“I thought,” she said, hesitatingly, “you didn’t know me.”

“Yes, I know you.  Why haven’t you been at the mission lately?”

“I couldn’t come.  I—­”

“I’m afraid you have fallen into bad ways.”

She did not answer immediately.  She looked away, and, still avoiding his gaze, said, timidly:  “I thought I would tell you, Father Damon, that I’m —­that I’m in trouble.  I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you repented of your sin?” asked he, with a little softening of his tone.  “Did you want to come to me for help?”

“He’s deserted me,” said the girl, looking down, absorbed in her own misery, and not heeding his question.

“Ah, so that is what you are sorry for?” The severe, reproving tone had come back to his voice.

“And they don’t want me in the shop any more.”

The priest hesitated.  Was he always to preach against sin, to strive to extirpate it, and yet always to make it easy for the sinner?  This girl must realize her guilt before he could do her any good.  “Are you sorry for what you have done?”

“Yes, I’m sorry,” she replied.  Wasn’t to be in deep trouble to be sorry?  And then she looked up, and continued with the thought in her mind, “I didn’t know who else to go to.”

“Well, my child, if you are sorry, and want to lead a different life, come to me at the mission and I will try to help you.”

The priest, with a not unkindly good-by, passed on.  The girl stood a moment irresolute, and then went on her way heavily and despondent.  What good would it do her to go to the mission now?

Three days later Dr. Leigh was waiting at the mission chapel to speak with the rector after the vesper service.  He came out pale and weary, and the doctor hesitated to make known her errand when she saw how exhausted he was.

“Did you wish me for anything?” he asked, after the rather forced greeting.

“If you feel able.  There is a girl at the Woman’s Hospital who wants to see you.”

“Who is it?”

“It is the girl you saw on the street the other afternoon; she said she had spoken to you.”

“She promised to come to the mission.”

“She couldn’t.  I met the poor thing the same afternoon.  She looked so aimless and forlorn that, though I did not remember her at first, I thought she might be ill, and spoke to her, and asked her what was the matter.  At first she said nothing except that she was out of work and felt miserable; but the next moment she broke down completely, and said she hadn’t a friend in the world.”

“Poor thing!” said the priest, with a pang of self-reproach.

“There was nothing to do but to take her to the hospital, and there she has been.”

“Is she very ill?”

“She may live, the house surgeon says.  But she was very weak for such a trial.”

Little more was said as they walked along, and when they reached the hospital, Father Damon was shown without delay into the ward where the sick girl lay.  Dr. Leigh turned back from the door, and the nurse took him to the bedside.  She lay quite still in her cot, wan and feeble, with every sign of having encountered a supreme peril.