fore the lights, repeating her cry: "They
dassen't touch me. I got a date, I tell you!"

Father Cruse, without turning, continued his ministrations with the same
composure he would have maintained at a baptism had its solemnity been
disturbed by the cry of a child. By this time, several women, appalled
by the sacrilege, left their seats and moved toward her, begging, then
commanding, her to stop talking, all fearing to add to the noise yet
not daring to let it continue, until they gently but firmly pushed her
through the door at the end of the church and so on into the street.

Felix had followed every movement of the girl with an intensity that
almost paralyzed his senses. He had looked into her bloodshot eyes,
noted the hard lines drawn around the corners of her mouth, the coarse,
painted lips, dry hair, and sunken cheeks. He had heard her harsh laugh
and caught the glint of her drunken leer. A cold shiver swept through
him. It was as if he had stepped on a flat stone covering a grave which
had tilted beneath his feet, revealing a corpse but a few months buried.
Had he been anywhere else he would have sunk to the floor--not to pray,
but to rest his knees, which seemed giving out under him.

When service was over, he made his way down the aisle, waited until the
last of the worshippers had had their final word with their priest, and,
with a respectful bend of the head in recognition, followed Father Cruse
into the sacristy.

"You remember me?" he said in a hoarse, constrained voice when the
priest turned and faced him.

"Yes, you are Mr. O'Day--Kitty Cleary's friend, and I need not tell you
how glad I am to see you," and he held out a cordial hand.

"I have come as I promised you I would. Can you give me half an hour?"

"With the greatest pleasure. My duties are over just as soon as I put
these vestments away. But I am sorry you came to-night, for you have
witnessed a most distressing sight."

Felix looked at him steadily. "Do such things happen often?" he asked,
his voice breaking.

"Everything happens here, Mr. O'Day," replied the priest gravely;
"incredible things. We once found a baby a month old in the gallery. We
baptized him and he is now one of our choir-boys. But, forgive me," he
added with a smile, "such sights are best forgotten and may not interest
you." He was studying his visitor as a doctor does a patient, trying to
discover the seat of the disease. That Felix was not the same man he
had met th