"

"Well--but--_chiquita_, it is often hard for me to see anything but
this sort of 'we,'" returned the man dejectedly.

"Oh, Padre!" she entreated, "why will you not try to look at something
else than the human man? Look at God's man, the image of infinite
mind. You have _got_ to do it, you know, some time. Jesus said so. He
said that every man would have to overcome. That means turning away
from the thoughts that are externalized as sin and sickness and evil,
and looking only at God's thoughts--and, what is more, _sticking to
them_!"

"Yes," dubiously, "I suppose we must some time overcome every belief
in anything opposed to God."

"Well, but need that make you unhappy? It is just because you still
cling to the belief that there is other power than God that you get so
discouraged and mixed up. Can't you let go? Try it! Why, I would try
it even if a whole mountain fell on me!"

And Jose could but clasp the earnest girl in his arms and vow that he
would try again as never before.

* * * * *

Meantime, while Jose and his little student-teacher were delving into
the inexhaustible treasury of the Word; while the peaceful days came
into their lives and went out again almost unperceived, the priest
Diego left the bed upon which he had been stretched for many weeks,
and hobbled painfully about upon his scarcely mended ankle. While a
prisoner upon his couch his days had been filled with torture. Try as
he might, he could not beat down the vision which constantly rose
before him, that of the beautiful girl who had been all but his. He
cursed; he raved; he vowed the foulest vengeance. And then he cried
piteously, as he lay chained to his bed--cried for something that
seemed to take human shape in her. He protested that he loved her;
that he adored her; that without her he was but a blasted cedar. His
nurses fled his bedside. His physician stopped his ears. Only Don
Antonio was found low enough in thought to withstand the flow of foul
language which issued from the baffled Diego's thick lips while he
moved about in attendance upon the unhappy priest's needs.

Then came from the acting-Bishop, Wenceslas, a mandate commissioning
Diego upon a religio-political mission to the interior city of
Medellin. The now recovered priest smiled grimly when he read it. Then
he summoned Ricardo.

"Prepare yourself, _amigo_," he said, "for a work of the Lord. I go
into the interior. You accompa