Archbishop Latour retires to a small estate four miles north of Santa Fe, which he has purchased to live in during the last years of his life. The estate features an apricot tree that is more than two-hundred years old and that still bears delicious fruit. He cultivates an orchard and a garden. He instructs new priests in the Spanish language as well as in the character and traditions of the people of the diocese. Latour counsels the new priests to plant fruit trees in their parishes in order to balance the Mexican diet. He quotes the Catholic philosopher Blaise Pascal: "man was lost and saved in a garden." He cultivates wildflowers, including verbena, which covers the hillside in many shades of purple, the Episcopal color.
In January 1889, the Archbishop is caught in a rainstorm, subsequently takes ill, and requests permission to return to Santa Fe to die. Bernard, a young priest who shares Latour's temperament and has become like a son to the Archbishop, tells Latour that he won't die of a cold. Latour responds that he will not die from a cold but from having lived. From then on, Latour speaks only French, which alarms the household. He schedules his return to Santa Fe to coincide with the sunset, which is the same time of day he first entered the town.
Latour returns to Santa Fe in February. He stops to admire the cathedral. He is pleased that the French architect with whom he worked was able to make the church fit into the landscape. Latour's family expected him to return to France for his final years, but he prefers to stay in New Mexico because it is there where "he always awoke a young man." He loves the air on the "bright edges of the world."
