nd spectators, Charley and Jo Portugais. His cup
of content was now full. He had felt convinced that if the tailor had
but been within these bounds during the past three days, a work were
begun which should end only at the altar of their parish church. To-day
the play became to him the engine of God for the saving of a man's soul.
Not long before the last great tableau was to appear he went to his own
little tent near the hut where the actors prepared to go upon the stage.
As he entered, some one came quickly forward from the shadow of the
trees and touched him on the arm.

"Rosalie!" he cried in amazement, for she wore the costume of Mary
Magdalene.

"It is I, not Paulette, who will appear," she said, a deep light in her
eyes.

"You, Rosalie?" he asked dumfounded. "You are distrait. Trouble and
sorrow have put this in your mind. You must not do it."

"Yes, I am going there," she said, pointing towards the great stage.
"Paulette has given me these to wear"--she touched the robe--"and I only
ask your blessing now. Oh, believe, believe me, I can speak for those
who are innocent and those who are guilty; for those who pray and those
who cannot pray; for those who confess and those who dare not! I can
speak the words out of my heart with gladness and agony, Monsieur," she
urged, in a voice vibrating with feeling.

A luminous look came into the Cure's face. A thought leapt up in his
heart. Who could tell!--this pure girl, speaking for the whole sinful,
unbelieving, and believing world, might be the one last conquering
argument to the man.

He could not read the agony of spirit which had driven Rosalie to
this--to confess through the words of Mary Magdalene her own woe, to say
it out to all the world, and to receive, as did Paulette Dubois, every
day after the curtain came down, absolution and blessing. She longed for
the old remembered peace.

The Cure could not read the struggle between her love for a man and the
ineradicable habit of her soul; but he raised his hand, made the sacred
gesture over leer, and said: "Go, my child, and God be with you."

He could not see her for tears as she hurried away to where Paulette
Dubois awaited her--the two at peace now. At the hands of the lately
despised and injurious woman Rosalie was made ready to play the part
in the last act, none knowing save the few who appeared in the final
tableau, and they at the last moment only.

The bell began to toll.

A thousand people fell