Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact, he sank again
into his seat.
"Yet you ask for the sanctuary of His house--a sanctuary bought by that
contrition whose first expression is the bared and open soul! To the
first worldly shelter you sought--the peon's hut or the Alcalde's
casa--you would have thought it necessary to bring a story. You would
not conceal from the physician whom you asked for balsam either the
wound, the symptoms, or the cause? Enough," he said kindly, as Hurlstone
was about to reply. "You shall have your request. You shall stay here. I
will be your physician, and will salve your wounds; if any poison I know
not of rankle there, you will not blame me, son, but perhaps you will
assist me to find it. I will give you a secluded cell in the dormitory
until the ship has sailed. And then"--
He dropped quietly on the settle, took the young man's hand paternally
in his own, and gazed into his eyes as if he read his soul.
And then . . . Ah, yes . . . What then? Hurlstone glanced once more
around him. He thought of the quiet night; of the great peace that had
fallen upon him since he had entered the garden, and the promise of
a greater peace that seemed to breathe with the incense from those
venerable walls.
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