had been
smoothed.

"I believe he is near us," he whispered; he took a prayer-book from
his pocket and knelt, his head resting on the covered form.

Larry knelt also. If only Barty had not told him that abhorrent thing.
He tried to forget it, to pray for the soul of the man who had, as he
believed, always been kind to him, and a good friend. Larry was
undevout, careless, thinking little of spiritual things, so little,
that he had scarcely troubled himself either to question or to accept
what he had been taught, but he was quick to respond to emotion of any
kind; now he listened, with an unaccustomed reverence, to Barty's
voice, brokenly whispering the prayers of his Church. Their unfamiliar
beauty stirred his imagination, their appeal for mercy wakened his
heart, and made him ask himself what was he that he should refuse
mercy! He felt the anger, that had only been roused in him within the
last few minutes, dying, merged in pity and in awe.

"By the multitude of Thy mercies, ever compassionate to human frailty,
deliver him, O Lord!" Barty's husky, shaking voice murmured. "Give
him, O Lord, eternal rest, and let perpetual light shine upon him--"

The door was opened and Evans said:

"The police are here, and are asking for Mr. Mangan."

Barty rose from his knees; without a word, he placed the prayer book
in Larry's hands, and left the room.

Larry had risen also, but instead of following Barty he knelt again by
the Big Doctor's still figure, and began to speak to him in the low
voice that is the mark of recognition of the great mystery of death,
and tells of that singular, sudden reverence that is bestowed on the
body when the spirit has left it; a reverence that seems to imply a
belief in the nearness of the freed spirit, which is unsupported by
the immeasurable remoteness of the expression of the mask that it once
wore.

"Doctor," said Larry, "I don't know if you can hear me, but I'll
chance it. I want to tell you that it's not my fault about Tishy, and
the wedding not coming off. She bolted with Ned Cloherty last night--"
he checked himself, and felt he ought to apologise for talking slang,
and then thought that if it were the Doctor, himself, he wouldn't
mind. "Tishy liked Cloherty best," he hurried on, "and she was
probably quite right, but I want you to know that I would have played
up all right." Then he said, hesitating, that Barty had told him a
thing that he didn't quite understand the rights of. "Yo