d his eyes shut, all the time!

"So I shut my mouth and watched him. And suddenly his lips began to
work, and he was mumbling to himself, and I saw that his hands were
grasping the arms of the wooden chair tight, so tight that as he
prayed, he actually worked himself over the floor, as a child will, you
know. After he'd moved several feet that way, between me and the
fireplace--I was counting the inches, to keep myself quiet--he stopped
suddenly, opened his eyes and loosened his hands.

"'I've got it now, thanks be!' he said, looking straight at me. 'It's
this room, sure enough, doctor!'

"'What do you mean, for heaven's sake?' I said, getting up and coming
to him, interested enough, now, you can believe.

"'_For hell's sake_, would be nearer the mark,' he answered me, gently
enough, but his jaw was set and there was a light in his eye I'd seen
there once or twice. 'This is a bad business. This'll take more than
sitting down, this will.'

"And flat on his knees he plumped, ahead of his chair, and crossed
himself and started praying in Latin. He made no special noise nor
movement, but after a while I saw the sweat stand out on his forehead
and his face was drawn and pale--and grew paler. Every now and then
he'd give a sort of deep sigh and hitch along, almost imperceptibly, on
his knees, from fatigue and nervous tension, and after about ten
minutes he was almost in the fireplace. With anybody else I could
never have stood it, but it was impossible not to respect Father Kelly,
and I can tell you that whatever prayers he prayed, they were no
perfunctory mumblings: they took it out of him! He was like a man
fighting, blindfolded--he breathed like a prize fighter, I tell you!
And just at the edge of the hearth, when I thought I must stop him
(that sort of auto-hypnosis will take a person straight out of an open
six-story window, you know) he stopped himself, opened his eyes with a
jerk, and pointed ahead of him.

"'Mother of God,' he said in a husky whisper, 'but it's there!'

"'There!' said I. 'What's there, Father? There can't be anything in
that fireplace--I've seen a dozen fires in it.'

"He got up from his knees as unconcerned as he'd gotten down on them
and cleared his throat.

"'Not in it, perhaps, doctor,' he said, 'but then, under it. Or over
it, perhaps. But there, somewhere, it is.'

"'You mean the bricks?' I cried, and he nodded his head like a man too
weak to talk.

"'Maybe,' he whispe