re could get out of
bed, and soon could be in the garden. But the voices within him still
talked all the while as he sat watching the sails when they passed
between the headlands. Their words, falling forever the same way, beat
his spirit sore, like bruised flesh. If he could only change what they
said, he could rest.

"Has the padre any mail for Santa Barbara?" said Felipe. "The ship bound
southward should be here to-morrow."

"I will attend to it," said the priest, not moving. And Felipe stole
away.

At Felipe's words the voices had stopped, a clock done striking.
Silence, strained like expectation, filled the padre's soul. But in
place of the voices came old sights of home again, the waving trees at
Aranhal; then would be Rachel for a moment, declaiming tragedy while a
houseful of faces that he knew by name watched her; and through all the
panorama rang the pleasant laugh of Gaston. For a while in the evening
the padre sat at his Erard playing "Trovatore." Later, in his sleepless
bed he lay, saying now a then: "To die at home! Surely I may granted
at least this." And he listened for the inner voices. But they were not
speaking any more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful to
him than their arguments. Then the dawn came in at his window, and he
lay watching its gray grow warm into color, us suddenly he sprang from
his bed and looked the sea. The southbound ship was coming. People were
on board who in a few weeks would be sailing the Atlantic, while he
would stand here looking out of the same window. "Merciful God!" he
cried, sinking on knees. "Heavenly Father, Thou seest this evil in my
heart. Thou knowest that my weak hand cannot pluck it out. My strength
is breaking, and still Thou makest my burden heavier than I can bear."
He stopped, breathless and trembling. The same visions were flitting
across his closed eyes; the same silence gaped like a dry crater in his
soul. "There is no help in earth or heaven," he said, very quietly; and
he dressed himself.

It was so early still that none but a few of the Indians were stirring,
and one of them saddled the padre's mule. Felipe was not yet awake, and
for a moment it came in the priest's mind to open the boy's door softly,
look at him once more, and come away. But this he did not do, nor
even take a farewell glance at the church and organ. He bade nothing
farewell, but, turning his back upon his room and his garden, rode down
the caution.

The vessel la