THE CALLEJÓN DEL PADRE LECUONA
but no answer came to his knocking—and when he tried to push the door open, using all his strength, it held fast against his pushing as firmly as though it had been a part of the stone wall.
So the Padre, having no liking for standing there in the cold and rain uselessly, hurried onward to his friend's house—and was glad to get into the room where his friends were waiting for him, and where plenty of candles were burning, and where it was dry and warm.
He had walked so fast that his forehead was wet with sweat when he took his hat off, and to dry it he put his hand into his pocket for his handkerchief; but his handkerchief was not in his pocket and then he knew that he must have dropped it in the house where the dying man lay. It was not just a common handkerchief, Señor, but one very finely embroidered—having the letters standing for his name worked upon it, with a wreath around them—that had been made for him by a nun of his acquaintance in a convent of which he was the almoner; and so, as he did not at all like to lose it, he sent his friend's servant to that old house to get it back again. After a good long while,
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