ustration
of the fact that chance will betray those who wait most assiduously upon
her, the curtain of the great door of the cathedral was drawn aside, and
Leon de Mogente came out blinking into the sunlight. The meeting was
inevitable.

"There is Leon--by a lucky chance," said Mon almost immediately.

Leon de Mogente had seen them and was hurrying to meet them. Seen thus in
the street, under the sun, he was a pale and bloodless man--food for the
cloister. He bowed with an odd humility to Mon, but spoke directly to the
Count de Sarrion. He knew, and showed that he knew, that Mon was not glad
to see him.

"I did not know that you were in Saragossa," he said. "A terrible thing
has happened. My father is dead. He died without the benefits of the
Church. He returned secretly to Saragossa two days ago and was attacked
and robbed in the streets."

"And died in that house," added Sarrion, indicating with his stick the
building they had just quitted.

"Ye--es," answered Leon hesitatingly, with a quick and frightened glance
at Mon. "It may have been. I do not know. He died without the consolation
of the Church. It is that that I think of."

"Yes," said Sarrion rather coldly, "you naturally would."

CHAPTER V

A PILGRIMAGE
Evasio Mon was a great traveler. In Eastern countries a man who makes the
pilgrimage to Mecca adds thereafter to his name a title which carries
with it not only the distinction conferred upon the dullest by the sight
of other men and countries, but the bearer stands high among the elect.

If many pilgrimages could confer a title, this gentle-mannered Spaniard
would assuredly have been thus decorated. He had made almost every
pilgrimage that the Church may dictate--that wise old Church, which fills
so well its vocation in the minds of the restless and the unsatisfied. He
had been many times to Rome. He could tell you the specific properties of
every shrine in the Roman Catholic world. He made a sort of speciality in
latter-day miracles.

Did this woman want a son to put a graceful finish to her family of
daughters, he could tell her of some little-known pilgrimage in the
mountains which rarely failed.

"Go," he would say. "Go there, and say your prayer. It is the right thing
to do. The air of the mountains is delightful. The journey diverts the
mind."

In all of which he was quite right. And it was not for him, any more than
it is for the profane reader, to inquire why latter-day miracles a