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--"