The slow rustling of a garment, accompanied by a soft but heavy tread, sounded from the passage.  He started to his feet as the priest, whom he had seen on the deck of the Excelsior, entered the church from the refectory.  The Padre was alone.  At the apparition of a stranger, torn and disheveled, he stopped involuntarily and cast a hasty look towards the heavy silver ornaments on the altar.  Hurlstone noticed it, and smiled bitterly.

“Don’t alarm yourself.  I only sought this place for shelter.”

He spoke in French—­the language he had heard Padre Esteban address to Mrs. Brimmer.  But the priest’s quick eye had already detected his own mistake.  He lifted his hand with a sublime gesture towards the altar, and said,—­

“You are right!  Where should you seek shelter but here?”

The reply was so unexpected that Hurlstone was silent.  His lips quivered slightly.

“And if it were sanctuary I was seeking?” he said.

“You would first tell me why you sought it,” said Padre Esteban gently.

Hurlstone looked at him irresolutely for a moment and then said, with the hopeless desperation of a man anxious to anticipate his fate,—­

“I am a passenger on the ship you boarded yesterday.  I came ashore with the intention of concealing myself somewhere here until she had sailed.  When I tell you that I am not a fugitive from justice, that I have committed no offense against the ship or her passengers, nor have I any intention of doing so, but that I only wish concealment from their knowledge for twenty-four hours, you will know enough to understand that you run no risk in giving me assistance.  I can tell you no more.”

“I did not see you with the other passengers, either on the ship or ashore,” said the priest.  “How did you come here?”

“I swam ashore before they left.  I did not know they had any idea of landing here; I expected to be the only one, and there would have been no need for concealment then.  But I am not lucky,” he added, with a bitter laugh.

The priest glanced at his garments, which bore the traces of the sea, but remained silent.

“Do you think I am lying?”

The old priest lifted his head with a gesture.

“Not to me—­but to God!”

The young man followed the gesture, and glanced around the barbaric church with a slight look of scorn.  But the profound isolation, the mystic seclusion, and, above all, the complete obliteration of that world and civilization he shrank from and despised, again subdued and overcame his rebellious spirit.  He lifted his eyes to the priest.

“Nor to God,” he said gravely.

“Then why withhold anything from Him here?” said the priest gently.

“I am not a Catholic—­I do not believe in confession,” said Hurlstone doggedly, turning aside.

But Padre Esteban laid his large brown hand on the young man’s shoulder.  Touched by some occult suggestion in its soft contact, he sank again into his seat.