The priest glanced at his garments, which bore the traces of the sea, but remained silent.
"Do you think I am lying?"
The old priest lifted his head with a gesture.
"Not to me—but to God!"
The young man followed the gesture, and glanced around the barbaric church with a slight look of scorn. But the profound isolation, the mystic seclusion, and, above all, the complete obliteration of that world and civilization he shrank from and despised, again subdued and overcame his rebellious spirit. He lifted his eyes to the priest.
"Nor to God," he said gravely.
"Then why withhold anything from Him here?" said the priest gently.
"I am not a Catholic—I do not believe in confession," said Hurlstone doggedly, turning aside.
But Padre Esteban laid his large brown hand on the young man's shoulder. Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact, he sank again into his seat.
"Yet you ask for the sanctuary of His house—a sanctuary bought by that contrition whose first expression is the bared and open soul! To the first worldly shelter you sought—the peon's hut or the Alcalde's casa—you would have thought it necessary to bring a story. You would not conceal from the physician whom you asked for balsam either the wound, the symptoms, or the cause? Enough," he said kindly, as Hurlstone was about to reply. "You shall have your request. You shall stay here. I will be your physician, and will salve your wounds; if any poison I know not of rankle there, you will not blame me, son, but perhaps you will assist me to find it. I will give you a secluded cell in the dormitory until the ship has sailed. And then"—