Except for the few stipends I could give him and which he devoted to his work, it was impossible to do anything.  He was brave and never faltered though the eyes in him shone brighter and in places his coat was worn through.  A few days later I received a letter from his bishop asking how he did and saying that he would appoint him to an excellent parish if he would return home willingly.  I sent the letter to Alta with a little note of my own, congratulating him on his changed condition.  He returned the letter to me with a few lines saying:  ’I can not go.  If I desert my people here it would be a sin.  There are plenty at home for the rich places but you have no one to send here.  Please ask the bishop to let me stay.  I think it is God’s will.’  The day I received that letter I heard one of my priests at the Cathedral say:  ’How seedy that young Belmond looks! for an Eastern man he is positively sloppy in his dress.  He ought to brace up and think of the dignity of his calling.  Surely such a man is not calculated to impress himself upon our separated brethren.’  And another chimed in:  ’I wonder why he left his own diocese?’”

“I heard no more for two years except for the annual report, and now and then a request for a dispensation.  I did hear that he was teaching the few children of the parish himself, and every little while I saw an article in some of the papers, unsigned but suspiciously like his style, and I suspected that he was earning a little money with his pen.

“One winter night, returning alone from a visitation of Vinta, the fast train was stalled by a blizzard at the Alta station.  I went out on the platform to secure a breath of fresh air, but I had scarcely closed the door when a boy rushed up to me and asked if I were a Catholic priest.  When I nodded he said:  ’We have been trying to get a priest all day, but the wires are down in the storm.  Father Belmond is sick and the doctor says he will die.  He told me to look through every train that came in.  He was sure I would find some one.’  Reaching at once for my grip and coat I rushed to the home of the Pastor.  The home was the lean-to vestry of the old log church.  In one corner Father Belmond lived; another was given over to the vestments and linens.  Everything was spotlessly clean.  On a poor bed the priest was tossing, moaning and delirious.  Only the boy had attended him in his sickness until the noon of that day when two good old women heard of his condition and came.  One of them was at his bedside when I entered.  When she saw my collar she lifted her hands in that peculiarly Hibernian gesture that means so much, and said: 

“’Sure, God sent you here this night.  He has been waiting since noon to die.’

“The sick priest opened his eyes that now had the brightness of death in them and appeared to look through me.  He seemed to be very far away.  But slowly the eyes told me that he was coming back—­back from the shadows; then at last he spoke: