d not shape a prayer--could only beg dumbly for help as
he clung to Father Pat's hand, and laid his cheek against it.

It was while he was kneeling that he saw, entering between those
portieres, some one dressed in white--a woman. White she wore, too, upon
the silky white of her hair. The snowy headdress framed a face pale, but
beautiful, with the beauty that comes from service and self-sacrifice
and suffering.

The instant Johnnie glimpsed that face, and looked into the sad, brave
eyes, he knew her!--knew her though she wore no red cross upon her
sleeve. Of course, among all the souls in the great universe, she would
be the one to come now, just when he, Johnnie, needed the sight of her
to make him more staunch!

He remembered how she had stood before the firing-squad, not shrinking
from her fate, not crying out in terror of the cruel bullets. And now
how poised she was, how fearless, in this room where Death was waiting!
Awe-struck, adoring her, and scarcely daring to breathe lest she vanish,
he got slowly to his feet.

"Edith Cavell!" he whispered.

"Edith--Cavell!" echoed Father Pat. "'Twas her dyin'--that
helped--manny----"

"It's time to go," she said softly. "Tell the Father good-by."

Dutifully he turned to take that last farewell. But now that he had the
martyred nurse at his side, he determined to endure the parting
manfully. He knelt again, and tried to smile at the face smiling back at
him from the pillow. He tried to speak, too, but his lips seemed stiff,
for some reason, and his tongue would not obey. But he kept his bright
head up.

He heard a whisper--Father Pat was commending this scout he loved to the
mercy of a higher power. Next, he felt himself lifted gently and guided
backward from the bed. He did not want to go. He wanted to keep on
seeing, seeing that dear face, to hold on longer to that weak hand. "Oh,
don't--don't take me!" he pleaded.

The dying eyes followed, oh, how affectionately, the small, khaki-clad
figure. "God's--own--child!" breathed the priest, and there was tender
pride in the faint tones. "God's--blessed--lad!"

"Father!"

Then the folds of the portieres brushed Johnnie's shoulders, and fell
between his eyes and the wide, white bed.

He had taken his last look.

* * * * *

He was nearly home when he discovered the letter--a thick letter in a
long envelope. It was in his hand, though he could not remember how it
came to be there. But