d and bowed
their heads as he passed.

"Come with me," whispered the tall girl with the parasol, to Theron;
and he found himself pushing along in her wake until they intercepted
the priest just outside the bedroom door. She touched Father Forbes on
the arm.

"Just to tell you that I am here," she said. The priest nodded with a
grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute or two the
workmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out, and the door was shut
behind them.

"He is making his confession," explained the young lady. "Stay here
for a minute."

She moved over to where the woman of the house stood, glum-faced and
tearless, and whispered something to her. A confused movement among
the crowd followed, and out of it presently resulted a small table,
covered with a white cloth, and bearing on it two unlighted candles, a
basin of water, and a spoon, which was brought forward and placed in
readiness before the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared
space were kneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the
click of beads on their rosaries.

The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the doorway
with an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a purple band over
his shoulders, and on his pale face there shone a tranquil and tender
light.

One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted the two
candles, and bore the table with its contents into the bedroom. The
young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he dumbly followed her into
the chamber of death, making one of the group of a dozen, headed by
Mrs. MacEvoy and her children, which filled the little room, and
overflowed now outward to the street door. He found himself bowing
with the others to receive the sprinkled holy water from the priest's
white fingers; kneeling with the others for the prayers; following in
impressed silence with the others the strange ceremonial by which the
priest traced crosses of holy oil with his thumb upon the eyes, ears,
nostrils, lips, hands, and feet of the dying man, wiping off the oil
with a piece of cotton-batting each time after he had repeated the
invocation to forgiveness for that particular sense. But most of all
he was moved by the rich, novel sound of the Latin as the priest
rolled it forth in the 'Asperges me, Domine,' and 'Misereatur vestri
omnipotens Deus,' with its soft Continental vowels and liquid _r_'s.
It seemed to him that he had never really heard Latin before. Then