nd lovely pool!

He slipped his foot under the root so that it would hold him if he
struggled, put his arms under his head like one about to sleep, and
yielded his senses to that far-off, divine music, enticing,
welcoming.... It ceased, but not until he had forgotten all his sorrows
and was speeding toward death. Sorrow rescued sorrow, and gave him back
to the torturers. The old woman who passed by the pond that morning
gathering flowers, and smiling as if she felt the delight of a
child--the smile of a child on the mask of grief-worn age--saw his
clothes and then his body floating upward helpless from the bottom. She
seized his arm, and pulled him up on the low bank. He gasped a little
and was able to thank her.

"If I hadn't come along just then," she said placidly, as she covered
him decently with his coat, "you'd have been drownded. Took a cramp, I
reckon?"

"All I remember is taking a swim and sinking, mother. I am very much
obliged to you, and can get along very well, I think."

"If you want any help, just say so," she answered. "When you get dressed
my house is a mile up the road, and the road is a mile from here. I can
give you a cup of tea or warm milk, and welcome."

"I'll go after a while," said he, "and then I'll be able to thank you
still better for a very great service, mother."

She smiled at the affectionate title, and went her way. He became weak
all at once, and for a while could not dress. The long bath had soothed
his mind, and now distressed nature could make her wants known. Hunger,
soreness of body, drowsiness, attacked him together. He found it
pleasant to lie there and look at the sun, and feel too happy to curse
it as before. The loom had done working, Penelope was asleep. The door
seemed forever shut on the woman known as Sonia, who had tormented him
long ago. The dead should trouble no one living. He was utterly weary,
sore in every spot, crushed by torment as poor Tim Hurley had been
broken by his engine. This recollection, and his lying beside the pool
as Tim lay beside the running river, recalled the Monsignor and the holy
oils. As he fell asleep the fancy struck him that his need at that
moment was the holy oils; some balm for sick eyes and ears, for tired
hands and soiled feet, like his mother's kisses long ago, that would
soothe the aching, and steal from the limbs into the heart afterwards; a
heavenly dew that would aid sleep in restoring the stiffened sinews and
distracted nerv