like a shadow beyond the chancel railing, and of a sudden, beginning
wonderfully low and sweet, the great organ began to fill the church with
its melody. The organist, too, thought he was alone. He was a little,
old man, his shoulders thin and drooped, his hair white. But in his soul
there must have been a great love and a great peace. He played something
low and sweet. When he had finished he rose and went away as quietly as
he had come, and for a long time after that my friend sat there--alone.
Something new was born in him, something which I hope will grow and
comfort him in the years to come. When he went out into the city again
the sun was shining. He did not go home. He did not see the woman--his
wife--again. He has never seen her since that night when she stood up in
her dishevelled beauty and _laughed_ at him. Even the divorce
proceedings did not bring them together. I believe that he treated her
fairly. Through his attorneys he turned over to her a half of what he
possessed. Then he went away. That was a year ago. In that year I know
that he has fought desperately to bring himself back into his old health
of mind and body, and I am quite sure that he has failed."

He paused, his story finished. He drew the brim of his hat lower over
his eyes, and then he rose to his feet. His build was slim and
clean-cut. He was perhaps five feet ten inches in height, which was four
inches taller than the Little Missioner. His shoulders were of good
breadth, his waist and hips of an athletic slimness. But his clothes
hung with a certain looseness. His hands were unnaturally thin, and in
his face still hovered the shadows of sickness and of mental suffering.

Father Roland stood beside him now with eyes that shone with a deep
understanding. Under the sputter of the lamp above their heads the two
men clasped hands, and the Little Missioner's grip was like the grip of
iron.