racy of souls," said the Padre, again whispering.

"But the body and the mind!" cried Gaston. "My God, are they nothing? Do
you think that they are given to us for nothing but a trap? You cannot
teach such a doctrine with your library there. And how about all
the cultivated men and women away from whose quickening society the
brightest of us grow numb? You have held out. But will it be for long?
Are you never to save any souls of your own kind? Are not twenty years
of mesclados enough? No, no!" finished young Gaston, hot with his
unforeseen eloquence; "I should ride down some morning and take the
barkentine."

Padre Ignacio was silent for a space.

"I have not offended you?" asked the young man.

"No. Anything but that. You are surprised that I should--choose--to stay
here. Perhaps you may have wondered how I came to be here at all?"

"I had not intended any impertinent--"

"Oh no. Put such an idea out of your head, my son. You may remember that
I was going to make you a confession about my operas. Let us sit down in
this shade."

So they picketed the mules near the stream and sat down.

IV

"You have seen," began Padre Ignacio, "what sort of a man I--was once.
Indeed, it seems very strange to myself that you should have been here
not twenty-four hours yet, and know so much of me. For there has come
no one else at all"--the Padre paused a moment and mastered the
unsteadiness that he had felt approaching in his voice--"there has been
no one else to whom I have talked so freely. In my early days I had
no thought of being a priest. By parents destined me for a diplomatic
career. There was plenty of money and--and all the rest of it; for by
inheritance came to me the acquaintance of many people whose names
you would be likely to have heard of. Cities, people of fashion,
artists--the whole of it was my element and my choice; and by-and-by I
married, not only where it was desirable, but where I loved. Then
for the first time Death laid his staff upon my enchantment, and I
understood many things that had been only words to me hitherto. To have
been a husband for a year, and a father for a moment, and in that moment
to lose all--this unblinded me. Looking back, it seemed to me that I had
never done anything except for myself all my days. I left the world. In
due time I became a priest and lived in my own country. But my worldly
experience and my secular education had given to my opinions a turn
too liberal for