"Were you at a deathbed last night, you two?" asked Georgia.
"Yes, Georgia, we were," said the priest.
"It seems somehow strange," she pondered, "that you two, so different, should be called together at the end."
"Oh, it happens often enough," explained the doctor. "Poor people. They want to keep them here a little longer, and the priest to bid them Godspeed in case they've got to go."
"It must be terrible," reflected Mrs. Talbot, "to die without a priest."
"Yes," answered the doctor, "Catholics have the best of us there. They always go hopefully, and they're the only ones that do. I've sometimes wished that I could accept the faith, but—" he shook his head slowly.
"Why can't you?" said Georgia quickly. Father Hervey smiled. He and the doctor were trusted friends. There was no poaching on each other's preserves.
"Do you honestly believe in a future life?" she asked again, staring at the man of science with her peculiar little wide-eyed stare.
"Yes, I believe all of us here will probably have it—except perhaps Father Hervey."
"Well, doctor," said Mrs. Talbot most indignantly, "I must say you've no call to be disrespectful. If any of us is certain to have it, it's him."