ting glimpses of their rich emerald color as the morning breeze
stirred the heavy clouds of vapor which hung sullenly above them.

To all this the man, looking vacantly out across the city walls to
where the sea birds dipped on the rippling waves, was apparently
oblivious. Nor did he manifest the slightest interest in the animated
scene before him until a tall, heavy-set young priest emerged from the
entrance of the dormitory below and stopped for a moment in the middle
of the road to bask in the brilliant sunlight and fill his lungs with
the invigorating ocean breeze. Turning his eyes suddenly upward, the
latter caught sight of the man at the window.

"Ah, _amigo_ Jose!" he called in friendly greeting, his handsome face
aglow with a cordial smile. "Our good Saint Claver has not lobbied for
us in vain! We shall yet have a good day for the bulls, no?"

"An excellent one, I think, Wenceslas," quickly replied the man
addressed, who then turned abruptly away as if he wished to avoid
further conversation. The priest below regarded the empty window for a
moment. Then, with a short, dry laugh and a cynical shrug of his broad
shoulders, he passed on.

As the man above turned back into the room his face, wearing the look
of one far gone in despair, was contorted with passion. Fear,
confusion, and undefined soul-longing seemed to move rapidly across
it, each leaving its momentary impression, and all mingling at times
in a surging flood that swelled the veins of his temples to the point
of rupture. Mechanically he paced his narrow cell, throwing frequent
furtive glances at the closed door, as if he suspected himself
watched. Often he stopped abruptly, and with head bowed and brows
furrowed, seemed to surrender his soul to the forces with which it was
wrestling. Often he clasped his head wildly in his hands and turned
his beseeching eyes upward, as if he would call upon an invisible
power above to aid him, yet restrained by the deadening conviction of
experience that such appeal would meet with no response, and that he
must stand in his own strength, however feeble.

Hours passed thus. The sun gained the zenith and the streets were
ablaze. Belated marketers, with laden baskets atop their heads, were
hurrying homeward, hugging the scanty shade of the glaring buildings.
Shopkeepers were drawing their shutters and closing their heavy doors,
leaving the hot noon hour asleep on the scorching portals. The midday
_Angelus_ called fro