St. John followed his sister closely as she entered the house. The servants made way for her, and they went quickly up the stairs. At the door of the sick room they paused. Another woman, wringing her hands, and listening with keen curiosity, stood gazing in. The room was in the most confused state. The coffee-colored Alphonsine moved stolidly about, and occasionally put a piece of furniture in its place, or removed a garment thrown down in the haste and panic of the past night; but standing still, more often, to gaze back at the bed. She crossed herself often, in a mechanical manner, but looked more sullen than sympathetic. There was a bath in the middle of the room, cloths and towels strewn upon the floor beside it, mustard, a night-lamp flickering still in the face of day, a bowl of ice, some brandy. The windows were thrown wide open; the bed stood with its head near one--another one was opposite to it. The light fell full upon the ghastly face of the suffering woman. Beauty! had she ever been beautiful? "Like as a moth fretting a garment," so had her anguish made her beauty to consume away. A ghastly being--suffering, agonized, dying--wrestling with a destroying enemy! Such conflicts cannot last long; the end was near. As St. John and his sister entered the room, the doctor, who stood at the head of the bed, was wiping the perspiration from his forehead and glancing out of the window. He was troubled and worn out with the night's work, and was watching eagerly for a brother physician who had been summoned to his aid. He knew the new-comer could do no good, but he could share the responsibility with him, and bring back the professional atmosphere out of which he had been carried by the swift and terrible progress of his patient's malady. Above all things, the doctor wished to be professional and cool; and he knew he was neither in the midst of this blundering crowd of servants, and in the sight of this fiercely dying woman. He could have wished it all to be done over again. He had lost his head, in a degree. He did not believe that anything could have arrested the flight of life; all the same he wished he had known a little more about the case; had taken the alarm quicker and sent for other aid. He looked harassed and helpless, and very hot and tired. All this St. John saw as he came in the room. Missy looked questioningly at him, and then as he gave a gesture of assent, came quickly to the side of the bed. She half knelt beside it, and took the poor sufferer's hand in hers. The touch, perhaps, caused her to open her eyes, and her lips moved. Then her glance, roving and anguished, fell upon St. John. She lifted her hand with a sudden spasm of life. "A priest?" she said, huskily. "Yes," said St. John, coming to her quietly. "Then all of you go away--quick--I want to speak to him."