Page:Death Comes for the Archbishop.pdf/252

 and twinkled on the glass and silver of the sideboard. When Madame Olivares left Santa Fé to return to New Orleans and sold her effects at auction, Father Latour bought her sideboard, and the dining-table around which friends had so often gathered. Doña Isabella gave him her silver coffee service and candelabra for remembrance. They were the only ornaments of the severe and shadowy room.

The Bishop was already at his place when Father Joseph entered. “Fructosa has told you why we are lunching early? We will take a ride this afternoon. I have something to show you.”

“Very good. Perhaps you have noticed that I am a little restless. I don’t know when I have been two weeks out of the saddle before. When I go to visit Contento in his stall, he looks at me reprovingly. He will grow too fat.”

The Bishop smiled, with a shade of sarcasm on his upper lip. He knew his Joseph. “Ah, well,” he said carelessly, “a little rest will not hurt him, after coming six hundred miles from Tucson. You can take him out this afternoon, and I will ride Angelica.”

The two priests left Santa Fé a little after midday, riding west. The Bishop did not disclose his objective, and the Vicar asked no questions. Soon they left the wagon road and took a trail running straight south, through an empty greasewood country sloping gradu-