great church towered up, and an iron-studded door in a blank wall
appeared. I was told this was the place, and pushing it open I went up a
stone-flagged path, among beds of soot-stained shrubs, to where a
lantern shone in the porch of a sombre house. There was a window high up
on the left, where a shaded lamp was burning and a fire flickered on the
ceiling, and I knew instinctively that this was my brother's room. I
rang, and presently a weary-eyed, kindly priest, in a hastily-donned
cassock, appeared. He said at once that my brother was a little better
and was asleep. The doctors were to see him at nine. I asked where I
could go, and he advised a hotel hard by. "We did not expect you," he
said, "or we would have had a room ready, but now I fear we could hardly
make you comfortable."

I went to the hotel, a big, well-equipped place, and was taken to a
bedroom, where I slept profoundly, out of utter weariness. Then I went
down to the Bishop's House again at nine o'clock. By daylight Manchester
had a grim and sinister air. It was raining softly and the air was heavy
with smoke. The Bishop's House stood in what was evidently a poor
quarter, full of mean houses and factories, all of red brick, smeared
and stained with soot. The house itself appeared like a great college,
with paved corridors, dark arches, and many doors. There was a lighted
room like a sacristy, and a faint scent of incense drifted in from the
door which led into the church. Upstairs, in a huge throne-room with a
gilded chair of state and long, bare tables, I met the doctors--Dr.
Bradley, a Catholic, and Professor Murray, a famous Manchester
physician, in khaki uniform, both most gentle and kind. Canon Sharrock
joined us, a tall, robust man, with a beautiful tenderness of manner and
a brotherly air. They gave me a better report, but could not disguise
from me that things were very critical. It was pneumonia of a very
grave kind which had supervened on a condition of overwork and