iest watched through his
glasses, and saw the gradual sun grow strong upon the canvas of the
barkentine. The message from his world was at hand, yet to-day he
scarcely cared so much. Sitting in his garden yesterday, he could never
have imagined such a change. But his heart did not hail the barkentine
as usual. Books, music, pale paper, and print--this was all that was
coming to him, some of its savor had gone; for the siren voice of Life
had been speaking with him face to face, and in his spirit, deep down,
the love of the world was restlessly answering it. Young Gaston showed
more eagerness than the Padre over this arrival of the vessel that might
be bringing Trovatore in the nick of time. Now he would have the chance,
before he took his leave, to help rehearse the new music with the choir.
He would be a missionary, too: a perfectly new experience.

"And you still forgive Verdi the sins of his youth?" he said to his
host. "I wonder if you could forgive mine?"

"Verdi has left his behind him," retorted the Padre.

"But I am only twenty-five!" exclaimed Gaston, pathetically.

"Ah, don't go away soon!" pleaded the exile. It was the first
unconcealed complaint that had escaped him, and he felt instant shame.

But Gaston was too much elated with the enjoyment of each new day to
comprehend the Padre's soul. The shafts of another's pain might hardly
pierce the bright armor of his gaiety. He mistook the priest's entreaty,
for anxiety about his own happy spirit.

"Stay here under your care?" he asked. "It would do me no good, Padre.
Temptation sticks closer to me than a brother!" and he gave that laugh
of his which had disarmed severer judges than his host. "By next week I
should have introduced some sin or other into your beautiful Garden of
Ignorance here. It will be much safer for your flock if I go and join
the other serpents at San Francisco."

Soon after breakfast the Padre had his two mules saddled, and he and his
guest set forth down the hills together to the shore. And, beneath the
spell and confidence of pleasant, slow riding and the loveliness of
everything, the young man talked freely of himself.

"And, seriously," said he, "if I missed nothing else at Santa Ysabel, I
should long for--how shall I say it?--for insecurity, for danger, and
of all kinds--not merely danger to the body. Within these walls, beneath
these sacred bells, you live too safe for a man like me."

"Too safe!" These echoed words upon the l