"Rescue the Perishin';
Care for the Dyin'."
came forth like the chanting of the chimes.
When the words, "Jesus is merciful," followed, Bennet put up his hand and touched the girl's fingers. Tessibel closed her own over his. There was no thought then of her errand, no remembrance that the man before her was a murderer and had sworn his crime on little Andy.
"Jesus is merciful, Jesus is kind," sang Tess, and Bennet began to cry in low sobs that made the singer finish her song in tears.
"Oh, He is kind," she whispered. "He is merciful. Won't you believe that?"
"Sing it again," entreated Bennet, huskily.... "Sing it again, will ye?"
Tess scarcely heard the words they were so low, so sobbingly spoken. She cleared the tears from her voice, and "Rescue the Perishin'," and "Jesus is kind," echoed once more through the long room. From here and there, suppressed weeping came to the girl's ear; but she did not turn to look at the weepers. Here, before her, was a man who was watching as Daddy Skinner had watched the slowly opening gates of eternal life, through which he must pass, alone and afraid. Ah, if she could make him less so! If she could give him a little faith to grope on and on and up and up into the freedom of the life beyond.
Bennet's hand was clasped in Tessibel's; the other covered his eyes.
Suddenly, he dropped his fingers.
"Ye say he's kind?" he gasped. "Jesus air kind, ye say?"