with tears in his eyes thanked God for his deliverance.

The shock of this dreadful incident prostrated him. He failed more
and more. The doctors, coming several times a day, shook their
heads in despair.

"We can do no more," they said, "the end is now only a question of
time."

For seven days and nights Bilinski sat by his bed, snatching only a
few hours' sleep now and then, for he feared that Stanislaus might
die any moment.

Yet in all this long time they had brought no priest to the dying
boy. Every day he begged them earnestly that he might receive the
Holy Viaticum. But they lied to him. Bilinski said:

"You will soon be well. The doctors will cure you. Don't think of
death or go frightening yourself."

"I am not afraid," said Stanislaus. "But I know I am dying. Do not
let me die without Holy Communion."

But Bilinski still put him off, and tried to tease him jokingly with
charges of cowardice.

The fact was, Bilinski and Paul were afraid of their Lutheran
landlord, the Senator Kimberker. His anti-Catholic prejudice was
intense. They feared he might put them, sick boy and all, out of his
house, if they dared to bring a priest and the Blessed Sacrament