sacrament." The growl deepened into words. "Don't want any priest; you 're always after some snivelling old woman's fuss. You and Mrs. Murphy go on with your church; it won't make YOU any better." She shivered under this parting shot, and crept back into the shop. Still the priest came next day. She followed him in to the bedside and knelt timidly. "Tony," she whispered, "here's Father Leblanc." Tony was too languid to curse out loud; he only expressed his hate in a toss of the black beard and shaggy mane. "Tony," she said nervously, "won't you do it now? It won't take long, and it will be better for you when you go—Oh, Tony, don't—don't laugh. Please, Tony, here's the priest." But the Titan roared aloud: "No; get out. Think I'm a-going to give you a chance to grab my money now? Let me die and go to hell in peace." Father Leblanc knelt meekly and prayed, and the woman's weak pleadings continued,— "Tony, I've been true and good and faithful to you. Don't die and leave me no better than before. Tony, I do want to be a good woman once, a real-for-true married woman. Tony, here's the priest; say yes." And she wrung her ringless hands. "You want my money," said Tony, slowly, "and you sha'n't have it, not a cent; John shall have it." Father Leblanc shrank away like a fading spectre. He came next day and next day, only to see re-enacted the same piteous scene,—the woman pleading to be made a wife ere death hushed Tony's blasphemies, the man chuckling in pain-racked glee at the prospect of her bereaved misery. Not all the prayers of Father Leblanc nor the wailings of Mrs. Murphy could alter the determination of the will beneath the shock of hair; he gloated in his physical weakness at the tenacious grasp on his mentality. "Tony," she wailed on the last day, her voice rising to a shriek in its eagerness, "tell them I'm your wife; it'll be the same. Only say it, Tony, before you die!" He raised his head, and turned stiff eyes and gibbering mouth on her; then, with one
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