e whispered, grasping her sister's arm; and Ann Eliza
understood. She had not yet dared to tell Miss Mellins of Evelina's
change of faith; it had seemed even more difficult than borrowing the
money; but now it had to be done. She ran upstairs after the dress-maker
and detained her on the landing.

"Miss Mellins, can you tell me where to send for a priest--a Roman
Catholic priest?"

"A priest, Miss Bunner?"

"Yes. My sister became a Roman Catholic while she was away. They were
kind to her in her sickness--and now she wants a priest." Ann Eliza
faced Miss Mellins with unflinching eyes.

"My aunt Dugan'll know. I'll run right round to her the minute I get my
papers off," the dress-maker promised; and Ann Eliza thanked her.

An hour or two later the priest appeared. Ann Eliza, who was watching,
saw him coming down the steps to the shop-door and went to meet him. His
expression was kind, but she shrank from his peculiar dress, and from
his pale face with its bluish chin and enigmatic smile. Ann Eliza
remained in the shop. Miss Mellins's girl had mixed the buttons again
and she set herself to sort them. The priest stayed a long time with
Evelina. When he again carried his enigmatic smile past the counter, and
Ann Eliza rejoined her sister, Evelina was smiling with something of the
same mystery; but she did not tell her secret.

After that it seemed to Ann Eliza that the shop and the back room no
longer belonged to her. It was as though she were there on sufferance,
indulgently tolerated by the unseen power which hovered over Evelina
even in the absence of its minister. The priest came almost daily; and
at last a day arrived when he was called to administer some rite of
which Ann Eliza but dimly grasped the sacramental meaning. All she knew
was that it meant that Evelina was going, and going, under this alien
guidance, even farther from her than to the dark places of death.

When the priest came, with something covered in his hands, she crept
into the shop, closing the door of the back room to leave him alone with
Evelina.

It was a warm afternoon in May, and the crooked ailanthus-tree rooted in
a fissure of the opposite pavement was a fountain of tender green. Women
in light dresses passed with the languid step of spring; and presently
there came a man with a hand-cart full of pansy and geranium plants who
stopped outside the window, signalling to Ann Eliza to buy.

An hour went by before the door of the back room o