without a name, and dares not sign a business document, a walking dead
man. I could even pity him if he were real. But who can pity nothing?"

A look of defiance came into the man's glittering eyes as he took one
step nearer to the door and continued:

"Esmond Clarenden drove me out of the United States with threats of
implicating me in the death of my father, and I knew his power and
brutal daring to do anything he chose to do. It was but his wish to have
revenge for this nameless thing--"

The scorn of Ramero's eyes and voice as he looked at Jondo were
withering.

"And this thing keeps me here by threats of attacks, even when he knows
that by such attacks he will reveal himself. It has been a grim game."
Something of a grin showed all of the man's fine teeth. "A grim game,
and never played to a finish till now. I leave it to you, Father Josef,
to judge who has been the stronger and who comes out of it victor. I
make restoration--of what? I leave the St. Vrain money that I have
guarded for Eloise, the daughter of the man who killed, or helped to
kill, my father. You can control it now, among you: Clarenden, already
rich; your Church, notorious in its robbery of the poor by enriching its
coffers; or this uncle here, who is dead and buried in an unknown grave.
That is all the restoration I can make. Repentance, I do not know what
that word means. Keep it for the poor devils you will gather in
to-morrow night to be shriven. They need it. I do not."

He turned and strode out of the church and, mounting his horse, rode
like a madman up the yellow valley of the San Christobal. In after years
I could find no term to so well describe that last act as the words of
Beverly Clarenden, who came to the chapel just in time to hear Ferdinand
Ramero's closing declaration, and to see his black scowl and scornful
air, as, in a royal madness, he defied the power of man and denounced
the all-pitying love that is big enough for the most sinful.

"It was Paradise lost," Beverly declared, "and Satan falling clear to
hell before the Archangel's flaming sword. Only he went east and the
real Satan dropped down to his place. But they will meet up somewhere,
Ramero and the real one, and not be able to tell each other apart."

And Jondo. My boyhood idol, brave, gentle, unselfish, able everywhere!
Jondo, who had kept my toddling feet from stumbling, who had taught me
to ride and swim and shoot, who had made me wise in plains lore, and
manl