The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic
page 50 of 402 (12%)
page 50 of 402 (12%)
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Theron had stood face to face with death at many other bedsides; no other final scene had stirred him like this. It must have been the girl's Latin chant, with its clanging reiteration of the great names--BEATUM MICHAELEM ARCHANGELUM, BEATUM JOANNEM BAPTISTAM, SANCTOS APOSTOLOS PETRUM ET PAULUM--invoked with such proud confidence in this squalid little shanty, which so strangely affected him. He came out with the others at last--the candles and the folded hands over the crucifix left behind--and walked as one in a dream. Even by the time that he had gained the outer doorway, and stood blinking at the bright light and filling his lungs with honest air once more, it had begun to seem incredible to him that he had seen and done all this. CHAPTER V While Mr. Ware stood thus on the doorstep, through a minute of formless musing, the priest and the girl came out, and, somewhat to his confusion, made him one of their party. He felt himself flushing under the idea that they would think he had waited for them--was thrusting himself upon them. The notion prompted him to bow frigidly in response to Father Forbes' pleasant "I am glad to meet you, sir," and his outstretched hand. "I dropped in by the--the merest accident," Theron said. "I met them bringing the poor man home, and--and quite without thinking, I obeyed the impulse to follow them in, and didn't realize--" |
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