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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: of the voices came old sights of home again, the waving trees at Aranhal;
then it would be Rachel for a moment, declaiming tragedy while a houseful
of faces that he knew by name watched her; and through all the panorama
rang the pleasant laugh of Gaston. For a while in the evening the Padre
sat at his Erard playing Trovatore. Later, in his sleepless bed he lay,
saying now and then: "To die at home! Surely I may be granted at least
this." And he listened for the inner voices. But they were not speaking
any more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful to him than
their arguments. Then the dawn came in at his window, and he lay watching
its gray grow warm into color, until suddenly he sprang from his bed and
looked at the sea. Blue it lay, sapphire-hued and dancing with points of
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