where it ran through one corner of the Mission land. He climbed the
hill and halted, out of breath from his brisk wall, at the end of the
colonnade of the Mission itself.

Until this moment Vanamee had not trusted himself to see the Mission at
night. On the occasion of his first daytime visit with Presley, he had
hurried away even before the twilight had set in, not daring for the
moment to face the crowding phantoms that in his imagination filled the
Mission garden after dark. In the daylight, the place had seemed
strange to him. None of his associations with the old building and its
surroundings were those of sunlight and brightness. Whenever, during his
long sojourns in the wilderness of the Southwest, he had called up the
picture in the eye of his mind, it had always appeared to him in the dim
mystery of moonless nights, the venerable pear trees black with shadow,
the fountain a thing to be heard rather than seen.

But as yet he had not entered the garden. That lay on the other side of
the Mission. Vanamee passed down the colonnade, with its uneven pavement
of worn red bricks, to the last door by the belfry tower, and rang the
little bell by pulling the leather thong that hung from a hole in the
door above the knob.

But the maid-servant, who, after a long interval opened the door,
blinking and confused at being roused from her sleep, told Vanamee that
Sarria was not in his room. Vanamee, however, was known to her as the
priest's protege and great friend, and she allowed him to enter, telling
him that, no doubt, he would find Sarria in the church itself. The
servant led the way down the cool adobe passage to a larger room that
occupied the entire width of the bottom of the belfry tower, and whence
a flight of aged steps led upward into the dark. At the foot of the
stairs was a door opening into the church. The servant admitted Vanamee,
closing the door behind her.

The interior of the Mission, a great oblong of white-washed adobe with
a flat ceiling, was lighted dimly by the sanctuary lamp that hung from
three long chains just over the chancel rail at the far end of the
church, and by two or three cheap kerosene lamps in brackets of
imitation bronze. All around the walls was the inevitable series of
pictures representing the Stations of the Cross. They were of a
hideous crudity of design and composition, yet were wrought out with an
innocent, unquestioning sincerity that was not without its charm. Each
picture f