Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/218

208 the neighbour shook the ashes from his pipe and stood up.

"You're a fool, Kathleen O'Grady!" he said, and he went outside.

Eileen laid her hands upon her heart "He wants me," she whispered, "but I cannot stir; I am too glad—too glad!"

The neighbour re-entered; he closed the door behind him, and, as though unintentionally, slipped the bar across it.

"There's nothing there, sure enough," he said, and pulled his chair closer to the fire.

Again came the cry, "Follow me, Eileen," and the bar fell with a clatter from the door.

The women rose with a shriek, which ended in a hysterical laugh.

"It's only Eileen," Kathleen said; "she slipped out."

"Holy Mother and the saints, preserve her!" the mother said. She put a lighted candle in the window. "She will see it when she is tired of her foolishness."

They sat down in silence and waited.

But Eileen ran out into the night, listening for the voice she loved, for in the dark she heard it again,—