"And it is all over. It will not begin
again. Since leaving New Orleans I have traveled an innocent journey
straight to you. And when I make my fortune I shall be in a position to
return and--"
"Claim the pressed flowrer?" suggested the Padre. He did not smile.
"Ah, you remember how those things are!" said Gaston: and he laughed and
blushed.
"Yes," said the Padre, looking at the anchored barkentine, "I remember
how those things are."
For a while the vessel and its cargo and the landed men and various
business and conversations occupied them. But the freight for the mission
once seen to, there was not much else to detain them.
The barkentine was only a coaster like many others which had begun to
fill the sea a little more of late years, and presently host and guest
were riding homeward. Side by side they rode, companions to the eye, but
wide apart in mood; within the turbulent young figure of Gaston dwelt a
spirit that could not be more at ease, while revolt was steadily kindling
beneath the schooled and placid mask of the Padre.
Yet still the strangeness of his situation in such a remote, resourceless
place came back as a marvel into the young man's lively mind. Twenty
years in prison, he thought, and hardly aware of it! And he glanced at
the silent priest.
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