together with what little you have been able to send me from time to
time, and a recent generous contribution from your dear uncle, to
enable me to visit you. I shall sail for Colombia just as soon as you
send me detailed instructions regarding the journey. And, oh, my son,
to see you offering the Mass in your own church, and to realize that
your long delayed preferment is even at hand, for so your good uncle
informs me daily, will again warm the blood in a heart long chilled by
poignant suffering. Till we meet, the Blessed Virgin shield you, my
beloved son."

The letter slipped from the priest's fingers and drifted to the floor.
With a moan he sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

CHAPTER 36

What had kept Jose de Rincon chained all these years to an institution
to which in thought, feeling, and sympathy he was so utterly alien, we
have repeatedly pointed out--a warped sense of filial devotion, a
devotion that would not willingly bring sorrow upon his proud,
sensitive mother, and yet the kind that so often accomplishes just
that which it strives to avoid. But yet he had somehow failed to note
the nice distinction which he was always making between the promises
he had given to her and the oath which he had taken at his ordination.
He had permitted himself to be held to the Church by his mother's fond
desires, despite the fact that his nominal observance of these had
wrecked his own life and all but brought her in sorrow to the grave.
The abundance of his misery might be traced to forgetfulness of the
sapient words of Jesus: "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father
which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."

Then had come Carmen. And he had sacrificed his new-found life to the
child. He had exhausted every expedient to keep himself in Simiti,
that he might transfer his own great learning to this girl, and at the
same time yield himself to her beneficent influence. Yet, despite his
vague hopes, he had always dimly seen the day when she would leave
him; but he had likewise tried to feel that when it arrived his own
status would be such that the ecclesiastical ties which bound him
would be loosened, and he would be free to follow her. Alas! the lapse
of years had brought little change in that respect.

But now he saw the girl entering upon that very hour of departure
which all his life in Simiti had hung like a menacing cloud above
him. And the shock had been such t