“I think I may safely say, no such selfish motive underlies my resolution.  My heart is full of pity, and of dread for some women here, who admit their guilt, yet have sought no pardon from the Maker their sins insult.  Sick souls cry out to me louder than dying bodies; and who dare deny me the privilege of ministering to both?  The parable of the sparrows is no fable to me; and if, while trying to comfort my unhappy associates here, God calls me out of this dark stony vineyard, His will alone overrules all; and I can meet His face in peace.  We say:  ‘Lord what wilt Thou have us to do?’ and when the answer comes, pointing us to perilous and loathsome labors, will He forget if we shut our eyes, and turn away, coveting the sunny fields into which He sent others to toil?  Let me go to my work.”

During almost eighteen months, both men had studied her character as manifested in the trying phases of prison existence, finding no flaw; to-day they looked up reverently at the graceful form in its homespun uniform, at the calm, colorless face, wearing its crown of meekness, with an inalienable, proud air of cold repose.

“To keep you here is about as sacrilegious as it would have been to thrust St. Catherine among the chain-gang in the galleys,” muttered the doctor.

“No doubt duty called her to much worse places; therefore, when she died, the angels buried her on Sinai,” answered the prisoner; before whose wistful eyes drifted the memory of Luini’s picture.

“You have set your heart on this; nothing less will content you?”

“While the necessity continues, nothing less will content me.”

“Remember, you voluntarily take your life in your own hands.”

“I assume the entire responsibility for any risk incurred.”

“Then, I wish you God speed; for the harvest is white, the laborers few.”

“Why, doctor!  I relied on you to help me keep her out of reach.  If anything happens, how shall I pacify Susie?  She made me promise every possible care of her favorite.  Look here, only an hour ago I received a letter and this package marked, ’One for Ned; the other for Miss Beryl.’  Two little red flannel safety bags, cure-alls, to be tied around our necks, close to our noses, as if we could not smell them a half mile off?  Assafoetida, garlic, camphor, ’jimson weed,’ valerian powder—­phew!  What not?  Mixed as a voudoo chowder, and a scent twice as loud!”

“Be thankful your wife is not here to enforce the wearing of the sanitary sachet,” said the doctor, allowing himself a grimace of contemptuous disgust.

“So I am! but being a bachelor, answerable only to yourself, you cannot understand how absence does not exonerate me from the promise made when she started away.  I would sooner face an ’army with banners,’ than that little brown-eyed woman of mine when she takes the lapel of my coat in one hand, raises the forefinger of the other, turns her head sideways like a thrush watching a wriggling worm,