When Father Damon parted from Edith he seemed to himself strengthened in his spirit. His momentary outburst had shown him where he stood-the strength of his fearful temptation. To see it was to be able to conquer it. He would humiliate himself; he would scourge himself; he would fast and pray; he would throw himself more unreservedly into the service of his Master. He had been too compromising with sin and sinners, and with his own weakness and sin, the worst of all.

The priest walked swiftly through the wintry streets, welcoming as a sort of penance the biting frost which burned his face and penetrated his garments. He little heeded the passers in the streets, those who hurried or those who loitered, only, if he met or passed a woman or a group of girls, he instinctively drew himself away and walked more rapidly. He strode on uncompromisingly, and his clean-shaved face was set in rigid lines. Those who saw him pass would have said that there went an ascetic bent on judgment. Many who did know him, and who ordinarily would have saluted him, sure of a friendly greeting, were repelled by his stern face and determined air, and made no sign. The father had something on his mind.

As he turned into Rivington Street there approached him from the opposite direction a girl, walking slowly and undecidedly. When he came near her she looked up, with an appealing recognition. In a flash of the quick passing he thought he knew her--a girl who had attended his mission and whom he had not seen for several months-but he made no sign and passed on.

"Father Damon!"

He turned about short at the sound of the weak, pleading voice, but with no relaxation of his severe, introverted mood. "Well?"

It was the girl he remembered. She wore a dress of silk that had once been fine, and over it an ample cloak that had quite lost its freshness, and a hat still gay with cheap flowers. Her face, which had a sweet and almost innocent expression, was drawn and anxious. The eyes were those of a troubled and hunted animal.

"I thought," she said, hesitatingly, "you didn't know me."

"Yes, I know you. Why haven't you been at the mission lately?"

"I couldn't come. I--"

"I'm afraid you have fallen into bad ways."

She did not answer immediately. She looked away, and, still avoiding his gaze, said, timidly: "I thought I would tell you, Father Damon, that I'm--that I'm in trouble. I don't know what to do."

"Have you repented of your sin?" asked he, with a little softening of his tone. "Did you want to come to me for help?"

"He's deserted me," said the girl, looking down, absorbed in her own misery, and not heeding his question.

"Ah, so that is what you are sorry for?" The severe, reproving tone had come back to his voice.

"And they don't want me in the shop any more."

The priest hesitated. Was he always to preach against sin, to strive to extirpate it, and yet always to make it easy for the sinner? This girl must realize her guilt before he could do her any good. "Are you sorry for what you have done?"

"Yes, I'm sorry," she replied. Wasn't to be in deep trouble to be sorry? And then she looked up, and continued with the thought in her mind, "I didn't know who else to go to."

"Well, my child, if you are sorry, and want to lead a different life, come to me at the mission and I will try to help you."

The priest, with a not unkindly good-by, passed on. The girl stood a moment irresolute, and then went on her way heavily and despondent. What good would it do her to go to the mission now?

Three days later Dr. Leigh was waiting at the mission chapel to speak with the rector after the vesper service. He came out pale and weary, and the doctor hesitated to make known her errand when she saw how exhausted he was.

"Did you wish me for anything?" he asked, after the rather forced greeting.

"If you feel able. There is a girl at the Woman's Hospital who wants to see you."

"Who is it?"

"It is the girl you saw on the street the other afternoon; she said she had spoken to you."

"She promised to come to the mission."

"She couldn't. I met the poor thing the same afternoon. She looked so aimless and forlorn that, though I did not remember her at first, I thought she might be ill, and spoke to her, and asked her what was the matter. At first she said nothing except that she was out of work and felt miserable; but the next moment she broke down completely, and said she hadn't a friend in the world."

"Poor thing!" said the priest, with a pang of self-reproach.

"There was nothing to do but to take her to the hospital, and there she has been."

"Is she very ill?"

"She may live, the house surgeon says. But she was very weak for such a trial."

Little more was said as they walked along, and when they reached the hospital, Father Damon was shown without delay into the ward where the sick girl lay. Dr. Leigh turned back from the door, and the nurse took him to the bedside. She lay quite still in her cot, wan and feeble, with every sign of having encountered a supreme peril.

She turned her head on the low pillow as Father Damon spoke, saying he was very glad he could come to her, and hoped she was feeling better.

"I knew you would come," she said, feebly. "The nurse says I'm better. But I wanted to tell you--" And she stopped.

"Yes, I know," he said. "The Lord is very good. He will forgive all your sins now, if you repent and trust Him."

"I hope--" she began. "I'm so weak. If I don't live I want him to know."

"Want whom to know?" asked the father, bending over her.

She signed for him to come closer, and then whispered a name.

"Only if I never see him again, if you see him, you will tell him that I was always true to him. He said such hard words. I was always true."

"I promise," said the father, much moved. "But now, my child, you ought to think of yourself, of your--"

"He is dead. Didn't they tell you? There is nothing any more."

The nurse approached with a warning gesture that the interview was too prolonged.

Father Damon knelt for a moment by the bedside, uttering a hardly articulate prayer. The girl's eyes were closed. When he rose she opened them with a look of gratitude, and with the sign of blessing he turned away.

He intended to hasten from the house. He wanted to be alone. His trouble seemed to him greater than that of the suffering girl. What had he done? What was he in thought better than she? Was this intruding human element always to cross the purpose of his spiritual life?

As he was passing through the wide hallway the door of the reception-room was open, and he saw Dr. Leigh seated at the table, with a piece of work in her hands. She looked up, and stopped him with an unspoken inquiry in her face. It was only civil to pause a moment and tell her about the patient, and as he stepped within the room she rose.

"You should rest a moment, Father Damon. I know what these scenes are."

Yielding weakly, as he knew, he took the offered chair. But he raised his hand in refusal of the glass of wine which she had ready for him on the table, and offered before he could speak.

"But you must," she said, with a smile. "It is the doctor's prescription."

She did not look like a doctor. She had laid aside the dusty walking-dress, the business-jacket, the ugly little hat of felt, the battered reticule. In her simple house costume she was the woman, homelike, sympathetic, gentle, with the everlasting appeal of the strong feminine nature. It was not a temptress who stood before him, but a helpful woman, in whose kind eyes-how beautiful they were in this moment of sympathy--there was trust--and rest--and peace.

"So," she said, when he had taken the much-needed draught; "in the hospital you must obey the rules, one of which is to let no one sink in exhaustion."

She had taken her seat now, and resumed her work. Father Damon was looking at her, seeing the woman, perhaps, as he never had seen her before, a certain charm in her quiet figure and modest self-possession, while the thought of her life, of her labors, as he had seen her now for months and months of entire sacrifice of self, surged through his brain in a whirl of emotion that seemed sweeping him away. But when he spoke it was of the girl, and as if to himself.

"I was sorry to let her go that day. Friendless, I should have known. I did know. I should have felt. You--"

"No," she said, gently, interrupting him; "that was my business. You should not accuse yourself. It was a physician's business."

"Yes, a physician--the great Physician. The Master never let the sin hinder his compassion for the sinner."

To this she could make no reply. Presently she looked up and said: "But I am sure your visit was a great comfort to the poor girl! She was very eager to see you."

"I do not know."

His air was still abstracted. He was hardly thinking of the girl, after all, but of himself, of the woman who sat before him. It seemed to him that he would have given the world to escape--to fly from her, to fly from himself. Some invisible force held him--a strong, new, and yet not new, emotion, a power that seemed to clutch his very life. He could not think clearly about it. In all his discipline, in his consecratio............