Even as she uttered the familiar words,
base Fear slunk away, leaving in his place her soul's old companion,
Courage, and his attendant, Peace. She rose to her feet, and opening wide her eyes forced herself to think
out what must be done by her in order that no trace of Charles's
handiwork should remain in the chapel. Snuffing out the wicks, Catherine lifted the candlesticks from the
ground and put them back in their accustomed place upon the altar. Then,
stooping, she forced herself to wrap up closely in the altar-cloth that
which must be her burden till she found James Mottram's headless body
where Charles had left it, and placing that same precious burden within
the ample folds of her cloak, she held it with her left hand and arm
closely pressed to her bosom....

With her right hand she gathered up the pile of stained altar-linen from
the ground, and going once more into the sacristy she thrust it into the
oak chest in which were kept the Lenten furnishings of the altar. Having
done that, and walking slowly lest she should trip and fall, she made
her way to the narrow door Charles had left open to the air, and going
down the steep stairway was soon out of doors in the dark and windy
night. Charles had been right, the moon gave but little light; enough, however,
so she told herself, for the accomplishment of her task. She sped swiftly along the terrace, keeping close under the house, and
then more slowly walked down the stone steps where last time she trod
them Mottram had been her companion, his living lips as silent as were
his dead lips now. The orchard gate was wide open, and as she passed through there came to
Catherine Nagle the knowledge why Charles on his way back from the wood
had not even latched it; he also, when passing through it, had been
bearing a burden....

She walked down the field path; and when she came to the steep place
where Mottram had told her that he was going away, the tears for the
first time began running down Catherine's face. She felt again the
sharp, poignant pain which his then cold and measured words had dealt
her, and the blow this time fell on a bruised heart. With a convulsive
gesture she pressed more closely that which she was holding to her
desolate breast. At night the woodland is strangely, curiously alive. Catherine shuddered
as she heard the stuffless sounds, the tiny rustlings and burrowings of
those wild, shy creatures whose solitude had lately been so rudely
invaded, and who now of man's night made their day. Their myriad
presence made her human loneliness more intense than it had been in the
open fields, and as she started walking by the side of the iron rails,
her eyes fixed on the dark drift of dead leaves which dimly marked the
path, she felt solitary indeed, and beset with vague and fearsome
terrors. At last she found herself nearing the end of the wood. Soon would come
the place where what remained of the cart-track struck sharply to the
left, up the hill towards the Eype. It was there, close to the open, that Catherine Nagle's quest ended; and
that she was able to accomplish the task she had set herself, of making
that which Charles had rendered incomplete, complete as men, considering
the flesh, count completeness. Within but a few yards of safety, James Mottram had met with death; a
swift, merciful death, due to the negligence of an engine-driver not
only new to his work but made blindly merry by Mottram's gift of ale. *       *       *       *       *

Charles Nagle woke late on the morning of St. Catherine's Day, and the
pale November sun fell on the fully dressed figures of his wife and Mr.
Dorriforth standing by his bedside. But Charles, absorbed as always in himself, saw nothing untoward in
their presence. "I had a dream!" he exclaimed. "A most horrible and gory dream this
night! I thought I was in the wood; James Mottram lay before me, done
to death by that puffing devil we saw slithering by so fast. His head
nearly severed--_à la guillotine_, you understand, my love?--from his
poor body----" There was a curious, secretive smile on Charles Nagle's
pale, handsome face. Catherine Nagle gave a cry, a stifled shriek of horror. The priest caught her by the arm and led her to the couch which stood
across the end of the bed. "Charles," he said sternly, "this is no light matter. Your
dream--there's not a doubt of it--was sent you in merciful preparation
for the awful truth. Your kinsman, your almost brother, Charles, was
found this morning in the wood, dead as you saw him in your dream." The face of the man sitting up in bed stiffened--was it with fear or
grief? "They found James Mottram dead?" he repeated with an uneasy
glance in the direction of the couch where crouched his wife. "And his
head, most reverend sir--what of his head?" "James Mottram's body was terribly mangled. But his head," answered the
priest solemnly, "was severed from his body, as you saw it in your
dream, Charles. A strangely clean cut, it seems----"

"Ay," said Charles Nagle. "That was in my dream too; if I said nearly
severed, I said wrong." Catherine was now again standing by the priest's side. "Charles," she said gravely, "you must now get up; Mr. Dorriforth is
only waiting for you, to say Mass for James's soul." She made the sign of the cross, and then, with her right hand shading
her sunken eyes, she went on, "My dear, I entreat you to tell no
one--not even faithful Collins--of this awful dream. We want no such
tale spread about the place----"

She looked at the old priest entreatingly, and he at once responded. "Catherine is right, Charles. We of the Faith should be more careful
with regard to such matters than are the ignorant and superstitious." But he was surprised to hear the woman by his side say insistently,
"Charles, if only to please me, vow that you will keep most secret this
dreadful dream. I fear that if it should come to your Aunt Felwake's
ears----"

"That I swear it shall not," said Charles sullenly. And he kept his word. THE WOMAN FROM PURGATORY

    "... not dead, this friend--not dead,
    But, in the path we mortals tread,
    Got some few, little steps ahead
      And nearer to the end,
    So that you, too, once past the bend,
    Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend
      You fancy dead." I

Mrs. Barlow, the prettiest and the happiest and the best dressed of the
young wives of Summerfield, was walking toward the Catholic Church. She
was going to consult the old priest as to her duty to an unsatisfactory
servant; for Agnes Barlow was a conscientious as well as a pretty and a
happy woman. Foolish people are fond of quoting a foolish gibe: "Be good, and you may
be happy; but you will not have a good time." The wise, however, soon
become aware that if, in the course of life's journey, you achieve
goodness and happiness, you will almost certainly have a good time too. So, at least, Agnes Barlow had found in her own short life.