Seeing the priest slowly coming, this
stranger approached to meet him.
"You are connected with the mission here?" he inquired.
"I--am."
"Perhaps it is with you that Gaston Villere stopped?"
"The young man from New Orleans? Yes. I am Padre Ignacio."
"Then you'll save me a journey. I promised him to deliver these into your
own hands."
The stranger gave them to him.
"A bag of gold-dust," he explained, "and a letter. I wrote it at his
dictation while he was dying. He lived hardly an hour afterward."
The stranger bowed his head at the stricken cry which his news elicited
from the priest, who, after a few moments' vain effort to speak, opened
the letter and read:
My dear Friend,--It is through no man's fault but mine that I have come
to this. I have had plenty of luck, and lately have been counting the
days until I should return home. But last night heavy news from New
Orleans reached me, and I tore the pressed flower to pieces. Under the
first smart and humiliation of broken faith I was rendered desperate, and
picked a needless quarrel. Thank God, it is I who have the punishment. By
dear friend, as I lie here, leaving a world that no man ever loved more,
I have come to understand you. For you and your mission have been much in
my thoughts.
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