Forestier. "He is going to die. The doctor advises me to send for a priest. What will you do?"

She hesitated a moment and then said slowly:

"I will go and tell him that the cure wishes to see him. Will you be kind enough to procure one who will require nothing but the confession, and who will not make much fuss?"

The young man brought with him a kind, old priest who accommodated himself to circumstances. When he had entered the death chamber, Mme. Forestier went out and seated herself with Duroy in an adjoining room.

"That has upset him," said she. "When I mentioned the priest to him, his face assumed a scared expression. He knew that the end was near. I shall never forget his face."

At that moment they heard the priest saying to him: "Why no, you are not so low as that. You are ill, but not in danger. The proof of that is that I came as a friend, a neighbor." They could not hear his reply. The priest continued: "No, I shall not administer the sacrament. We will speak of that when you are better. If you will only confess, I ask no more. I am a pastor; I take advantage of every occasion to gather in my sheep."

A long silence followed. Then suddenly the priest said, in the tone of one officiating at the altar:

"The mercy of God is infinite; repeat the 'Confiteor,' my son. Perhaps you have forgotten it; I will help you. Repeat with me: 'Confiteor Deo omnipotenti; Beata Mariae semper virgini.'" He paused from time to time to permit the dying man to catch up to him.

Then he said: "Now, confess." The sick man murmured something. The priest repeated: "You have committed sins: of what kind, my son?"

The young woman rose and said simply: "Let us go into the garden. We must not listen to his secrets."

They seated themselves upon a bench before the door, beneath a blossoming rosebush. After several moments of silence Duroy asked: "Will it be some time before you return to Paris?"

"No," she replied; "when all is over, I will go back."

"In about ten days?"

"Yes, at most."

He continued; "Charles has no relatives then?"

"None, save cousins. His father and mother died when he was very young."

In the course of a few minutes, the servant came to tell them that the priest had finished, and together they ascended the stairs. Forestier seemed to have grown thinner since the preceding day. The priest was holding his hand.

"Au revoir, my son. I will come again to-morrow morning"; and he left. When he was gone, the dying man, who was panting, tried to raise his two hands toward his wife and gasped:

"Save me--save me, my darling. I do not want to die--oh, save me--go for the doctor. I will take anything. I do not want to die." He wept; the tears coursed down his pallid cheeks.