lightly, diaphanously.

They stood arrested, guns drawn back, and stared. The figure slowly
extended its arm, carrying drapery with it. A man's breast was bared.
There, over the heart, was a great gaping wound, fresh, as if a broad,
heavy blade had pierced it.

There was a clatter on the ice as a gun dropped and another clatter as a
similar weapon struck the stone opposite. The two men bent forward,
their hands outstretched. They took a step as if to touch the figure and
there was nothing there! The hands met. They clasped warmly in the cold
against each other.

"My God, what was that?" said the stalker.

"I don't know," answered the other.

"A pierced side!"

"Was it--"

"No. It couldn't be."

"Well, we worship the same God and--"

Ah, they were seen. There were quick words of command from the
trenches, a staccato of rifle-shots, and two bodies lay side by side,
hands still clasped, while the snow reddened and reddened beneath them.

And it was Christmas eve.




IX

The Forgiver of Sins




"I SAY UNTO THEE UNTIL SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN"




IX

The Forgiver of Sins


"A Priest, for Christ's sake, a priest," moaned the man.

A white-faced sister of charity upon whom had developed the appalling
task of caring for the long rows of wounded at the dressing station
before they were entrained and sent south to the hospital, hovered over
the stretcher.

"My poor man," she whispered, "there is no priest here."

"I can't die without confession--absolution," was the answer. "A priest,
get me a priest."

Next to and almost touching the cot on which the speaker writhed in his
death agony lay another man apparently in a profound stupor. He wore
the uniform of a private soldier and his eyes were bandaged. His face
had been torn to pieces by shrapnel, fragments of which had blinded him.
At that instant he came out of that stupor. Perhaps the familiar words
recalled him to himself. He moved his hand slightly. The sister saw his
lips tremble. She bent low.

"Who

William Babington Maxwell (18661938) was a British novelist. He was a son of novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Though nearly 50 years old at the outbreak of the First World War, he was accepted as a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and served in France until 1917.

Cyrus Townsend Brady (December 20, 1861 January 24, 1920) was a journalist, historian and adventure writer. His most well-known work is Indian Fights and Fighters. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. He was also a deacon in the Episcopal church. His first wife was Clarissa Guthrie, who died in 1890. His second wife was Mary Barrett.

Rebecca Sophia Clarke (1833-1906), also known as Sophie May, was an American author of childrens fiction. Using her nieces and nephews as inspiration, she wrote realistic stories about children. She wrote 45 books between 1860 and 1903. The most popular being the Little Prudy books. She lived most of her life in her native town of Norridgewock, Maine, where she lived out her life with her sister, who was also a successful author.