Sharon met him at the door. She was wearing a sweater and was draped in a blanket. She looked frightened. Bewildered. "Sorry, Father," she whispered as he entered the house, "but I thought you ought to see this."

"What?"

"You'll see. Let's be quiet, now. I don't want to wake up Chris. She shouldn't see this." She beckoned.

He followed her, tiptoeing quietly up the stairs to Regan's bedroom. Entering, the Jesuit felt chilled to the bone. The room was icy. He frowned in bewilderment at Sharon, and she nodded at him solemnly. "Yes. Yes, the heat's on," she whispered. Then she turned and stared at Regan, at the whites of her eyes glowing eerily in lamplight. She seemed to be in coma. Heavy breathing. Motionless. The nasogastric tube was in place, the Sustagen seeping slowly into her body.

Sharon moved quietly toward the bedside and Karras followed, still staggered by the cold.

When they stood by the bed, he saw beads of perspiration on Regan's forehead; glanced down and saw her hands gripped firmly in the restraining straps.

Sharon. She was bending, gently pulling the top of Regan's pajamas wide apart, and an overwhelming pity hit Karras at the sight of the wasted chest, the protruding ribs where one might count the remaining weeks or days of her life.

He felt Sharon's haunted eyes upon him. "I don't know if it's stopped," she whispered. "But watch: just keep looking at her chest."

She turned and looked down, and the Jesuit, puzzled, followed her gaze. Silence. The breathing.

Watching. The cold. Then the Jesuit's brows knitted tightly as he saw something happening to the skin: a faint redness, but in sharp definition; like handwriting. He peered down closer.

"There, it's coming," whispered Sharon.

Abruptly the gooseflesh on Karras' arms was not from the icy cold in the room; was from what he was seeing on Regan's chest; was from bas-relief script rising up in clear letters of blood-red skin. Two words:

help me

"That's her handwriting," whispered Sharon.

**********

At 9:00 that morning, Damien Karras came to the president of Georgetown University and asks for permission to seek an exorcism. He received it, and immediately afterward went to the Bishop of the diocese, who listened with grave attention to all that Karras had to say.

"You're convinced that it's genuine?" the Bishop asked finally.

"I've made a prudent judgment that it meets the conditions set forth in the Ritual," answered Karras evasively. He still did not dare believe. Not his mind but his heart had tugged him to this moment; pity and the hope for a cure through suggestion.

"You would want to do the exorcism yourself?" asked the Bishop.

He felt a moment of elation; saw the door swinging open to fields, to escape from the crushing weight of caring and that meeting each twilight with the ghost of his faith. "Yes, of course,"

answered Karras.

"How's your health?"

"All right."

"Have you ever been involved with this sort of thing before?"

"No, I haven't."

"Well, we'll see. It might be best to have a man with experience. There aren't too many, of course, but perhaps someone back from the foreign missions. Let me see who's around. In the meantime, I'll call you as soon as we know."

When Karras had left him, the Bishop called the president of Georgetown University, and they talked about him for the second time that day.

"Well, he does know the background," said the president at a point in their conversation. "I doubt there's any danger in just having him assist. There should be a psychiatrist present, anyway."

"And what about the exorcist? Any ideas? I'm blank."

"Well, now, Lankester Merrin's around."

"Merrin? I had a notion he was over is Iraq. I think I read he was working on a dig around Nineveh."

"Yes, down below Mosul. That's right. But he finished and came back around three or four months ago, Mike. He's at Woodstock."

"Teaching?"

"No, working on another book."

"God help us! Don't you think he's too old, though? "How's his health?"

"Well, it must be all right or he wouldn't still be running around digging up tombs, don't you think?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"And besides, he's had experience, Mike."

"I didn't know that."

"Well, at least that's the word."

"When was that?"

"Oh, maybe ten or twelve years ago, I think, in Africa. Supposedly the exorcism lasted for months. I heard it damn near killed him."

"Well, in that case, I doubt that he'd want to do another one."

"We do what we're told here, Mike. All the rebels are over with you seculars."

"Thanks for reminding me."

"Well, what do you think?"

"Look, I'll leave it up to you and the Provincial."

Early that silently waiting evening, a young scholastic preparing for the priesthood wandered the grounds of Woodstock Seminary in Maryland. He was searching for a slender, grayhaired old Jesuit. He found him on a pathway, strolling through a grove. He handed him a telegram.

The old man thanked him, serene, eyes kindly, then turned and renewed his contemplation; continued his walk through a nature that he loved. Now and then he would pause to hear the song of a robin, to watch a bright butterfly hover on a branch. He did not open and read the telegram. He knew what it said. He had known. He had read it in the dust of the temples of Nineveh. He was ready.

He continued his farewells.