unwilling to return to his fiery home for fear of a scolding, his guns
of evil spiked, his virus innocuous, his mission of spiritual
destruction a failure--for what could a baptized devil's child do but
pray and repent?--all this dawned upon me, and I burst into laughter,
the worthy Monsignor discreetly participating. His bizarre recital
proved to me that, despite his Gallic first name, Monsignor Anatole
O'Bourke hailed from the County Tipperary.




VIII

THE ETERNAL DUEL

What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?

--D.G. ROSSETTI, _Vain Virtues_.


The face set him to a strange wondering; he sat at the coffin and
watched it. His wife's face it was, and above the sorrow of irrevocable
parting floated the thought that she did not look happy as she lay in
her bed of death. Monross had seen but two dead faces before, those of
his father and mother. Both had worn upon the mask which death models an
expression of relief. But this face, the face of his wife, of the woman
with whom he had lived--how many years! He asked himself why he
shuddered when he looked down at it, shuddered and also flushed with
indignation. Had she ever been happy? How many times had she not voiced
her feelings in the unequivocal language of love! Yet she seemed so