“It is of needcessity,” Ricos said. His face was white and scared. “Rosario, she write me that he will die, and if I see him not before, and assure myself that he carry no ill-will of me to the Paradiso, then my life shall be one Purgatorio. Indeed, I must see him; it is of great needcessity.”
Mrs. Armstrong also hesitated when Ricos presented himself, but Jim heard his voice and called him eagerly.
“Ricos! Ricos! is it really you? Oh, I’m so glad!”
“Of a surety, it is I,” Ricos replied. “I have come to ask your forgiveness. Alas! I am one miserable.”
“I will forgive you, Ricos, if you will tell Colonel Grey all about it, so that Terwilliger need not go to prison. You know they have arrested him, and really it is he and Stacey who ought to forgive you, and not I at all.”
“I do not comprehend of what you refer. I ask you to forgive me for your hurt——”
“But that is nothing! I am sorry that I beat you, Ricos. I wanted to win awfully, but I know now that you wanted the medal a great deal more than I did, and I’m so sorry Stacey did not run the best. Mother read me a verse that seemed just to be written for our games. I read it to Stacey and he said it would help him. Mother, please read it to Ricos, perhaps it will help him, too.”
And Mrs. Armstrong read:
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.
Ricos looked still more frightened. The Bible to him was a book only for priests. Jim must certainly be at the point of death, or he would not ask to have it read; but Jim spoke up earnestly: