"No, Father, you can't know what it's like," she said.

"No, perhaps not, my child," Father Matignon conceded, glancing at Cheverus. The younger priest remained silent. "Besides, they might not permit a Catholic to give the execution sermon. It's always done by a Protestant minister."

"What will I say to Dom?" she asked. "What will I tell him?"

Father Matignon turned to Cheverus and said in French, "Tell her you cannot do it. Tell her you are too busy."

"We sympathize with your situation, Finola," said Cheverus, reaching out and placing his hand on her shoulder. She looked at his touch as if it somehow hurt her. He pulled his hand back. "But as Father Matignon said--"

"What kind of men are you?" she cried.

"Finola, please."

"Have you not a heart?"

"You must try to understand," offered Father Matignon.

"Those two are beggin' you. I'm beggin' you, Father." Her face broke and she started to cry then. Tears slipped down her gaunt cheeks and fell onto her neckerchief. "Who will hear his confession? Who will give him the last rites?"

"We can say a Mass afterwards," the elder priest said.

"What good will that do 'em?" she wailed. "The bloody bastards are not even gonna let us have his body for a decent Christian burial.

They're gonna butcher me husband is what they're gonna do. And then they're gonna throw his bones to the dogs. Sweet Jesus!" she moaned. She wiped the tears away from her cheeks with the back of her hand. She looked up at Cheverus. "Don't let him die alone, Father. Please. I beg of you. Don't let him die alone."

"He won't be alone," Cheverus offered. "God will be with him." Yet the words were chaff in his mouth. He almost choked on them.

"He needs someone there with him," she said savagely. "At his side when he walks up those steps to the gallows. How can I make you understand?"

"Try to stay calm, my dear," Father Matignon advised.

"You call yourselves priests," she flung at them, but kept her eye on Cheverus. "Those boys need you. And you're not going to go to them?"

She got down on her knees before Cheverus and took his hand and kissed it. "Please, Father," she said. "In the name of God." She buried her face in his cassock and sobbed. Her body quaked against his knees, her shoulders lurching. He looked over at Father Matignon. Cheverus took a breath, exhaling slowly. He felt that terrible weight pressing down on his chest so he could hardly breathe.

"Perhaps we could discuss the matter," he said after a while, trading looks with the old abbe. The elder priest furrowed his brow and mouthed the words "Mais non!"

"I'd appreciate it, Father," Finola said.

"Please. Get up," Cheverus said, helping her to stand.

"We shall have to discuss it, Finola," Father Matignon said. "We will inform you of our decision tomorrow."

"Thank you, Father. I know Dom would thank you too."

"We are making no promises, you understand," Father Matignon added, glancing sternly at Cheverus.

"I know. Help my husband, Father. Please, don't let him die alone."

After she left, Father Matignon sighed and placed his knuckles together under his nose. Cheverus could see he was annoyed with him and trying to form his words with care. "Why lead the poor thing on like that? It will only make it more difficult when we tell her we can't."

"Forgive me, Father. I just thought. . ."

"I, too, sympathize with their plight, Jean. But it's simply impossible. We have far too many other duties to tend to. We couldn't spare the time it would take."

"Of course, you're right," Cheverus said, nodding.

"You leave on Friday," the elder priest explained, as if he had been challenged. "You still have much to do in preparation."

"1 know." He paused, glancing down at the letter he still held in his hands. His eye fell upon the lines, We accept death with resignation. We are solicitous only about our salvation. What did that mean? He opened the Bible that lay in the trunk with his other things. He slid the letter in but didn't close the book.

"What if I were to postpone my journey north?" Cheverus asked.

"They are expecting you."

"A delay of a week, two at most. It won't make much difference."

Father Matignon gathered his lips into a pinched oval.

"Jean, even if we were not so busy, there is still the question of how this would appear to the public. Things are just getting back to normal for us. Would we really want to go and call attention to ourselves, to our Church? For a couple of convicted murderers?"

Cheverus glanced down at the Bible again. It happened to be open to John, chapter 3. He read to himself, Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

To Father Matignon he said, "They still maintain their innocence."

"What condemned man doesn't?"

"The trial was hardly a model of justice, Father."

"That is not for us to say. They had their trial and they were found guilty. We must abide by that." When Cheverus remained silent, the abbe said, "Do you not agree?"

He nodded, but without conviction.

"Jean, they've taken a man's life. They've broken the law. It is a terrible tragedy for all, but they brought it upon themselves."

Cheverus could only shake his head again.

"And think of how it would look for the Church, Jean."

"We would only be offering spiritual solace." "It may not appear as such to others."

"Should we be guided by appearance?"

Father Matignon shook his head wearily. "Besides, it could be dangerous for you, Jean. The authorities are preparing for trouble."

"Mere rumors, Father."

"Perhaps not. I have heard from one of the church wardens, Mr. Neelans--and he knows his people as well as any--that there is talk of some going out there to free them."

"It would be suicide. They know the consequences would be brutal."

"The Irish are seldom swayed by consequences. Whether it's true or not, I've heard the governor is going to send more troops out there just in case there's trouble."

Cheverus closed the Bible with the letter in it.

"Jean, I don't mean to sound hard-hearted. I feel badly for them, too. It's just that we've worked too hard to establish our mission here."

"I know, Father. I know."

"And they will not be alone. They, will be provided spiritual sustenance."

"By a Protestant minister who would look to convert them so they don't burn in hell."

"They have only themselves to blame."

Cheverus nodded again. "I will tell her no then."

"It is for the best."

Th at afternoon Cheverus walked to Long Wharf to buy some candles and incense for his trip. It was a mild spring day. A few clouds floated out over the harbor like the unfurled masts of grand ships plying an expansive blue ocean. Boston was coming to life after a long winter. Women carrying parasols and wearing taffeta strolled arm in arm with men in elegant beaver tophats and long-tailed coats. Young boys whistled as they went about their errands, and servants girls haggled with fish merchants. Near the T Wharf a small crowd had gathered around a man selling ices. He thought of those fine spring days in Paris, the smell of hyacinth and tulips floating in the air. He found it hard to be disconsolate on such a fine day. He saw a large barque being outfitted for a voyage, men hauling supplies up the gangplank. Perhaps he would be boarding such a vessel in a few months, heading for home.

He was on State Street, heading back to the rectory, when he ran into Nell O'Rourke. She had her shopping basket over her arm. In it was a freshly killed goose she'd bought at Faneuil Market. Its white head hung limply, blood dripping from his yellow beak.

"I hear you're off to convert the savages again," she said with a mocking smile. " 'Tis a Christian thing you're doing, Father. But I fear it's lost on them heathens."

"Is that so?" he said.

"Indeed. You might as well teach the leopard to change its spots. They're all going to hell."

"Thank you for the warning, Nell."

"You'd have as good a chance gettin' them two murderers through the pearly gates as one of those red-skinned savages. Are you goin' to the hanging, Father?"

"No," he said, surprised she would ask. "Of course not."

"A good many are making the trip out. My master's going. He says he wouldn't miss it for the world."

When he got back to the rectory, he found a note requesting that he come quickly to Mrs. Quinn's boardinghouse on Canal Street. Someone was sick with yellow fever and in need of a priest. When he got there, he found it was a newly arrived immigrant girl. One look and it was obvious she hadn't long to live. She was young, perhaps eighteen, and pretty, though the fever had turned her face into a frightful, jaundiced mask of fear and pain. Mrs. Quinn told him she was an indentured servant who'd come by herself from Kerry. She had no people here. "Not a soul," lamented Mrs. Quinn. "No one to keen for the poor thing." The dying girl stared up at him with lead-colored eyes, the whites turned a shocking yellow, like rancid butter. He held her hand.

"I have sinned, Father," she said. "I stole from my mistress. I am not a virgin."

He listened to her confession, and then he gave her sacramental absolution: "Ego to absolvo ab omnibus censuris et peccatis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus sancti. Amen." Then he anointed her forehead with oil.

"Father," she pleaded with him, squeezing his hand with a desperate strength. "I'm afraid."

"It's all right, my child," he said to her. He heard the line repeated in his head: I am afraid.

"Don't leave me," she said to him. "I don't want to be alone."

"I won't, my dear. I'll be right here."

He stayed with her until the end. After a while, her fear passed and her eyes became almost calm. Her body seemed to relax and accept the inevitability of her death. She died finally, her eyes wide and deep as oceans. He thought of those brave priests who had stayed behind at the Convent of the Carmes and gave extreme unction to their dying brethren. While he had run for his life.

In the evening, he packed some more, wrote a couple of letters. Then, as he always did before he left for Maine, he composed a short last will and testament--just in case he didn't come home. He left most of his modest library to the Athenaeum. His small savings to the church. His breviary to Mairtin. His mother's cross would go home to his brother Louis. And all of his other worldly possessions, few though they were, he left to Father Matignon. As always when he wrote his will, he felt both humbled by the prospect of his mortality and mocked by his flair for the dramatic. He would not die, he knew. Not for a long time. He would live to be an old man and pass quietly away in his sleep. That's what God had in store for him. A long uneventful life, as if punishing him for his betrayal.

When he was finished, he said his prayers, blew out the candle, and climbed into bed. He lay with his hands folded over his chest, staring into the darkness over his face. Outside in the streets of Boston, he heard the occasional clomp of horses or the rattle of wagon wheels, the wind blowing in from the harbor, bringing with it the melancholy smell of distant shores. He lay there unable to sleep, his mind astir with thoughts. He recalled the young girl to whom he'd given the last rites, the desperate fear in her eyes. Then he thought of Finola Daley, what she had asked of him regarding her husband: Don't let him die alone. Please, Father. Finally, he got out of bed and lit a candle on his night table. He sat at his escritoire, took out the prisoners' letter, and read it again: we have committed other sins . . . we are solicitous only about our salvation ... to expiate them, we accept death with resignation ... It is in your hands. Come to our assistance. Despite their stubborn denial of the crime, he thought they had to be guilty. The evidence had been substantial, even if the trial was biased. What if now, as they realized the certainty of their deaths, they wanted to unburden their souls in the privacy of the confessional? Without admitting to the world that they were guilty, without bringing shame down upon their families. What if they wanted only to confess to him and him alone? Lacking the intercession of a priest, without confessing their sins, would they not be doomed to hell? Here he could have gone to them and heard their confession and he had not. He would have lost two souls for God's glory. He was a priest. It was his duty, after all, to perform this sacrament. Though he was confused by many things--by his own long-standing guilt, by the distance he lately felt from God--he was certain of this: His love and the grace which followed from that. Only His grace could save them. He believed in that above all else. Maybe this is what God had brought him three thousand miles to do--to save the souls of these two men. Maybe this is what He wanted for penance. Yes, he would do this service for God.

His heart raced with these thoughts, and he could not sleep. His way was finally clear. It was a little after two in the morning when he finally walked across the hall to Father Matignon's room. He knocked on the door.

"Jean?" Father Matignon said, rubbing his sleepy eyes. "Come in." He lit a candle and had Cheverus sit in the only chair in the room. "Is something the matter?"

"No. Well, yes. I wish to talk to you, Father."

"Of course."

Cheverus didn't speak for several seconds. Father Matignon waited patiently.

"I think I should go, Father."

"To France?" his superior asked.

"No, I mean to the prisoners."

"The prisoners!"

"Yes. I've given it much thought, and I think I should be with them."

"I see," the old man said, rubbing his unshaven chin. "And what if they are guilty?"

"Then we can save their souls, Father. Think of it. 'Jdegy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.'"

"Of course," Father Matignon said, smiling weakly. He lifted his hands in the air, in an attitude both of defeat and of understanding. "You will need some money for traveling expenses."

"Thank you, Father."

"But promise me you'll be careful. And dress in lay clothes. There's no sense parading around as a priest, asking for trouble."

"Yes, Father."

The abbe looked at Cheverus and offered a tired nod of approval.

"Go with my blessings, Jean."

Back in his room, Cheverus knelt in prayer. Was he afraid? Perhaps a little. But if it was fear it was of a different sort. His heart beat with a strange surge of excitement. He prayed until the sun came up. He had decided to fast, thereby purifying his body and his spirit for the long, difficult journey that lay ahead. Often before going off on some arduous mission--to the Indian camp in Maine, for instance--Cheverus would pray to the Virgin and make a vow to fast. Denial of the body oftentimes brought a clarity of mind, a strength of purpose. He promised the Holy Mother that food would not pass his lips until he had blessed the two men. Give me strength.