y. Then he drew his plans and waited. But in the
interim he made further investigations; and these he extended far back
into the ancestral history of this unfortunate scion of the once
powerful house of Rincon.

Meantime, a few carefully chosen words to the Bishop aroused a dull
interest in that quarter. Jose had been seen mingling freely with men
of very liberal political views. It would be well to warn him. Again,
weeks later, Wenceslas was certain, from inquiries made among the
students, that Jose's work in the classroom bordered a trifle too
closely on radicalism. It were well to admonish him. And, still later,
happening to call at Jose's quarters just above his own in the
ecclesiastical dormitory, and not finding him in, he had been struck
by the absence of crucifix or other religious symbol in the room. Was
the young priest becoming careless of his example?

And now, on this important feast-day, where was Padre Jose? On the
preceding evening, as Wenceslas leaned over the parapet of the wall
after his surprise by Jose, he had noted in the dim light the salient
features of a foreigner who, he had just learned, was registered at
the Hotel Mariano from the United States. Moreover, Wenceslas had just
come from Jose's room, whither he had gone in search of him, and--may
the Saints pardon his excess of holy zeal which impelled him to
examine the absent priest's effects!--he had returned now to the
Bishop bearing a copy of Renan's _Vie de Jesus_, with the American's
name on the flyleaf. It certainly were well to admonish Padre Jose
again, and severely!

The Bishop, hardly to the surprise of his crafty coadjutor, flew into
a towering rage. He was a man of irascible temper, bitterly
intolerant, and unreasoningly violent against all unbelievers,
especially Americans whose affairs brought them to Colombia. In this
respect he was the epitome of the ecclesiastical anti-foreign
sentiment which obtained in that country. His intolerance of heretics
was such that he would gladly have bound his own kin to the stake had
he believed their opinions unorthodox. Yet he was thoroughly
conscientious, a devout churchman, and saturated with the beliefs of
papal infallibility and the divine origin of the Church. In the
observance of church rites and ceremonies he was unremitting. In the
soul-burning desire to witness the conversion of the world, and
especially to see the lost children of Europe either coaxed or beaten
back into the embrac