What had kept Josè de Rincón chained all these years to an institution
to which in thought, feeling, and sympathy he was so utterly alien, we
have repeatedly pointed out--a warped sense of filial devotion, a
devotion that would not willingly bring sorrow upon his proud,
sensitive mother, and yet the kind that so often accomplishes just
that which it strives to avoid. But yet he had somehow failed to note
the nice distinction which he was always making between the promises
he had given to her and the oath which he had taken at his ordination.
He had permitted himself to be held to the Church by his mother's fond
desires, despite the fact that his nominal observance of these had
wrecked his own life and all but brought her in sorrow to the grave.
The abundance of his misery might be traced to forgetfulness of the
sapient words of Jesus: "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father
which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."
Then had come Carmen. And he had sacrificed his new-found life to the
child. He had exhausted every expedient to keep himself in Simití,
that he might transfer his own great learning to this girl, and at the
same time yield himself to her beneficent influence. Yet, despite his
vague hopes, he had always dimly seen the day when she would leave
him; but he had likewise tried to feel that when it arrived his own
status would be such that the ecclesiastical ties which bound him
would be loosened, and he would be free to follow her. Alas! the lapse
of years had brought little change in that respect.
But now he saw the girl entering upon that very hour of departure
which all his life in Simití had hung like a menacing cloud above
him. And the shock had been such that he had thrown every other
consideration to the winds, and, regardless of consequences, was madly
preparing to accompany her. Then, like a voice from the tomb, had come
his mother's letter.
He slept not that night. Indeed, for the past two nights sleep had
avoided his haggard eyes. In the feeble glow of his candle he sat in
his little bedroom by his rough, bare table, far into the hours of
morning, struggling, resolving, hoping, despairing--and, at last,
yielding. If he had been born anew that fateful day, seven years
before, when Rosendo first told him the girl's story, he had this
night again died. When the gray hours of dawn stole silently across
the distant hills he rose. His eyes were bleared and dull. His cheeks
sunken. He staggered as he passed out through the living room where
lay the sleeping Americans. Rosendo met him in front of the house.
"Padre!" exclaimed the old man as he noted the priest's appearance.
Josè held up a warning hand. "Do not speak of it, Rosendo. I am not
well. But not a word to Carmen!"
Rosendo nodded understandingly. "It has been hard on you, Padre. But
you will soon be off now. And in the States with her--"
"For God's sake, friend, never speak of that again!" cried Josè
sharply. "Listen! How long will it take to complete your preparations?"
"_Bien_," returned the amazed Rosendo when he recovered his breath,
"we can get away to-morrow."
"Can you not go this evening?"
"No, Padre. There is much to do. But you--"
"Hear me, friend. Everything must be conducted in the greatest
secrecy. It must be given out that the Americans go to explore the
Boque; that you accompany them as guide; that Carmen goes as--as cook,
why not?"
"_Cierto_, she cooks as well as Maria."
"Very well. Juan must be kept in complete ignorance of the real nature
of your trip. He must not go with you. He is the courier--I will see
that Fernando sends him again to Bodega Central to-morrow, and keeps
him there for several days. You say it is some two hundred miles to
Llano. How long will it take to go that distance?"
"Why--_Quien sabe_, Padre?" returned Rosendo thoughtfully. "With a
fair trail, and allowing the _Americanos_ some time to prospect on the
Boque--where they will find nothing--and several days to look over La
Libertad, we ought to reach Llano in six weeks."
"And Cartagena?"
"A week later, if you do not have to wait a month on the river bank
for the boat."
"Then, all going well, within two months Carmen should be out of the
country."
"Surely. You and she--"
"Enough, friend. I do not go with her."
"What? _Caramba_!"
"Go now and bid Carmen come to me immediately after the _desayuno_.
Tell Doña Maria that I will eat nothing this morning. I am going up to
the old church on the hill."
Rosendo stared stupidly at the priest. But Josè turned abruptly and
started away, leaving the old man in a maze of bewilderment.
In the gloom of the old church Josè threw himself upon a bench near
the door, and waited torpidly. A few moments later came a voice, and
then the soft patter of bare feet in the thick dust without. Carmen
was talking as she approached. Josè rose in curiosity; but the girl
was alone. In her hand she held a scrubby flower that had drawn a
desperate nourishment from the barren soil at the roadside. She
glanced up at Josè and smiled.
"It is easy to understand their language, isn't it, Padre? They don't
speak as we do, but they reflect. And that is better than speaking.
They reflect God. They stand for His ideas in the human mind. And so
do you. And I. Aren't they wonderful, these flowers! But you know,
they are only the way we interpret certain of God's wonderful ideas.
Only, because we mortals believe in death, we see these beautiful
things at last reflecting our thought of death--don't we? We see only
our thoughts, after all. Everything we see about us is reflected
thought. First we see our thoughts of life and beauty and good. And
then our thoughts of decay and death.
"But God--He never sees anything but the good," she went on. "He sees
the real, not the supposition. And when we learn to see only as He
does, why, then we will never again see death. We will see ourselves
as we really are, immortal. God sees Himself that way. Jesus learned
to see that way, didn't he? His thought was finally so pure that he
saw nothing but good. And that gave him such power that he did those
things that the poor, ignorant, wrong-thinking people called miracles.
But they were only the things that you and I and everybody else ought
to be doing to-day--and would be doing, if we thought as he did,
instead of thinking of evil.
"But," she panted, as she sat down beside him, "I've talked a lot,
haven't I? And you sent for me because you wanted to talk. But,
remember," holding up an admonitory finger, "I shall not listen if you
talk anything but good. Oh, Padre dear," looking up wistfully into his
drawn face, "you are still thinking that two and two are seven! Will
you never again think right? How can you ever expect to see good if
you look only at evil? If I looked only at wilted flowers I would
never know there were any others."
"Carmen," he said in a hollow voice, "I love you."
"Why, of course you do," returned the artless girl. "You can't help
it. You have just _got_ to love me and everything and everybody.
That's reflecting God."
He had not meant to say that. But it had been floating like foam on
his tossing mind. He took her hand.
"You are going away from me," he continued, almost in a whisper.
"Why, no, Padre," she replied quickly; "you are going too! Padre
Rosendo said we could start to-morrow at sunrise."
"I do not go," he said in a quavering voice. "I remain, in Simití."
She looked up at him wonderingly. What meant this change which had
come over him so suddenly? She drew closer.
"Why, Padre?" she whispered.
His mother's face hovered before him in the dim light. Behind her
a mitered head, symbolizing the Church, nodded and beckoned
significantly. Back of them, as they stood between him and the
girl, he saw the glorified vision of Carmen. It was his problem. He
turned wearily from it to the gentle presence at his side.
"Why, Padre dear?" came again the soft question.
"I stay--to work out--my problem," was his scarcely audible reply.
The girl did not speak. But her breath came more quickly, and her hand
closed more tightly about his.
"Dearest one," he murmured, bending over the brown curls, "it is God's
way, I guess. Perhaps in the years which I have spent here with you I
have had the time and the opportunity to work out my salvation. I am
sure that I have. But, though I strove in my way, I could not quickly
acquire your spirituality. I could not at once shake loose those
poisonous thoughts of a lifetime, which have at last become
externalized in separation from all that I hold dearest in this life,
you, my beloved girl, you." He buried his face in her luxuriant hair
and strove to hold back the rush of scalding tears.
"It but shows how poisonous thoughts separate us from all that is
good--even from God," he continued in a choked voice. "Oh, my sweet
girl, I love you as it seems to me no human being could love another!
It has been so from that first day when, a mere babe, your wonderful
eyes held me until I could read in them a depth of love for mankind
that was divine." It did not seem to him that a mature man was
speaking to a mere girl. She seemed, as always, ages beyond him in
wisdom and experience.
Carmen reached up and wound her arms about his neck. He bent low and
kissed her brow. Then he drew himself up quickly and resumed his
broken talk.
"I believed at first that my salvation lay in you. And so it did, for
from your clear thought I gleaned my first satisfying knowledge of the
great principle, God. But alas! I could not seem to realize that
between recognizing righteousness as 'right-thinking' and daily
practicing it so as to 'prove' God there was a great difference. And
so I rested easy in my first gleams of truth, expecting that they
would so warm my soul that it would expand of itself out of all
error."
She made as if to reply, but he checked her.
"I learned enough, I repeat, those first few months here to have
enabled me to work out my salvation, even though with fear and
trembling. But I procrastinated; I vacillated; I still clung to
effete beliefs and forms of thought which I knew were bound to
manifest in unhappiness later. I was afraid to boldly throw myself
upon my thought. I was mesmerized. Yes, the great Paul was at times
under the same mesmeric spell of human belief, even after he had seen
the vision of the Christ. But he worked his way steadily out. And now
I see that I must do likewise, for salvation is an individual
experience. No vicarious effort, even of the Christ himself, can save
a man. The principle is already given us. We must apply it to our
problems ourselves. My unfinished task--scarcely even begun!--lies
still before me. My environment is what I have made it by my own
thought. I believe you, that I can enter another only as I externalize
it through righteousness, right-thinking, and 'proving' God."
He paused and bent over the silent little figure nestling so quietly
at his side. His throat filled. But he caught his breath and went on.
"You, Carmen, though but a child in years, have risen beyond me, and
beyond this lowly encompassment. Why, when you were a mere babe, you
should have grasped your padre Rosendo's casual statement that 'God is
everywhere,' and shaped your life to accord with it, I do not know.
Nor do you. That must remain one of the hidden mysteries of God. But
the fact stands that you did grasp it, and that with it as a light
unto your feet you groped your way out of this environment, avoiding
all pitfalls and evil snares, until to-day you stand at the threshold
of another and higher one. So progress must ever be, I now realize. Up
we must rise from one plane of human mentality to another, sifting and
sorting the thoughts that come to us, clinging to these, discarding
those, until, even as you have said, we learn at last instantly to
accept those that mirror forth God, infinite, divine mind, and to
reject those that bear the stamp of supposition."
"Padre," the girl said, lifting her beautiful face to his, "I have
told you so often--when a thought comes to me that I think is not from
God, or does not reflect Him, I turn right on it and kill it. You
could do the same, if you would."
"Assuredly, child--if I would!" he replied in bitterness of heart. "So
could all mankind. And then the millennium would be with us, and the
kingdom of heaven revealed. The mesmeric belief in evil as an entity
and a power opposed to good alone prevents that. Destroy this belief,
and the curtain will instantly rise on eternity."
His eyes struggled with hers, as he gazed long and wistfully into
them. Lost in his impassioned speech, he had for the moment seemed to
be translated. Then a surge of fear-thoughts swept him, and left him
dwelling on the hazardous journey that awaited her. He wildly clutched
her again to his side.
"Carmen--child--how can I let you go! So young, so tender! And that
awful journey--two hundred miles of unknown jungle, to the far-off
Nechí! And then the burning river, to Cartagena, where--where _he_ is!
And the States--God, what awaits you there!"
"Padre," she answered softly, "I shall not go unless it is right. If
it is right, then God will take care of me--and of you."
Again she saw only the "right-best" thought, while he sat trembling
before its opposite. And the opposite was as yet a supposition!
"Padre dear, there is no separation, you know. God is everywhere, and
so there is no separation from good--is there?"
"Not in your thought, dearest child," he murmured huskily.
"Well, Padre dear, I am still with you, am I not? Can't you live one
day at a time? That is what Jesus taught us. You are borrowing from
to-morrow, and you have no right to do it. That's stealing. God says,
'Thou shalt not steal,' even from to-morrow."
Yes, she was still at his side. Perhaps she would not go, after all.
He was borrowing, and borrowing supposition. The thought seemed to
lighten his load momentarily.
"Padre dear."
"Yes, _chiquita_."
"You have been thinking so many bad thoughts of late--I don't suppose
you have had any good thoughts at all about Anita's little babe?"
"The babe?" in a tone of astonishment.
"Yes. You know, it is not blind. You promised me that every day you
would just _know_ that."
The rebuke smote him sore. Aye, his crowning sin was revealed again in
all its ugly nakedness. Egoism! His thought was always of his own
troubles, his own longings, his own fears. Self-centeredness had left
no room for thoughts of Ana's blind babe. And why was he now straining
this beautiful girl to himself? Was it fear for her, or for himself?
Yet she gave but little heed to her own needs. Always her concern was
for others, others who stumbled and drooped because of the human
mind's false, unreal, undemonstrable beliefs and ignorance of the
allness of God.
"Ah, child," he exclaimed penitently, "such love! How could I dare to
hope ever to claim it! How can you say that you love me?"
"Why, Padre, I love the real 'you,' the 'you' that is going to be
brought out, and that will become more and more clear, until at last
it stands as the perfect reflection of God. Haven't I told you that,
time and time again?"
"Yes, child. You love the ideal. But--to live with me--to be my--"
"Well, Padre, if we were not still human we would not be thinking that
we were on earth. We have got to work out of this human way of
thinking and living. And it has seemed to me that you and I could work
out of it so much better together, you helping me, manifesting God's
protection and care, and I helping you, as you say I can and do. And
how can we live together and work together unless we marry? Ages make
no difference! And time is only a human concept."
He would not try to explain her reasoning, her contempt for
convention. It would be gratuitous. As for him, women had never
constituted a temptation. He knew that he loved this simple, ingenuous
girl with a tenderness of passion that was wholly free from the dross
of mesmerism. With that he remained content.
"Padre, if you think you must stay here for a little while, to work
out your problem, why, I shall just _know_ that evil can not separate
us. I don't like to even seem to go away without you. But--it will be
only seeming, after all, won't it? God's children can not really be
separated--never!"
She was still paying faithful tribute to her vision of the spiritual
universe. And how her words comforted him! How like a benison they
flowed over his drooping spirits!
"And now, Padre dear," she said, rising from the bench,--"we have done
all we could--left everything with God--haven't we? I must go now, for
madre Maria told me to come back soon. She needs me."
"Don't--no, not yet! Wait--Carmen! Sing for me--just once more! Sing
again the sweet melody that I heard when I awoke from the fever that
day long ago!"
He drew her unresisting to his side. Nestling close against him, her
head resting on his shoulder and her hand in his, she sang again the
song that had seemed to lift him that distant day far, far above the
pitiful longings and strivings of poor humanity, even unto the gates
of the city of eternal harmony.
She finished, and the last clear, sweet note echoed through the musty
room and died among the black rafters overhead. A holy silence fell
upon them as they sat, hand in hand, facing the future. Hot tears were
streaming down the man's cheeks. They fell sparkling like drops of
dew upon her brown curls. But he made no complaint. The girl, obedient
to the vision, was reaping her reward. He, timid, wavering, doubting,
was left, still pecking at the shell of his dreary environment. It was
but the working of the infinite law of cause and effect. But did he
imagine that out in the world she would not still find tribulation,
even as the Saviour had said? Aye, she would, in abundance! But she
leaned on her sustaining God. Her Christ had overcome the world. And
so should she. She had already passed through such fiery trials that
he knew no contrary belief in evil now could weaken or counterbalance
her supreme confidence in immanent good.
"Padre dear."
"_Chiquita_."
"If I have to go and leave you, will you promise me that you will act
your knowledge of the Christ-principle and work out your problem, so
that you may come to me soon?"
The tug at his heartstrings brought a moan to his lips. He smothered
it. "Yes, _chiquita_."
"And--you will keep your promise about Anita's babe?"
"Yes."
She rose and, still holding his hand, led him down the hill and to
Rosendo's house.
Throughout the remainder of that feverishly busy day the priest clung
to the girl like a shadow. They talked together but little, for she
was in constant demand to help her foster-mother in the preparations
for the long journey. But Josè was ever at her side. Again and again
he would seize her hand and press it to his burning lips. Again and
again he would stroke her soft hair, or stretch out his hand to touch
her dress as she passed him. Always when she glanced up at him the
same sweet, compassionate smile glowed on her face. When she left the
house, he followed. When she bent over the ash-strewn fireplace, or
washed the few plain dishes, he sought to share her employment; and,
when gently, lovingly repulsed, sat dully, with his yearning eyes
riveted upon her. Rosendo saw him, and forgot his own sorrow in pity
for the suffering priest.
The preparations carried the toilers far into the night. But at length
the last bundle was strapped to its _siete_, the last plan discussed
and agreed upon, and the two Americans had thrown themselves upon
their cots for a brief rest before dawn. Rosendo took Josè aside,
while Doña Maria and Carmen sought their beds.
"Fernando sends Juan to Bodega Central at daybreak," the old man said.
"All has been kept secret. No one suspects our plans. Maria remains
here with you until I return. Then we may go to the _hacienda_ of Don
Nicolás, on the Boque. I shall tell him to have it in readiness on my
return. I shall probably not get back to Simití for two months. If, as
you say, you still think best not to go with the Americans and the
girl, what will you do here? The people are much divided. Some say
they intend to ask the Bishop to remove you. _Bien_, will you not
decide to go?"
Josè could not make audible reply. He shook his head, and waved
Rosendo away. Then, taking a chair, he went into the sleeping room and
sat down at the bedside of the slumbering girl. Reaching over, he took
her hand.
What was it that she had said to him that day, long gone, when Diego
claimed her as his child? Ah, yes:
"Don't feel badly, Padre dear. His thoughts have only the minus
sign--and that means nothing, you know."
And later, many weeks later:
"Padre, you can not think wrong and right thoughts together, you know.
You can not be happy and unhappy at the same time. You can not be sick
and well together." In other words, the wise little maid was trying to
show him that Paul spoke directly to such as he when he wrote: Know ye
not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants
ye are--?
"You can not have both good and evil, Padre," she had so often
insisted. "You must want good--want it more than anything else. And
then you must prepare for it by thinking right thoughts and unthinking
wrong ones. And as you prepare for good, you must _know_ that it is
coming. But you must not say how it shall come, nor what it shall look
like. You must not say that it shall be just as you may think you
would like to have it. Leave the--the externalization to God. Then it
will meet all your needs.
"You see, Padre dear"--oh, how the memory of her words smote him
now!--"you see, the good Jesus told the people to clean their
window-panes and let in the light--good thoughts--for then these would
be externalized in health, happiness, and all good, instead of the
old, bad thoughts being externalized longer in sickness and evil.
Don't you see?"
Aye, he saw. He saw that the Christ-idea found expression and
reflection in the pure mentality of this girl. He saw that that
mentality was unsullied, uneducated in the lore of human belief, and
untrained to fear. He saw that the resurrection of the Christ, for
which a yearning world waits, was but the rising of the Christ-idea
in the human mentality. And he saw, too, that ere the radiant
resurrection morn can arrive there must be the crucifixion, a
world-wide crucifixion of human, carnal thought. Follow Christ! Aye,
follow him! But will ye not learn that following him means _thinking_
as he did? And his thoughts were God's.
But Josè had tried to think aright during those years in Simití. True,
but the efforts had been spasmodic. From childhood he had passed
through doubt, fear, scepticism, and final agnosticism. Then he had
started anew and aright. And then had come the "day of judgment," the
recurrent hours of sore trial--and he had not stood. Called upon to
prove God, to prove the validity of his splendid deductions, he had
vacillated between the opposing claims of good and evil, and had
floundered helplessly. And now he stood confronting his still unsolved
problem, realizing as never before that in the solving of it he must
unlearn the intellectual habits of a lifetime.
There were other problems which lay still unsolved before him as he
sat there that night. The sable veil of mystery which hung about
Carmen's birth had never been penetrated, even slightly. What woman's
face was that which looked out so sadly from the little locket?
"Dolores"--sorrowful, indeed! What tragedy had those great, mournful
eyes witnessed? No, Carmen did not greatly resemble her. He used to
think so, but not of late. Did she, he wondered, resemble the man? And
had the mother's kisses and hot tears blurred the portrait beneath
which he had so often read the single inscription, "Guillermo"? If so,
could not the portrait be cleaned? But Josè himself had not dared
attempt it. Perhaps some day that could be done by one skilled in such
art.
And did Carmen inherit any of her unique traits from either of her
parents? Her voice, her religious instinct, her keen mentality--whence
came they? "From God," the girl would always answer whenever he voiced
the query in her presence. And he could not gainsay it.
Seven years had passed. And Josè found himself sitting beside the
sleeping girl and dumbly yielding to the separation which now had
come. Was his work finished? His course run? And, if he must live and
solve his problem, could he stand after she had left? He bent closer
to her, and listened to the gentle breathing. He seemed again to see
her, as he was wont in the years past, flitting about her diminutive
rose garden and calling to him to come and share her boundless joy.
"Come!" he heard her call. "Come, Padre dear, and see my beautiful
thoughts!" And then, so often, "Oh, Padre!" bounding into his arms,
"here is a beautiful thought that came to me to-day, and I caught it
and wouldn't let it go!" Lonely, isolated child, having nothing in
common with the children of her native heath, yet dwelling ever in a
world peopled with immaculate concepts!
Josè shook his head slowly. He thought of the day when he had
approached Rosendo with his great question. "Rosendo," he had said in
deep earnestness, "where, oh, where did Carmen get these ideas? Did
you teach them to her?"
"No, Padre," Rosendo had replied gravely. "When she was a little
thing, just learning to talk, she often asked about God. And one day I
told her that God was everywhere--what else could I say? _Bien_, a
strange light came into her eyes. And after that, Padre, she talked
continually about Him, and to Him. And she seemed to know Him well--so
well that she saw Him in every thing and every place. Padre, it is
very strange--very strange!"
No, it was not strange, Josè had thought, but beautifully natural. And
later, when he came to teach her, his constant endeavor had been to
impart his secular knowledge to the girl without endangering her
marvelous faith in her immanent God. In that he had succeeded, for in
that there had been no obstructing thoughts of self to overcome.
And now--
"For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will
I gather thee--"
The night shadows fled. Day dawned. Josè still sat at the girl's
bedside, dumb and motionless. Carmen awoke, and threw her arms about
him. But Rosendo appeared and hurried her out to the light morning
repast, for they must lose no time in starting. Every moment now was
precious. By ten o'clock the savannas would be too hot to cross, and
they lay some distance from Simití. Reed and Harris were bustling
about, assembling the packers and cracking jokes as they strapped the
chairs to the men's backs. Doña Maria's eyes were red with weeping,
but she kept silence. Josè wandered about like a wraith. Don Jorge
grimly packed his own kit and prepared to set out for the Magdalena,
for he had suddenly announced his determination not to accompany
Rosendo and his party, but to go back and consult with Don Carlos
Norosí in regard to the future. An hour later he left Simití.
At last Rosendo's voice rang out in a great shout:
"_Ya está! Vámonos!"_
"Bully-bueno!" responded Harris, waving his long arms.
The _cargadores_ moved forward in the direction of the Boque trail.
The Americans, with a final _adios_ to Doña Maria and the priest,
swung into line behind them. Rosendo again tenderly embraced his
weeping spouse, and then, turned to Josè.
"The Virgin watch over you and Maria, Padre! I leave her in your care.
If the war comes, flee with her to the Boque."
He threw an arm about the priest and kissed him on both cheeks. Then,
calling to Carmen, he turned and started after the others.
The girl rushed into Josè's arms. Her tears flowed freely.
"Padre," she murmured, clinging to him and showering him with kisses,
"I love you, love you, love you! I will wait for you up there. You
will come--or I will come back to you. And I will work for you every
day. I will know that you are God's child, and that you will solve
your problem!"
Rosendo, half way down the road, turned and called sharply to her. The
girl hurried after him. But again she stopped, turned around, and flew
back to Josè, as he knelt in the dust and, with tongue cleaving to his
mouth, held out his trembling arms.
"Padre, dearest, dearest Padre," she sobbed, "I love you, I love you!
And--I had forgotten--this--it is for you to read every day--every
day!" She thrust a folded paper into his hand. Again she tore herself
away and ran after the impatient Rosendo. In a moment they were out of
sight.
A groan of anguish escaped the stricken priest. He rose from his knees
and followed stumbling after the girl. As he reached the shales he saw
her far in the distance at the mouth of the trail. She turned, and
waved her hand to him. Then the dark trail swallowed her, and he saw
her no more.
For a moment he stood like a statue, striving with futile gaze to
penetrate that black opening in the dense bush that had engulfed his
very soul. His bloodshot eyes were wild. His lips fluttered. His hand
closed convulsively over the paper which the girl had left with him.
Mechanically he opened it and read:
"Dearest, dearest Padre, these four little Bible verses I leave
with you; and you will promise your little girl that you will
always live by them. Then your problem will be solved.
"1. Thou shall have no other gods before me.
"2. Love thy neighbor as thyself.
"3. Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect.
"4. Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
"And, Padre, my dearest, dearest Padre, _God is everywhere_."
His hand fell. His brain reeled, and he swayed like a drunken man. He
turned about, muttering incoherently. Doña Maria stood behind him.
Tenderly taking his arm, she led him back to the forlorn little house.
Its ghastly emptiness smote him until his reason tottered. He sank
into a chair and gazed with dull, stony eyes out over the placid
lake, where the white beams of the rising sun were breaking into
myriad colors against the brume.