Mrs. Talbot walked slowly down stairs, stiff with rheumatism. She met Al coming up, four steps at a time.
"How is he?" he shouted as he passed. She turned to explain, but he vanished out of sight around the turn at the landing, not waiting for an answer.
When she got Father Hervey on the telephone he asked if she was speaking of the young child he had baptized a month or so back.
"Three weeks come Tuesday," she said.
"Ah, then he has been baptized. That, at least, is well."
"But Father, if you could come, and pray, maybe it would save his life here, too."
He hesitated but a moment. Truly there was no priestly obligation to visit sick infants who had already been baptized, whenever their grandparents became excited. To baptize dying babies or to administer the last rites to those who had reached the age of reason was his duty. This was not. But if he did it, it would be an act of human kindness.
"I will come," he said over the wire, "at once."