aul looked into his face with a keen, searching
glance as he replied:

"Verily, my son, it is because there be no more to come -- no more who
have strength to drag themselves out hither. Tomorrow I go forth to
visit the villages where the sick be dying like beasts in the shambles.
I go to shrive and confess the sick, to administer the last rites to the
dying, to read the prayers of the Church over those who are being
carried to the great common grave. God alone knows whether even now the
living may suffice to bury the dead. But where the need is sorest, there
must His faithful servants be found."

Raymond looked back with a face full of resolute purpose.

"Father, take me with thee," he said.

Father Paul looked earnestly into that fair young face, that was growing
so intensely spiritual in its expression, and asked one question.

"My son, and if it should be going to thy death?"

"I will go with thee, Father Paul, be it for life or for death."

"God bless and protect thee, my son!" said the Father. "I verily believe
that thou art one over whom the Blessed Saints and the Holy Angels keep
watch and ward, and that thou wilt pass unscathed even through this time
of desolation and death."

Raymond had bent his knee to receive the Father's blessing, and when he
rose he saw that Roger was close behind him, likewise kneeling; and
reading the thought in his mind, he said to the Father:

"Wilt thou not give him thy blessing also? for I know that he too will
go with us and face the peril, be it for life or death."

Father Paul laid his hand upon the head of the second lad.

"May God's blessing rest also upon thee, my son," he said. "In days past
thou hast been used as an instrument of evil, and hast been forced to do
the devil's own work. Now God, in His mercy, has given thee work to do
for Him, whereby thou mayest in some sort make atonement for the past,
and show by thy faith and piety that thou art no longer a bondservant
unto sin."

Then turning to both the youths as they stood before him, the Father
added, in a different and less solemn tone:

"And since your purpose is to go forth with me tomorrow, you must now
take some of that rest without which youthful frames cannot long
dispense. Since early dawn you have been travelling and working at tasks
of a nature to which you are little used. Come with me, therefore, and
pass the remaining hours of the night in sleep. I will arouse you for
our office of early mass