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 "It will seem that hope will leave with you on your long, long journey to your homeland, Don Juan."

"I wish I might hope that it would be so, Gertrudis."

"You will go to those whom you love better, but to none that can wish you better than those you leave behind."

"I shall leave more behind me than I shall ever find again. If I had the freedom of this country outside the mission, Tula, Tula, I would not go, Tula. If the dispensation asked for me by Padre Ignacio were certain to be granted, I would hide in the mountains until it came."

"But it might be granted," she spoke eagerly, her handclasp tightening. "Then I could send you word, I could send Cristóbal. Or I would go, Don Juan; I would go to the world's end to carry such good news to you."

He covered her hand with his broad palm, and so they stood, their four hands on the little basket, their fealty pledged in roses, their understanding blessed in bloom.

"And I would wait till the world's end for you to come," he told her, as earnestly as if he vowed. "But it is too uncertain, Tula; Padre Ignacio says it may take months, even years. I believe he has no hope that it ever will come at all."

"Then you will go away, Dan Juan, into the desert, as one goes away into the night, never to be seen again."