There was a shade of impatience on her face as she replied, “But you must be a little kind to yourself.”
“It doesn't matter.”
“But it does matter. You defeat the very work you want to do. I'm going to report you to your order.” And then she added, more lightly, “Don't you know it is wrong to commit suicide?”
“You don't understand,” he replied. “There is more than one kind of suicide; you don't believe in the suicide of the soul. Ah, me!” And a shade of pain passed over his face.
She was quick to see this. “I beg your pardon, Father Damon. It is none of my business, but we are all so anxious to have you speedily well again.”
Just then Father Monies returned, and the doctor rose to go. She took the little girl by the hand and said, “Come, I was just going round to see your father. Good-by. I shall look in again tomorrow.”
“Thank you—thank you a thousand times. But you have so much to do that you must not bother about me.”
Whether he said this to quiet his own conscience, secretly hoping that he might see her again on the morrow, perhaps he himself could not have decided.
Late the next afternoon, after an unusually weary round of visits, made in the extreme heat and in a sort of hopeless faithfulness, Dr. Leigh reached the tenement in which Father Damon lodged: In all the miserable scenes of the day it had been in her mind, giving to her work a pleasure that she did not openly acknowledge even to herself, that she should see him.
The curtains were down, and there was no response to her knock, except from a door in the passage opposite. A woman opened the door wide enough to show her head and to make it evident that she was not sufficiently dressed to come out, and said that Father Damon had gone. He was very much better, and his friend had taken him up-town. Dr. Leigh thanked her, and said she was very glad.