damon when the
responsibility was too great for her. And Father Damon found that his
ministry was daily diverted from the cure of souls to the care of bodies.
Among all those who came to the mission as a place of refuge and rest,
and to whom the priest sought to offer the consolations of religion and
of his personal sympathy, there were few who did not have a tale of
suffering to tell that wrung his heart. Some of them were actually ill,
or had at home a sick husband or a sick daughter. And such cases had to
be reported to Dr. Leigh.

It became necessary, therefore, that these two, who had shunned each
other for months, should meet as often as they had done formerly. This
was very hard for both, for it meant only the renewal of heart-break,
regret, and despair. And yet it had been almost worse when they did not
see each other. They met; they talked of nothing but their work; they
tried to forget themselves in their devotion to humanity. But the human
heart will not be thus disposed of. It was impossible that some show of
personal interest, some tenderness, should not appear. They were walking
towards Fourth Avenue one evening--the priest could not resist the
impulse to accompany her a little way towards her home--after a day of
unusual labor and anxiety.

"You are working too hard," he said, gently; "you look fatigued."

"Oh no," she replied, looking up cheerfully; "I'm a regular machine.
I get run down, and then I wind up. I get tired, and then I get rested.
It isn't the work," she added, after a moment, "if only I could see any
good of it. It seems so hopeless."

"From your point of view, my dear doctor," he answered, but without any
shade of reproof in his tone. "But no good deed is lost. There is
nothing else in the world--nothing for me." The close of the sentence
seemed wholly accidental, and he stopped speaking as if he could not
trust himself to go on.

Ruth Leigh looked up quickly. "But, Father Damon, it is you who ought to
be rebuked for overwork. You are undertaking too much. You ought to go
off for a vacation, and go at once."

The father looked paler and thinner than usual, but his mouth was set in
firm lines, and he said: "It cannot be. My duty is here. And"--he
turned, and looked