The old priest pressed the crucifix tightly against his breast.  “What would you take back to Marqua?” he demanded.  “Nothing but your purple and your eloquence.  How could you, who have forgotten to pray in the midst of affliction, teach your people how to pray in the midst of their sorrows?  Marqua does not need you, for Marqua needs the man you might have been, but which you are not.  The city does not need you, for the city needs no man; but it is you who need the city, that you may learn again the lesson that once made you the missionary of a people.”

Faintly, through the silence that fell the deeper as the old man’s words died away, there came the sound of footsteps pacing in another room.  Once more the old man took up his speech.

“They are Pietro’s steps,” he said.  “All night long I have heard you both.  He has been sobbing under the burden he believes he is unworthy to bear, while you have been raging that you were not permitted to bear it.  Pietro was only your servant.  He would be your servant again if he could.  He loves you.  I, too, love you.  Perhaps I was selfish in loving you, but I wanted for God your soul and the souls you were leading to Him.”

The old man arose.  He put out his hand to grope his way back to the door.  It touched Ramoni, sitting rigid.  He did not stir.  The hand reached over him, caught the lintel of the door and guided the blind man to the hall.  Then Ramoni stood up.  Without a word he followed the other.  When he had overtaken him he laid his hand gently on the blind man’s arm and led him back to his cell.

When he came back the door of the chapel was open.  Ramoni, going within, found Pietro there, prostrate at the foot of the altar.  Ramoni knelt at the door, his eyes brimming with tears.  He did not pray.  He only gazed upon the far-off tabernacle.  And while he knelt the Great Plan unfolded itself to him.  He looked back on Marqua as a man who has traveled up the hills looks down on the valleys.  And, looking back, he could see that Pietro’s had been the labor that had won Marqua.  There came back to him all the memories of his servant’s love of souls, his ceaseless teaching, his long journeys to distant villages, his zeal, his solicitude to save his superior for the more serious work of preaching.  Pietro had been jealous of the slightest infringement on his right to suffer.  Pietro had been the apostle.  Before God the conquest of Marqua had been Pietro’s first, since he it was who had toiled and claimed no reward.

A great peace suddenly mantled the troubled soul of Father Ramoni, and with it a great love for the old General whose hand had struck him.  He thought of the painting hanging near where he knelt—­“Moses Striking the Rock.”  The features of Father Denfili merged into the features of the Law Giver, and Father Ramoni knew himself for the rock, barren and unprofitable.  He fell on his face, and then his prayer came: 

“Christ, humble and meek, soften me, and if there be aught of living water within, let me give one drop for thirsty souls yet ere I am called.”