She turned her head on the low pillow as Father Damon spoke, saying he was very glad he could come to her, and hoped she was feeling better.

“I knew you would come,” she said, feebly.  “The nurse says I’m better.  But I wanted to tell you—­” And she stopped.

“Yes, I know,” he said.  “The Lord is very good.  He will forgive all your sins now, if you repent and trust Him.”

“I hope—­” she began.  “I’m so weak.  If I don’t live I want him to know.”

“Want whom to know?” asked the father, bending over her.

She signed for him to come closer, and then whispered a name.

“Only if I never see him again, if you see him, you will tell him that I was always true to him.  He said such hard words.  I was always true.”

“I promise,” said the father, much moved.  “But now, my child, you ought to think of yourself, of your—­”

“He is dead.  Didn’t they tell you?  There is nothing any more.”

The nurse approached with a warning gesture that the interview was too prolonged.

Father Damon knelt for a moment by the bedside, uttering a hardly articulate prayer.  The girl’s eyes were closed.  When he rose she opened them with a look of gratitude, and with the sign of blessing he turned away.

He intended to hasten from the house.  He wanted to be alone.  His trouble seemed to him greater than that of the suffering girl.  What had he done?  What was he in thought better than she?  Was this intruding human element always to cross the purpose of his spiritual life?

As he was passing through the wide hallway the door of the reception-room was open, and he saw Dr. Leigh seated at the table, with a piece of work in her hands.  She looked up, and stopped him with an unspoken inquiry in her face.  It was only civil to pause a moment and tell her about the patient, and as he stepped within the room she rose.

“You should rest a moment, Father Damon.  I know what these scenes are.”

Yielding weakly, as he knew, he took the offered chair.  But he raised his hand in refusal of the glass of wine which she had ready for him on the table, and offered before he could speak.

“But you must,” she said, with a smile.  “It is the doctor’s prescription.”

She did not look like a doctor.  She had laid aside the dusty walking-dress, the business-jacket, the ugly little hat of felt, the battered reticule.  In her simple house costume she was the woman, homelike, sympathetic, gentle, with the everlasting appeal of the strong feminine nature.  It was not a temptress who stood before him, but a helpful woman, in whose kind eyes-how beautiful they were in this moment of sympathy—­there was trust—­and rest—­and peace.

“So,” she said, when he had taken the much-needed draught; “in the hospital you must obey the rules, one of which is to let no one sink in exhaustion.”

She had taken her seat now, and resumed her work.  Father Damon was looking at her, seeing the woman, perhaps, as he never had seen her before, a certain charm in her quiet figure and modest self-possession, while the thought of her life, of her labors, as he had seen her now for months and months of entire sacrifice of self, surged through his brain in a whirl of emotion that seemed sweeping him away.  But when he spoke it was of the girl, and as if to himself.