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“Absent!” Still lighter, still deeper, was this whisper that the Padre breathed.

“I must find life,” exclaimed Gaston, “and my fortune at the mines, I hope. I am not a bad fellow, Father. You can easily guess all the things I do. I have never, to my knowledge, harmed any one. I didn’t even try to kill my adversary in an affair of honor. I gave him a mere flesh-wound, and by this time he must be quite recovered. He was my friend. But as he came between me–“

Gaston stopped, and the Padre, looking keenly at him, saw the violence that he had noticed in church pass like a flame over the young man’s handsome face.

“That’s nothing dishonorable,” said Gaston, answering the priest’s look. And then, because this look made him not quite at his ease: “Perhaps a priest might feel obliged to say it was dishonorable. She and her father were–a man owes no fidelity before he is–but you might say that had been dishonorable.”

“I have not said so, my son.”

“I did what every gentleman would do.” insisted Gaston.

“And that is often wrong!” said the Padre, gently and gravely. “But I’m not your confessor.”

“No,” said Gaston, looking down. “And it is all over. It will not begin again. Since leaving New Orleans I have traveled an innocent journey straight to you. And when I make my fortune I shall be in a position to return and–“

“Claim the pressed flowrer?” suggested the Padre. He did not smile.

“Ah, you remember how those things are!” said Gaston: and he laughed and blushed.

“Yes,” said the Padre, looking at the anchored barkentine, “I remember how those things are.”

For a while the vessel and its cargo and the landed men and various business and conversations occupied them. But the freight for the mission once seen to, there was not much else to detain them.

The barkentine was only a coaster like many others which had begun to fill the sea a little more of late years, and presently host and guest were riding homeward. Side by side they rode, companions to the eye, but wide apart in mood; within the turbulent young figure of Gaston dwelt a spirit that could not be more at ease, while revolt was steadily kindling beneath the schooled and placid mask of the Padre.

Yet still the strangeness of his situation in such a remote, resourceless place came back as a marvel into the young man’s lively mind. Twenty years in prison, he thought, and hardly aware of it! And he glanced at the silent priest. A man so evidently fond of music, of theaters, of the world, to whom pressed flowers had meant something once–and now contented to bleach upon these wastes! Not even desirous of a brief holiday, but finding an old organ and some old operas enough recreation! “It is his age, I suppose,” thought Gaston. And then the notion of himself when he should be sixty occurred to him, and he spoke.

“Do you know, I do not believe,” said he, “that I should ever reach such contentment as yours.”

“Perhaps you will,” said Padre Ignacio, in a low voice.

“Never!” declared the youth. “It comes only to the few, I am sure.”

“Yes. Only to the few,” murmured the Padre.

“I am certain that it must be a great possession,” Gaston continued; “and yet–and yet–dear me! life is a splendid thing!”

“There are several ways to live it,” said the Padre.

“Only one for me!” cried Gaston. “Action, men, women, things–to be there, to be known, to play a part, to sit in the front seats; to have people tell one another, ‘There goes Gaston Villere!’ and to deserve one’s prominence. Why, if I was Padre of Santa Ysabel del Mar for twenty years– no! for one year–do you know what I should have done? Some day it would have been too much for me. I should have left these savages to a pastor nearer their own level, and I should have ridden down this canyon upon my mule, and stepped on board the barkentine, and gone back to my proper sphere. You will understand, sir, that I am far from venturing to make any personal comment. I am only thinking what a world of difference lies between natures that can feel as alike as we do upon so many subjects. Why, not since leaving New Orleans have I met any one with whom I could talk, except of the weather and the brute interests common to us all. That such a one as you should be here is like a dream.”