"Do you know who he is?"
"I do."
"Are you a relation or friend of his?"'
"Neither one nor the other. Still, I repeat to you, very weighty reasons compel me to see him and speak with him, if that be possible."
Father Seraphin took a searching glance at the speaker.
He was a man of great height, apparently in the fullest vigour of life. His features, so far as it was possible to distinguish them by the pale and tremulous moonbeams, were handsome, though an expression of unbending will was the marked thing about them. He wore the dress of rich Mexican hacenderos, and had in his right hand a magnificently inlaid American rifle. Still the missionary hesitated.
"Well," the stranger continued, "have you made up your mind, father?"
"Sir," Father Seraphin answered with firmness, "do not take in ill part what I am going to say to you."
The stranger bowed.
"I do not know who you are; you present yourself to me in the depths of the night, under singular circumstances. You insist, with strange tenacity, on seeing the poor man whom Christian charity compelled me to pick up. Prudence demands that I should refuse to let you see him."