She sat—­now waiting for the end; and the good face, so full of sympathy for the living, had no hope in it.  Just another human being had come to the end of her path—­the end literally.  It was so everyday.  Somebody came to the end, and there was nothing beyond.  Only it was the end, and that was peace.  One o’clock—­half-past one.  The door opened softly.  The old woman rose from the foot of the bed with a start and a low “Herr! gross Gott.”  It was Father Damon.  The girl opened her eyes with a frightened look at first, and then an eager appeal.  Dr. Leigh rose to make room for him at the bedside.  They bowed as he came forward, and their eyes met.  She shook her head.  In her eyes was no expectation, no hope.  In his was the glow of faith.  But the eyes of the girl rested upon his face with a rapt expression.  It was as if an angel had entered the room.

Father Damon was a young man, not yet past thirty, slender, erect.  He had removed as he came in his broad-brimmed soft hat.  The hair was close-cut, but not tonsured.  He wore a brown cassock, falling in straight lines, and confined at the waist with a white cord.  From his neck depended from a gold chain a large gold cross.  His face was smooth-shaven, thin, intellectual, or rather spiritual; the nose long, the mouth straight, the eyes deep gray, sometimes dreamy and puzzling, again glowing with an inner fervor.  A face of long vigils and the schooled calmness of repressed energy.  You would say a fanatic of God, with a dash of self-consciousness.  Dr. Leigh knew him well.  They met often on their diverse errands, and she liked, when she could, to go to vespers in the little mission chapel of St. Anselm, where he ministered.  It was not the confessional that attracted her, that was sure; perhaps not altogether the service, though that was soothing in certain moods; but it was the noble personality of Father Damon.  He was devoted to the people as she was, he understood them; and for the moment their passion of humanity assumed the same aspect, though 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.