, and to whom the priest sought to offer the consolations of
religion and of his personal sympathy, there were few who did not have
a tale of suffering to tell that wrung his heart. Some of them were
actually ill, or had at home a sick husband or a sick daughter. And such
cases had to be reported to Dr. Leigh.

It became necessary, therefore, that these two, who had shunned each
other for months, should meet as often as they had done formerly. This
was very hard for both, for it meant only the renewal of heart-break,
regret, and despair. And yet it had been almost worse when they did not
see each other. They met; they talked of nothing but their work; they
tried to forget themselves in their devotion to humanity. But the human
heart will not be thus disposed of. It was impossible that some show of
personal interest, some tenderness, should not appear. They were walking
towards Fourth Avenue one evening--the priest could not resist the
impulse to accompany her a little way towards her home--after a day of
unusual labor and anxiety.

"You are working too hard," he said, gently; "you look fatigued."

"Oh no," she replied, looking up cheerfully; "I'm a regular machine. I
get run down, and then I wind up. I get tired, and then I get rested.
It isn't the work," she added, after a moment, "if only I could see any
good of it. It seems so hopeless."

"From your point of view, my dear doctor," he answered, but without
any shade of reproof in his tone. "But no good deed is lost. There is
nothing else in the world--nothing for me." The close of the sentence
seemed wholly accidental, and he stopped speaking as if he could not
trust himself to go on.

Ruth Leigh looked up quickly. "But, Father Damon, it is you who ought to
be rebuked for overwork. You are undertaking too much. You ought to go
off for a vacation, and go at once."

The father looked paler and thinner than usual, but his mouth was set
in firm lines, and he said: "It cannot be. My duty is here. And"--he
turned, and looked her full in the face--"I cannot go."

No need to explain that simple word. No need to interpret the swift
glance that their eyes exchanged--the eager, the pitiful glance. They
both knew. It was not the work. It was not the suffering of the world.
It was the pain in their own hearts, and the awful chasm that his
holy vows had put between them. They stood so only an instant. He was
trembling in the extort to master himself, and in a second she felt