“You will now relinquish all claim upon the control of this estate, whose revenue made your father and yourself to be accounted rich, and upon which your son has been allowed to build up a life expectation; and though on account of it, you go forth a poor man in wordly goods, you may go out rich in the blessing of restoration and repentance.”

Ferdinand Ramero’s steel eyes were fixed like the eyes of a snake on the holy man’s face.  Restoration and repentance do not belong behind eyes like that.

“I can fight you in the courts.  You and your Church may go to the devil;” he seemed to hiss rather than to speak these words.

“We do go to him every day to bring back souls like yours,” Father Josef’s voice was calm.  “I have waited a long time for you to repent.  You can go to the courts, but you will not do it.  For the sake of your wife, Gloria Ramero, and Felix Narveo, her brother, we do not move against you, and you dare not move for yourself, because your own record will not bear the light of legal investigation.”

Ferdinand Ramero sprang up, the blaze of passion, uncontrolled through all his years, bursting forth in the tragedy of the hour.  Eloise was right.  In his anger he was a maniac.

“You dare to threaten me!  You pen me in a corner to stab me to death!  You hold disgrace and miserable poverty over my head, and cant of restoration and repentance!  Not until here you name each thing that you count against me, and I have met them point by point, will I restore.  I never will repent!”

In the vehemence of anger, Ramero was the embodiment of the dramatic force of unrestraint, and withal he was handsome, with a controlling magnetism even in his hour of downfall.

Jondo had said that Father Josef had somewhere back a strain of Indian blood in his veins.  It must have been this that gave the fiber of self control to his countenance as he looked with pitying eyes at Jondo and Eloise St. Vrain.

“The hour is struck,” he said, sadly.  “And you shall hear your record, point by point, because you ask it now.  First:  you have retained, controlled, misused, and at last embezzled the fortune of Theron St. Vrain, as it was retained, controlled, misused, and embezzled by your father, Henry Ramer, in his lifetime.  Any case in civil courts must show how the heritage of Eloise St. Vrain, heir to Theron St. Vrain at the death of her mother—­”

“Not until the death of her mother—­” Ferdinand Ramero broke in, hoarsely.

For the first time to-day the priest’s cheek paled, but his voice was unbroken as he continued: 

“I would have been kinder for your own sake.  You desire otherwise.  Yes, only after the death of Mary Marchland St. Vrain could you dictate concerning her daughter’s affairs, with most questionable legality even then.  Mary Marchland St. Vrain is not dead.”

The chapel was as silent as the grave.  My heart stood still.  Before me was Jondo, big, strong, self-controlled, inured to the tragic deeds of the epic years of the West.  No pen of mine will ever make the picture of Jondo’s face at these words of Father Josef.