He walked away from Gabriel, who-was quite unable to understand the true bearing of this aberration among his disciples.  Several times when he went up to the tower to spend a few moments with his friends, they would suddenly cease their conversation, looking anxiously at him as though they feared he might have overheard their words.

It was several days since Don Martin had been in the cloister.  Gabriel knew through Silver Stick that the chaplain’s mother had died, and a week afterwards he saw him one evening in the Claverias.  His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks thin, and his skin drawn as though he had wept much.

“I come to take farewell, Gabriel.  I have spent a month of sorrow and sleeplessness nursing my mother.  The poor thing is dead; she was far from young, and I expected this ending, but however strong and resigned one may be, these blows must be felt.  Now the poor old woman is gone I am free; she was the only tie that bound me to this Church, in which I no longer believe.  Its dogma is absurd and puerile, its history a tissue of crimes and violence.  Why should I lie like others, feigning a faith I do not feel?  To-day I have been to the palace to tell them they may dispose of my seven duros monthly and my chaplaincy of nuns.  I am going away.  I wish not only to fly the Church, I wish to get out of her atmosphere; and a renegade priest could not live in Toledo.  You see this masquerade?  I wear it to-day for the last time; to-morrow I shall taste the first joy of my life, tearing this shroud into shreds, such small shreds that no one will be able to use them.  I shall be a man.  I will go far away, as far as I can.  I wish to know what the world is like as I have to live in it.  I know no one, I shall have no assistance.  You are the most extraordinary man I have ever known, and here you are hidden in this dungeon by your own free will, concealed in a Church which to your views must be empty.  I am not afraid of poverty.  When one has been God’s representative on six reals a day one can look hunger in the face.  I will be a workman; I will dig the earth, if necessary.  I will get employment on something—­but I shall be a free man.”

As the two friends walked up and down the cloister Gabriel counselled Don Martin in determining the place to which he should direct his steps, as his thoughts wavered between Paris and the American republics, where emigration was most needed.

As the evening fell, Gabriel took leave of his disciple; his fellow-watchman was waiting for him in the cloister ready for locking-up time.

“Probably we shall never meet again,” said the chaplain sadly.  “You will end your days here, in the house of a God in whom you do not believe.”

“Yes, I shall die here,” said Gabriel, smiling.  “He and I hate one another, but all the same it seems as if He could not do without me.  If He goes out into the streets it is I who guide His steps, and again at night, it is I who guard His wealth.  Good-bye, and good-luck, Martin.  Be a man without weakness.  Truth is well worth poverty.”