nd women walked with quiet feet and spoke to one
another in whispers, saving in the darkened room where Desmond O'Connor
chattered unceasingly, and now shouted or laughed in the wildness of
delirium. A nurse was installed in his room, a quiet and gentle little
lady, never hurried yet never slow; always patient, with a coaxing
manner and a soft voice. When he was sensible Desmond called her the
Angel of Mercy; in his delirium he spoke to her always as Sylvia. Even
in his wildest ravings, when he muttered and shouted sentences he had
heard from the lips of others and never sullied his own lips with, he
was always respectful to her.

Kathleen O'Connor and Molly Healy were with her as untrained auxiliaries
to take her place and implicitly follow her directions when sleep could
no longer be denied. To them she gave the highest praise in her power
when she remarked approvingly:

"You should have been nurses, both of you."

Denis Quirk had resigned his room to the nurses, and when he slept
stretched himself out on the couch in the dining-room. He was watching
anxiously for his friend's moment of softening when Desmond would need
and ask for a priest. By a special arrangement the Archbishop had
granted to Father Healy the permission to attend Desmond, if he desired
a confessor. Then, day or night, as soon as the telephone carried the
expected message, the parish priest of Grey Town was prepared to hasten
in a motor car to Melbourne.

But the fever had gone on to the dread third week, where death crouches
beside the patient's sick bed, and Desmond had made no sign. The doctor
came and went frequently, having the brand of anxiety plainly printed on
his face; the nurse had curtailed her hours of sleep to the minimum of
possibility, and the message had not been sent.

"Why will he not surrender?" sighed Kathleen O'Connor. "I have asked him
to see Father Healy, and he always answers, 'No.'"

"The good God is just trying us," said Molly Healy. "He wishes to see
how far our faith will go. But I am hoping that mine will stretch a
little further yet; for it needs to be elastic in times like this."

Denis Quirk came in from his work, a little older and more tired-looking
than he had been, but just as warm-hearted and humorous as when life
was moving like a well-oiled machine.

"Any improvement?" he asked.

Kathleen shook her head, while tears filled her eyes.

"We are so weak and powerless," she said.

"But brave of heart,"