Harris threw a quick glance at Ketchim. The latter sat blank,

wondering if there were any portions of the earth to which Ames's long

arms did not reach.

"As a matter of fact," Ames continued, leaning back in his chair and

pressing the tips of his fingers together before him, "a hitch seems

to have developed in Simití proceedings. I am interested, Mr.

Ketchim," turning suddenly and sharply upon that gentleman, "because

my brokers have picked up for me several thousand shares of the

stock."

Ketchim's hair began to rise.

"But," proceeded Ames calmly, "now that I have put money into it, I

learn that the Simití Company has no property whatever in Colombia."

A haze slowly gathered before Ketchim's eyes. His ears hummed. His

heart throbbed violently. "How do you make that out, Mr. Ames?" he

heard Harris say in a voice that seemed to come from an infinite

distance. "I myself saw the title papers which old Rosendo had, and

saw them transferred to Mr. Ketchim for the Simití Company. Moreover,

I personally visited the mine in question."

"La Libertad? Quite so," returned Ames. "But, here's the rub. The

property was relocated by this Rosendo, and he secured title to it

under the name of the Chicago mine. It was that name which deceived

the clerks in the Department of Mines in Cartagena, and caused them to

issue title, not knowing that it really was the famous old La

Libertad."

"Well, I don't see that there is any ground for confusion."

"Simply this," returned Ames evenly: "La Libertad mine, since the

death of its former owner, Don Ignacio de Rincón, has belonged to the

Church."

"What!" Harris was on his feet. "By what right does it belong to the

Church?"

"By the ancient law of _'en manos muertas'_, my friend," replied Ames,

unperturbed.

"Good Lord! what's that?"

"Our friend, Monsignor Lafelle, representing the Church, will

explain," said Ames, waving a hand toward that gentleman.

Lafelle cleared his throat. "I deeply regret this unfortunate

situation, gentlemen," he began. "But, as Mr. Ames has pointed out,

the confusion came about through issuing title to the mine under the

name Chicago. Don Ignacio de Rincón, long before his departure from

Colombia after the War of Independence, drew up his last will, and,

following the established custom among wealthy South Americans of that

day, bequeathed this mine, La Libertad, and other property, to the

Church, invoking the old law of _'en manos muertas'_ which, being

translated, means, 'in dead hands.' Pious Catholics of many lands have

done the same throughout the centuries. Such a bequest places property

in the custody of the Church; and it may never be sold or disposed of

in any way, but all revenue from it must be devoted to the purchase of

Masses for the souls in purgatory. It was through the merest chance, I

assure you, that your mistake was brought to light. Knowing that our

friend, Mr. Ames, had purchased stock in your company, I took the

pains to investigate while in Cartagena recently, and made the

discovery which unfortunately renders your claim to the mine quite

null."

"God a'mighty!" exploded Harris. "Did you know this?" turning savagely

upon the paralyzed Ketchim.

"That," interposed Ames with cruel significance, "is a matter which he

will explain in court."

Fleeting visions of the large blocks of stock which he had sold; of

the widows, orphans, and indigent clergymen whom he had involved; of

the notes which the banks held against him; of his questionable deals

with Mrs. Hawley-Crowles; and of the promiscuous peddling of his own

holdings in the now ruined company, rushed over the clouded mind of

this young genius of high finance. His tongue froze, though his

trembling body dripped with perspiration. Somehow he got to his feet.

Somehow he found the door, and groped his way to a descending

elevator. And somehow he lived through that terror-haunted day and

night.

But very early next morning, while his blurred eyes were drinking in

the startling report of the Simití Company's collapse, as set forth in

the newspaper which he clutched in his shaking hand, the maid led in a

soft-stepping gentleman, who laid a hand upon his quaking shoulder and

read to him from a familiar-looking document an irresistible

invitation to take up lodgings in the city jail.

* * * * *

There were other events forward at the same time, which came to light

that fateful next day. It was noon when Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, after a

night of mingled worry and anger over the deliberate or unintentional

exclusion of herself and Carmen from the Ames reception the preceding

night, descended to her combined breakfast and luncheon. At her plate

lay the morning mail, including a letter from France. She tore it

open, hastily scanned it, then dropped with a gasp into her chair.

"Father--married to--a French--adventuress! Oh!"

The long-cherished hope of a speedy inheritance of his snug fortune

lay blasted at her feet.

The telephone bell rang sharply, and she rose dully to answer it. The

call came from the city editor of one of the great dailies. "It is

reported," said the voice, "that your ward, Miss Carmen Ariza, is the

illegitimate daughter of a negro priest, now in South America. We

would like your denial, for we learn that it was for this reason that

you and the young lady were not included among the guests at the Ames

reception last evening."

Mrs. Hawley-Crowles's legs tottered under her, as she blindly wandered

from the telephone without replying. Carmen--the daughter of a priest!

Her father a negro--her mother, what? She, a mulatto, illegitimate--!

The stunned woman mechanically took up the morning paper which lay on

the table. Her glance was at once attracted to the great headlines

announcing the complete exposure of the Simití bubble. Her eyes nearly

burst from her head as she grasped its fatal meaning to her. With a

low, inarticulate sound issuing from her throat, she turned and groped

her way back to her boudoir.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, the automobile in which Carmen was speeding to the

Beaubien mansion was approached by a bright, smiling young woman, as

it halted for a moment at a street corner. Carmen recognized her as

a reporter for one of the evening papers, who had called often at the

Hawley-Crowles mansion that season for society items.

"Isn't it fortunate!" exclaimed the young reporter. "I was on my way

to see you. Our office received a report this morning from some source

that your father--you know, there has been some mystery about your

parentage--that he was really a priest, of South America. His

name--let me think--what did they say it was?"

"Josè?" laughed the innocent girl, utterly unsuspecting. The problem

of her descent had really become a source of amusement to her.

"It began with a D, if I am not mistaken. I'm not up on Spanish

names," the young woman returned pleasantly.

"Oh, perhaps you mean Diego."

"That's it! Was that your father's name? We're very much interested to

know."

"Well, I'm sure I can't say. It might have been."

"Then you don't deny it?"

"No; how can I?" she said, smiling. "I never knew him."

"But--you think it was, don't you?"

"Well, I don't believe it was Padre Diego--he wasn't a good man."

"Then you knew him?"

"Oh, very well! I was in his house, in Banco. He used to insist that I

was his child."

"I see. By the way, you knew a woman named Jude, didn't you? Here in

the city."

"Yes, indeed!" she exclaimed excitedly. "Do you know where she is?"

"No. But she took you out of a house down on--"

"Yes. And I've tried to find her ever since."

"You know Father Waite, too, the ex-priest?"

"Oh, yes, very well. We're good friends."

"You and he going to work together, I suppose?"

"Why, I'm sure I don't know. He's very unsettled."

"H'm! yes. Well, I thank you very much. You think this Diego might

have been your father? That is, you can't say positively that he

wasn't?"

"I can't say positively, no. But now I must go. You can come up to the

house and talk about South America, if you want to."

She nodded pleasantly, and the car moved away. The innocent, ingenuous

girl was soon to learn what modern news-gathering and dissemination

means in this great Republic. But she rode on, happy in the thought

that she and the Beaubien were formulating plans to save Mrs.

Hawley-Crowles.

"We'll arrange it somehow," said the Beaubien, looking up from her

papers when Carmen entered. "Go, dearie, and play the organ while I

finish this. Then I will return home with you to have a talk with Mrs.

Hawley-Crowles."

For hours the happy girl lingered at the beloved organ. The Beaubien

at her desk below stopped often to listen. And often she would hastily

brush away the tears, and plunge again into her papers. "I suppose I

should have told Mrs. Hawley-Crowles," she said. "But I couldn't give

her any hope. And even now it's very uncertain. Ames _will_ yield!

I'll force him to! He knows I can expose him! And yet," she reflected

sadly, "who would believe _me_?" The morning papers lay still unread

upon her table.

Late in the afternoon the Beaubien with Carmen entered her car and

directed the chauffeur to drive to the Hawley-Crowles home. As they

entered a main thoroughfare they heard the newsboys excitedly crying

extras.

"Horrible suicide! Double extra! Big mining scandal! Society woman

blows out brains! Double extra!"

Of a sudden a vague, unformed presentiment of impending evil came to

the girl. She half rose, and clutched the Beaubien's hand. Then there

flitted through her mind like a beam of light the words of the

psalmist: "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy

right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." She sank back against

the Beaubien's shoulder and closed her eyes.

The car rolled on. Presently the chauffeur turned and said something

through the speaking tube.

"What!" cried the Beaubien, springing from the seat. "Merciful heaven!

Stop and get a paper at once!" The chauffeur complied.

A loud cry escaped her as she took the sheet and glanced at the

startling headlines. Mrs. James Hawley-Crowles, financially ruined,

and hurled to disgrace from the pinnacle of social leadership by the

awful exposure of the parentage of her ward, had been found in her

bedroom, dead, with a revolver clasped in her cold hand.

CARMEN ARIZA

BOOK 4

Watchman, what of the night?

The watchman said, The morning cometh.

--_Isaiah._

CARMEN ARIZA

CHAPTER 1

The chill winds of another autumn swirled through the masonry-lined

cañons of the metropolis and sighed among the stark trees of its

deserted parks. They caught up the tinted leaves that dropped from

quivering branches and tossed them high, as Fate wantons with human

hopes before she blows her icy breath upon them. They shrieked among

the naked spars of the _Cossack_, drifting with her restless master

far out upon the white-capped waves. They moaned in low-toned agony

among the marble pillars of the Crowles mausoleum, where lay in

pitying sleep the misguided woman whose gods of gold and tinsel had

betrayed her.

On the outskirts of the Bronx, in a newly opened suburb, a slender

girl, with books and papers under her arm, walked slowly against the

sharp wind, holding her hat with her free hand, and talking rapidly to

a young man who accompanied her. Toward them came an old negro,

leaning upon a cane. As he stepped humbly aside to make room, the girl

looked up. Then, without stopping, she slipped a few coins into his

coat pocket as she passed.

The negro stood in dumb amazement. He was poor--his clothes were thin

and worn--but he was not a beggar--he had asked nothing. The girl

turned and threw back a smile to him. Then of a sudden there came into

the old man's wrinkled, care-lined face such a look, such a

comprehension of that love which knows neither Jew nor Gentile, Greek

nor Barbarian, as would have caused even the Rabbis, at the cost of

defilement, to pause and seek its heavenly meaning.

A few blocks farther on the strong wind sternly disputed the girl's

right to proceed, and she turned with a merry laugh to her companion.

But as she stood, the wind fell, leaving a heap of dead leaves about

her feet. Glancing down, something caught her eye. She stooped and

took up a two-dollar bill.

Her companion threw her a wondering look; but the girl made no

comment. In silence they went on, until a few minutes more of brisk

walking brought them to a newly built, stucco-coated bungalow. Running

rapidly up the steps, the girl threw wide the door and called, "Mother

dear!"

The Beaubien rose from her sewing to receive the hearty embrace.

"Well, dearie?" she said, devouring the sparkling creature with eager

eyes. "What luck?"

"We're registered! Lewis begins his law course at once, and I may take

what I wish. And Mr. Hitt's coming to call to-night and bring a

friend, a Mr. Haynerd, an editor. What's Jude got for supper? My! I'm

starved."

The Beaubien drew the girl to her and kissed her again and again. Then

she glanced over her shoulder at the man with a bantering twinkle in

her eyes and said, "Don't you wish you could do that? But you can't."

"Yes he can, too, mother," asserted the girl.

Father Waite sighed. "I'm afraid it wouldn't look well," he said.

"And, besides, I don't dare lose my heart to her."

With a final squeeze the girl tore herself from the Beaubien's

reluctant arms and hurried to the little kitchen. "What is it

to-night, Jude?" she demanded, catching the domestic in a vigorous

embrace.

"Hist!" said Jude, holding up a finger. "It's a secret. I'm afraid

you'd tell him."

"Not a word--I promise."

"Well, then, liver and bacon, with floating island," she whispered,

very mysteriously.

"Oh, goody!" cried Carmen. "He just loves them both!"

Returning to the little parlor, Carmen encountered the fixed gaze of

both the Beaubien and Father Waite. "Well?" she demanded, stopping and

looking from one to the other.

"What about that two dollars?" said the Beaubien, in a tone of mock

severity.

"Oh," laughed the girl, running to the woman and seating herself in

the waiting lap, "he told, didn't he? Can't I ever trust you with a

secret?" in a tone of rebuke, turning to the man.

"Surely," he replied, laughing; "and I should not have divulged

this had I not seen in the incident something more than mere

chance--something meant for us all."

Then he became serious. "I--I think I have seen the working of a

stupendous mental law--am I not right?" addressing the girl. "You saw

a need, and met it, unsolicited. You found your own in another's

good."

The girl smiled at the Beaubien without replying. "What about it,

dearie?" the latter asked tenderly.

"She need not answer," said Father Waite, "for we know. She but cast

her bread upon the unfathomable ocean of love, and it returned to her,

wondrously enriched."

"If you are going to talk about me, I shall not stay," declared

Carmen, rising. "I'm going out to help Jude." And she departed for the

kitchen, but not without leaving a smile for each of them as she went.

And they understood.

The Beaubien and Father Waite remained some moments in silence. Then

the woman spoke. "I am learning," she said. "She is the light that is

guiding me. This little incident which you have just related is but a

manifestation of the law of love by which she lives. She gave,

unasked, and with no desire to be seen and advertised. It returned to

her ten-fold. It is always so with her. There was no chance, no

miracle, no luck about it. She herself did nothing. It was--it

was--only the working of her beloved Christ-principle. Oh, Lewis! if

we only knew--"

"We _shall_ know, Madam!" declared the man vehemently. "Her secret is

but the secret of Jesus himself, which was open to a world too dull to

comprehend. Carmen shall teach us. And," his eyes brightening, "to

that end I have been formulating a great plan. That's why I've asked

Hitt to come here to-night. I have a scheme to propose. Remember, my

dear friend, we are true searchers; and 'all things work together for

good to them that love God.' Our love of truth and real good is so

great that, like the consuming desire of the Jewish nation, it is

_bound_ to bring the Christ!"

* * * * *

For three months the Beaubien and Carmen had dwelt together in this

lowly environment; and here they had found peace, the first that the

tired woman had known since childhood. The sudden culmination of those

mental forces which had ejected Carmen from society, crushed Ketchim

and a score of others, and brought the deluded Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to

a bitter end, had left the Beaubien with dulled sensibilities. Even

Ames himself had been shocked into momentary abandonment of his

relentless pursuit of humanity by the unanticipated _dénoûement_. But

when he had sufficiently digested the newspaper accounts wherein were

set forth in unsparing detail the base rumors of the girl's parentage

and of her removal from a brothel before her sudden elevation to

social heights, he rose in terrible wrath and prepared to hunt down to

the death the perpetrators of the foul calumny. Whence had come this

tale, which even the girl could not refute? From Lafelle? He had

sailed for Europe--though but a day before. Ketchim? The man was

cringing like a craven murderer in his cell, for none dared give him

bail. Reed? Harris? Was it revenge for his own sharp move in regard to

La Libertad? He would have given all he possessed to lay his heavy

hands upon the guilty ones! The editors of the great newspapers,

perhaps? Ames raged like a wounded lion in the office of every editor

in the city. But they were perfectly safe, for the girl, although she

told a straightforward story, could not say positively that the

published statements concerning her were false. Yet, though few knew

it, there were two city editors and several reporters who, in the days

immediately following, found it convenient to resign their positions

and leave the city before the awful wrath of the powerful man.

Then Ames turned upon his wife. And, after weeks of terror, that

browbeaten woman, her hair whitening under the terrible persecution of

her relentless master, fled secretly, with her terrified daughter, to

England, whither the stupified Duke of Altern and his scandalized

mother had betaken themselves immediately following the exposé.

Thereupon Ames's lawyer drew up a bill of divorce, alleging desertion,

and laid it before the judge who fed from his master's hand.

Meantime, the devouring wrath of Ames swept like a prairie fire over the

dry, withering stalks of the smart set. He vowed he would take Carmen

and flaunt her in the faces of the miserable character-assassins who

had sought her ruin! He swore he would support her with his untold

millions and force society to acknowledge her its queen! He had it

in his power to wreck the husband of every arrogant, supercilious

dame in the entire clique! He commenced at once with the unfortunate

Gannette. The latter, already tottering, soon fell before the subtle

machinations of Hodson and his able cohorts. Then, as a telling example

to the rest, Ames pursued him to the doors of the Lunacy Commission,

and rested not until that body had condemned his victim to a living

death in a state asylum. Kane, Fitch, and Weston fled to cover, and

concentrated their guns upon their common enemy. The Beaubien alone

stood out against him for three months. Her existence was death in

life; but from the hour that she first read the newspaper intelligence

regarding Carmen and the unfortunate Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, she hid the

girl so completely that Ames was effectually balked in his attempts at

drastic vindication in her behalf.

But this served only to intensify his anger, and he thereupon turned

its full force upon the lone woman. Driven to desperation, she stood

at length at bay and hurled at him her remaining weapon. Again the

social set was rent, and this time by the report that the black cloud

of bigamy hung over Ames. It was a fat season for the newspapers, and

they made the most of it. As a result, several of them found

themselves with libel suits on their hands. The Beaubien herself was

confronted with a suit for defamation of character, and was obliged to

testify before the judge whom Ames owned outright that she had but the

latter's word for the charge, and that, years since, in a moment of

maudlin sentimentalism, he had confessed to her that, as far as he

knew, the wife of his youth was still living. The suit went against

her. Ames then took his heavy toll, and retired within himself to sulk

and plan future assaults and reprisals.

The Beaubien, crushed, broken, sick at heart, gathered up the scant

remains of her once large fortune, disposed of her effects, and

withdrew to the outskirts of the city. She would have left the

country, but for the fact that the tangled state of her finances

necessitated her constant presence in New York while her lawyers

strove to bring order out of chaos and placate her raging persecutor.

To flee meant complete abandonment of her every financial resource to

Ames. And so, with the assistance of Father Waite and Elizabeth Wall,

who placed themselves at once under her command, she took a little

house, far from the scenes of her troubles, and quietly removed

thither with Carmen.

One day shortly thereafter a woman knocked timidly at her door. Carmen

saw the caller and fled into her arms. "It's Jude!" she cried

joyously.

The woman had come to return the string of pearls which the girl had

thrust into her hands on the night of the Charity Ball. Nobody knew

she had them. She had not been able to bring herself to sell them. She

had wanted--oh, she knew not what, excepting that she wanted to see

again the girl whose image had haunted her since that eventful night

when the strange child had wandered into her abandoned life. Yes, she

would have given her testimony as to Carmen; but who would have

believed her, a prostitute? And--but the radiant girl gathered her in

her arms and would not let her go without a promise to return.

And return she did, many times. And each time there was a change in

her. The Beaubien always forced upon her a little money and a promise

to come back. It developed that Jude was cooking in a cheap down-town

restaurant. "Why not for us, mother, if she will?" asked Carmen one

day. And, though the sin-stained woman demurred and protested her

unworthiness, yet the love that knew no evil drew her irresistibly,

and she yielded at length, with her heart bursting.

Then, in her great joy, Carmen's glad cry echoed through the little

house: "Oh, mother dear, we're free, we're free!"

But the Beaubien was not free. Night after night her sleepless pillow

was wet with bitter tears of remorse, when the accusing angel stood

before her and relentlessly revealed each act of shameful meanness, of

cruel selfishness, of sordid immorality in her wasted life. And,

lastly, the weight of her awful guilt in bringing about the

destruction of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles lay upon her soul like a mountain.

Oh, if she had only foreseen even a little of it! Oh, that Carmen had

come to her before--or not at all! And yet she could not wish that she

had never known the girl. Far from it! The day of judgment was bound

to come. She saw that now. And, but for the comforting presence of

that sweet child, she had long since become a raving maniac. It was

Carmen who, in those first long nights of gnawing, corroding remorse,

wound her soft arms about the Beaubien's neck, as she lay tossing in

mental agony on her bed, and whispered the assurances of that infinite

Love which said, "Behold, I make all things new!" It was Carmen who

whispered to her of the everlasting arms beneath, and of the mercy

reflected by him who, though on the cross, forgave mankind because of

their pitiable ignorance. It is ignorance, always ignorance of what

constitutes real good, that makes men seek it through wrong channels.

The Beaubien had sought good--all the world does--but she had never

known that God alone is good, and that men cannot find it until they

reflect Him. And so she had "missed the mark." Oh, sinful, mesmerized

world, ye shall find Me--the true good--only when ye seek Me with all

your heart! And yet, "I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy

transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins."

Only a God who is love could voice such a promise! And Carmen knew;

and she hourly poured her great understanding of love into the empty

heart of the stricken Beaubien.

Then at last came days of quiet, and planning for the future. The

Beaubien would live--yes, but not for herself. Nay, that life had gone

out forever, nor would mention of it pass her lips again. The

Colombian revolution--her mendacious connivances with Ames--her

sinful, impenitent life of gilded vice--aye, the door was now closed

against that, absolutely and forever more. She had passed through the

throes of a new birth; she had risen again from the bed of anguish;

but she rose stripped of her worldly strength. Carmen was now the

staff upon which she leaned.

And Carmen--what had been her thought when foul calumny laid its sooty

touch upon her? What had been the working of her mind when that world

which she had sought to illumine with the light of her own purity had

cast her out?

When the blow fell the portals of her mind closed at once against

every accusing thought, against every insidious suggestion of defeat,

of loss, of dishonor. The arrows of malice, as well as those of

self-pity and condemnation, snapped and fell, one by one, as they

hurtled vainly against the whole armor of God wherewith the girl stood

clad. Self sank into service; and she gathered the bewildered,

suffering Beaubien into her arms as if she had been a child. She would

have gone to Ames, too, had she been permitted--not to plead for

mercy, but to offer the tender consolation and support which, despite

the havoc he was committing, she knew he needed even more than the

Beaubien herself.

"Paul had been a murderer," she often said, as she sat in the darkness

alone with the suffering woman and held her trembling hand. "But he

became the chief of apostles. Think of it! When the light came, he

shut the door against the past. If he hadn't, dearest, he never could

have done what he did. And you, and Mr. Ames, will have to do the

same." And this the Beaubien could do, and did, after months of

soul-racking struggle. But Ames sat in spiritual darkness, whipped by

the foul brood of lust and revenge, knowing not that the mountainous

wrath which he hourly heaped higher would some day fall, and bury him

fathoms deep.

Throughout the crisis Father Waite had stood by them stanchly. And

likewise had Elizabeth Wall. "I've just longed for some reasonable

excuse to become a social outcast," the latter had said, as she was

helping Carmen one day to pack her effects prior to removing from the

Hawley-Crowles mansion. "I long for a hearthstone to which I can

attach myself--"

"Then attach yourself to ours!" eagerly interrupted Carmen.

"I'll do it!" declared Miss Wall. "For I know that now you are really

going to live--and I want to live as you will. Moreover--" She paused

and smiled queerly at the girl--"I am quite in love with your hero,

Father Waite, you know."

Harris, too, made a brief call before departing again for Denver.

"I've got to hustle for a living now," he explained, "and it's me for

the mountains once more! New York is no place for such a tender lamb

as I. Oh, I've been well trimmed--but I know enough now to keep away

from this burg!"

While he was yet speaking there came a loud ring at the front door of

the little bungalow, followed immediately by the entrance of the

manager of a down-town vaudeville house. He plunged at once into his

errand. He would offer Carmen one hundred dollars a week, and a

contract for six months, to appear twice daily in his theater. "She'll

make a roar!" he asserted. "Heavens, Madam! but she did put it over

the society ginks." And the Beaubien, shivering at the awful

proposal, was glad Harris was there to lead the zealous theatrical man

firmly to the door.

Lastly, came one Amos A. Hitt, gratuitously, to introduce himself as

one who knew Cartagena and was likely to return there in the not

distant future, where he would be glad to do what he might to remove

the stain which had been laid upon the name of the fair girl. The

genuineness of the man stood out so prominently that the Beaubien took

him at once into her house, where he was made acquainted with Carmen.

"Oh," cried the girl, "Cartagena! Why, I wonder--do you know Padre

Josè de Rincón?"

"A priest who once taught there in the University, many years ago? And

who was sent up the river, to Simití? Yes, well."

Then Carmen fell upon his neck; and there in that moment was begun a

friendship that grew daily stronger, and in time bore richest fruit.

It soon became known that Hitt was giving a course of lectures that

fall in the University, covering the results of his archaeological

explorations; so Carmen and Father Waite went often to hear him. And

the long breaths of University atmosphere which the girl inhaled

stimulated a desire for more. Besides, Father Waite had some time

before announced his determination to study there that winter, as long

as his meager funds would permit.

"I shall take up law," he had one day said. "It will open to me the

door of the political arena, where there is such great need of real

men, men who stand for human progress, patriotism, and morality. I

shall seek office--not for itself, but for the good I can do, and the

help I can be in a practical way to my fellow-men. I have a little

money. I can work my way through."

Carmen shared the inspiration; and so she, too, with the Beaubien's

permission, applied for admittance to the great halls of learning, and

was accepted.

* * * * *

"And now," began Father Waite that evening, when Hitt and his friend

had come, and, to the glad surprise of Carmen, Elizabeth Wall had

driven up in her car to take the girl for a ride, but had yielded to

the urgent invitation to join the little conference, "my plan, in

which I invite you to join, is, briefly, _to study this girl_!"

Carmen's eyes opened wide, and her face portrayed blank amazement, as

Father Waite stood pointing gravely to her. Nor were the others less

astonished--all but the Beaubien. She nodded her head comprehendingly.

"Let me explain," Father Waite continued. "We are assembled here

to-night as representatives, now or formerly, of very diversified

lines of human thought. I will begin with myself. I have stood as the

embodiment of Christly claims, as the active agent of one of the

mightiest of human institutions, the ancient Christian Church. For

years I have studied its accepted authorities and its all-inclusive

assumptions, which embrace heaven, earth, and hell. For years I sought

with sincere consecration to apply its precepts to the dire needs of

humanity. I have traced its origin in the dim twilight of the

Christian era and its progress down through the centuries, through

heavy vicissitudes to absolute supremacy, on down through schisms and

subsequent decline, to the present hour, when the great system seems

to be gathering its forces for a life and death stand in this, the New

World. I have known and associated with its dignitaries and its humble

priests. I know the policies and motives underlying its quiet

movements. I found it incompatible with human progress. And so I

withdrew from it my allegiance."

Carmen's thought, as she listened, was busy with another whose

experience had not been dissimilar, but about whom the human coils had

been too tightly wound to be so easily broken.

"Our scholarly friend, Mr. Hitt," Father Waite went on, "represented

the great protest against the abuses and corruption which permeated

the system for which I stood. He, like myself, embodied the eternal

warfare of the true believer against the heretic. Yet, without my

churchly system, I was taught to believe, he and those who share his

thought are damned. But, oh, strange anomaly! we both claimed the same

divine Father, and accepted the Christly definition of Him as Love. We

were two brothers of the same great family, yet calling each other

_anathema_!"

He looked over at Hitt and smiled. "And to-day," he continued, "we

brothers are humbly meeting on the common ground of failure--failure

to understand the Christ, and to meet the needs of our fellow-men with

our elaborate systems of theology."

"I heard another priest, years ago, make a similar confession," said

Hitt reflectively. "I would he were here to-night!"

"He is here, in spirit," replied Father Waite; "for the same spirit of

eager inquiry and humble desire for truth that animates us no doubt

moved him. I have reason to think so," he added, looking at Carmen.

"For this girl's spiritual development I believe to be very largely

his work."

Hitt glanced at Carmen inquiringly. He knew but little as yet of her

past association with the priest Josè.

"You and I, Mr. Hitt, represented the greatest systems of so-called

Christian belief," pursued Father Waite. "Madam Beaubien, on the other

hand, has represented the world that waits, as yet vainly, for

redemption. We have not been able to afford it her. Yet--pardon my

frankness in thus referring to you, Madam. It is only to benefit us

all--that the means of redemption _have_ been brought to her, we must

now admit."

All turned and looked at Carmen. She started to speak, but Father

Waite raised a detaining hand. "Let me proceed," he said. "Miss Wall

represents the weariness of spirit and unrest abroad in the world

to-day, the spirit that finds life not worth the while; and Mr.

Haynerd voices the cynical disbelief, the agnosticism, of that great

class who can not accept the childish tenets of our dogmatic systems

of theology, yet who have nothing but the philosophy of stoicism or

epicureanism to offer in substitute."

Haynerd bowed and smiled. "You have me correctly classified," he said.

"I'm a Yankee, and from Missouri."

"And now, having placed us," said the Beaubien, "how will you classify

Carmen?"

Father Waite looked at the girl reverently. "Hers is the leaven," he

replied gently, "which has leavened the whole lump.

"My good friends," he went on earnestly, "like all priests and

preachers, I have been but a helpless spectator of humanity's

troubles. I have longed and prayed to know how to do the works which

Jesus is said to have done; yet, at the sick-bed or the couch of

death, what could I do--I, to whom the apostolic virtue is supposed to

have descended in the long line of succession? I could anoint with

holy oil. I could make signs, and pray. I could give promises of

remitted sins--though I knew I spoke not truth. I could comfort by

voicing the insipid views of our orthodox heaven. And yet I know that

what I gave was but mental nostrums, narcotics, to stupify until death

might end the suffering. Is that serving Christ? Is that Christianity?

Alas, no!"

"And if you were a good orthodox priest," interposed Haynerd, "you

would refuse burial to dissenters, and bar from your communion table

all who were not of your faith, eh?"

"Yes," sadly. "I would have to, were I consistent; for Catholicism is

the only true faith, founded upon the revealed word of God, you know."

He smiled pathetically as he looked around at the little group.

"Now," he continued, "you, Mr. Haynerd, are a man of the world. You

are not in sympathy with the Church. You are an infidel, an

unbeliever. And therefore are you '_anathema_,' you know." He laughed

as he went on. "But you can not deny that at times you think very

seriously. And, I may go farther: you long, intensely, for something

that the world does not offer. Now, what is it but truth that you are

seeking?"

"I want to know," answered Haynerd quickly. "I want to be shown. I

am fond of exhibitions of sleight-of-hand and jugglery. But the

priestly thaumaturgy that claims to transform a biscuit into the

flesh of a man dead some two thousand years, and a bit of grape juice

into his blood, irritates me inexpressibly! And so does the

jugglery by which your Protestant fellows, Hitt, attempt to reconcile

their opposite beliefs. Why, what difference can it possibly make

to the Almighty whether we miserable little beings down here are

baptised with water, milk, or kerosene, or whether we are immersed,

sprinkled, or well soused? Good heavens! for nearly twenty centuries

you have been wandering among the non-essentials. Isn't it time to get

down to business, and instead of burning at the stake every one who

differs with you, try conscientiously to put into practice a few of

the simple moral precepts, such as the Golden Rule, and loving

one's neighbor as one's self?"

"There," commented Father Waite, "you have a bit of the world's

opinion of the Church! Can we say that the censure is not just? Would

not Christ himself to-day speak even more scathingly to those who

advocate a system of belief that puts blinders on men's minds, and

then leads them into the pit of ignorance and superstition?"

"Ye have taken away the key of knowledge," murmured Carmen; "ye

entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye

hindered."

"Just so!" exclaimed Haynerd, looking at the girl who stood as a

living protest against all that hampers the expansion of the human

mind; that quenches its note of joy, and dulls its enlarging and ever

nobler concept of God. "Now I want to know, first, if there is a God;

and, if so, what He is, and what His relation is to me. I want to know

what I am, and why I am here, and what future I may look forward to,

if any. I don't care two raps about a God who can't help me here on

earth, who can't set me right and make me happy--cure my ills, meet my

needs, and supply a few of the luxuries as well. And if there is a

God, and we can meet Him only by dying, then why in the name of common

sense all this hullabaloo about death? Why, in that case, death is the

grandest thing in life! And I'm for committing suicide right away! But

you preacher fellows fight death tooth and nail. You're scared stiff

when you contemplate it. You make Christianity just a grand

preparation for death. Yet it isn't the gateway to life to you, and

you know it! Then why, if you are honest, do you tell such rubbish to

your trusting followers?"

"I would remind you," returned Hitt with a little laugh, "that I

don't, now."

"Well, friends," interposed Father Waite, "it is to take up for

earnest consideration just such questions as Mr. Haynerd propounds,

that I have my suggestion to make, namely, that we meet together once

or twice a week, or as often as we may agree upon, to search for--"

his voice dropped to a whisper--"to search for God, and with this

young girl as our guide. For I believe she is very close to Him. The

world knows God only by hearsay. Carmen has _proved_ Him.

"Men ask why it is," he went on, "that God remains hidden from them;

why they can not understand Him. They forget that Jesus revealed God

as Love. And, if that is so, in order to know Him all mankind must

love their fellow-men. But they go right on hating one another,

cheating, abusing, robbing, slaying, persecuting, and still wondering

why they don't know God, regardless of the only possible way of ever

working out from the evils by which they are beset, if we believe that

Jesus told the truth, or was correctly reported." He paused and

reflected for a moment. Then:

"The ancient prophet said: 'Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye

shall search for me with all your hearts.' It is my proposal that we

bind ourselves together in such a search. To it we can bring diverse

talents. To our vast combined worldly experience, I bring knowledge of

the ancient Greek and Latin Fathers, together with Church history. Mr.

Hitt brings his command of the Hebrew language and history, and an

intimate acquaintance with the ancient manuscripts, and Biblical

interpretation, together with a wide knowledge of the physical

sciences. Madam Beaubien, Miss Wall, and Mr. Haynerd contribute their

earnest, searching, inquisitive spirit, and a knowledge of the world's

needs. Moreover, we all come together without bias or prejudice. And

Carmen--she contributes that in which we have all been so woefully

lacking, and without which we can _never_ know God, the rarest,

deepest spirituality. She is a living proof of her faith. Shall we

undertake the search, my friends? It means a study of her thought, and

the basis upon which it rests."

The Beaubien raised her hand to her moist eyes. She was thinking of

that worldly coterie which formerly was wont to meet nightly in her

magnificent mansion to prey upon their fellows. Oh, how different the

spirit of this little gathering!

"You will meet here, with me," she said in a broken voice. "I ask

it."

There were none there unacquainted with the sorrows of this penitent,

broken woman. Each rose in turn and clasped her hand. Carmen threw

her arms about her neck and kissed her repeatedly.

"You see," said the Beaubien, smiling up through her tears, "what this

child's religion is? Would the swinging of incense burners and the

mumbling of priestly formulæ enhance it?"

"Jesus said, 'Having seen me ye have seen God,'" said Father Waite.

"And I say," replied the Beaubien, "that having seen this child, you

have indeed seen Him."

CHAPTER 2

"I'm afraid," Haynerd was saying, as he and Father Waite were wending

their way to the Beaubien home a few evenings later, "that this Carmen

is the kind of girl you read about in sentimental novels; the kind who

are always just ready to step into heaven, but who count for little in

the warfare and struggle of actual mundane existence. You get me? She

isn't quite true to life, you know, as a book critic would say of an

impossible heroine."

"You mistake, my friend," replied Father Waite warmly. "She is the

very kind we would see oftener, were it not for the belief that years

bring wisdom, and so, as a consequence, the little child is crushed

beneath a load of false beliefs and human laws that make it reflect

its mortal parents, rather than its heavenly one."

"But I'd like to see her under stress--"

"Under stress! Good heavens, man! You haven't the slightest conception

of the stress she's been under most of her life! But your criticism

unconsciously pays her the highest tribute, for her kind never show by

word, deed, or look what they are enduring. That frail-appearing girl

has stood up under loads that would have flattened you and me out like

gold leaf!"

"Well, she doesn't look it!" protested Haynerd tenaciously.

"Of course she doesn't! Her kind never do! She's so far and away ahead

of mortals like you and me that she doesn't admit the reality and

power of evil--and, believe me, she's got her reasons for not

admitting it, too! Don't presume to judge her yet. Only try humbly to

attain a little of her understanding and faith; and try to avoid

making yourself ridiculous by criticising what you do not comprehend.

That, indeed, has been mankind's age-long blunder--and they have

thereby made asses of themselves!"

Edward Haynerd, or "Ned," as he was invariably known, prided himself

on being something of a philosopher. And in the name of philosophy he

chose to be quixotic. That one who hated the dissimulations and shams

of our class aristocracy so cordially should have earned his

livelihood--and a good one, too--as publisher of the Social Era, a

sprightly weekly chronicle of happenings in fashionable society, would

have appeared anomalous in any but a man gifted in the Greek

sophistries and their modern innumerable and arid offshoots. Haynerd

was a laughing Democritus, an easy-going, even-tempered fellow, doomed

to be loved, and by the same graces thoroughly cheated by the world in

general. He had in his rapid career of some thirty-five years dipped

deeply into things mundane, and had come to the surface, sputtering

and blowing, with his face well smeared with mud from the shallow

depths. Whereupon he remarked that such an existence was a poor way of

serving the Lord, and turned cynic. His wit was his saving grace. It

was likewise his capital and stock-in-trade. By it he won a place for

himself in the newspaper world, and later, as a credit asset, had

employed it successfully in negotiating for the Social Era. It taking

over the publication of this sheet he had remarked that life was

altogether too short to permit of attempting anything worth while; and

so he forthwith made no further assaults upon fame--assuming that he

had ever done so--but settled comfortably down to the enjoyment of his

sinecure. He had never married. And as justification for his

self-imposed celibacy he pompously quoted Kant: "I am a bachelor, and

I could not cease to be a bachelor without a disturbance that would be

intolerable to me." Yet he was not a misogynist. He simply shirked

responsibility and ease-threatening risk.

"You see," he remarked, explaining himself later to Carmen, "I'm a

pseudo-littérateur--I conduct a 'Who's It?' for the quidnunces of this

blasé old burg. And I really meet a need by furnishing an easy method

of suicide, for my little vanity sheet is a sort of social mirror,

that all who look therein may die of laughter. By the way, I had to

run those base squibs about you; but, by George! I'm going to make a

retraction in next Saturday's issue. I'll put a crimp in friend Ames

that'll make him squeal. I'll say he has ten wives, and eight of 'em

Zulus, at that!"

"Don't, please!" laughed Carmen. "We have enough to meet, without

going out of our way to stir up more. Let it all work out now, as it

will, in the right way."

"In the right way, eh? Is that part of your doctrine? Say, don't you

think that in formulating a new religion you're carrying coals to

Newcastle? Seems to me we've got enough now, if we'd practice 'em."

"My religion, Mr. Haynerd, is only the practice of the teachings of a

Nazarene Jew, named Jesus," she replied gently.

"Well, my religion is Socialism, I guess," he said lightly.

"So's mine," she quickly returned. "I'm a thorough Socialist. So we

meet on common ground, don't we?" She held out her hand, and he took

it, a puzzled expression coming into his face.

"Well," he said, glancing about, "we'll have to dispute that later. I

see Father Waite is about to open this little religious seminar. But

we'll get back to the discussion of myself," he added, his eyes

twinkling. "For, like Thoreau, I prefer to discuss that subject,

because there's no other about which I know so much."

"Nor so little," she added, laughing and squeezing his hand as she

turned from him.

The little coterie took their places around the dining room table,

which was well strewn with books of reference and writing materials.

Father Waite rapped gently for order. A deep, reverent silence fell

upon the group. They had begun their search for God.

"Friends," began Father Waite slowly, "we are inaugurating to-night a

mission of the most profound significance. No question so vitally

touches the human race as the one which we shall reverently discuss in

this and subsequent meetings. I thought as I came in here to-night of

the wisdom of Epictitus, who said, 'What do I want? To acquaint myself

with the true order of things and comply with it.' I am sure no

statement so fully expresses our common desire as that."

"Just so!" interrupted Haynerd. "If Adam was a Baptist, I want to know

and comply with the fact."

A general laugh followed. Then Father Waite held up a hand and again

became serious.

"Can we treat lightly even the Adam story, when we consider how much

misery and rancor its literal acceptance has caused among mankind? No.

Out of deepest sympathy for a world in search of truth, let us pity

their stumblings, and take heed that we fall not ourselves."

He paused. A hush lay upon the room. Carmen's hand stole toward the

Beaubien's and clasped it tightly.

"In these days, as of old, it is still said, 'There is no God!' And

yet, though the ignorant and wilful admit it not, mankind's very

existence is a function of their concept of a Creator, a sole

cause of all that is. No question, economic, social, political, or

other, is so vitally related to humanity as this: 'Is there a God?'

And the corollary: 'What is His relation to me?' For there can be

nothing so important as a knowledge of truth. Can the existence

of a God be demonstrated? Can He be shown to be beneficent, in

view of the world's testimony? What is our source of truth? If the

Bible, then can its authenticity be established? The greatest of

our so-called civilizations are known as Christian. But who can say

by them what Christianity really is?"

"I am quite prepared to say what it is not!" again interrupted

Haynerd.

"Doubtless," resumed Father Waite. "And so are we all. But at present

we are seeking constructive criticism, not solely destructive. There

has been quite enough of that sort in the world. But, to go a step

further, can we say positively that the truth is to be found even in

Christianity?"

"Please explain your question," said Miss Wall, with a puzzled look.

"The first essential is always facts," he continued. "The deduction of

right conclusions will follow--provided, as Matthew Arnold so tersely

said, we have sufficient delicacy of perception, subtlety, wisdom, and

tact. And, I may add, sufficient freedom from prejudice and mental

bias--ah, there is the stumbling block!"

"Matthew Arnold," ventured Haynerd, "was dubbed a first-class infidel,

as I recall it."

"Doubtless. As have been many of the world's most earnest searchers.

Yet he enunciated much truth, which we to-day are acknowledging. But,

to resume, since Christianity as we know it is based upon the

personality of a man, Jesus, we ask: Can the historicity of Jesus be

established?"

"What! Do you mean: did he ever live?" queried Miss Wall in greater

surprise than before.

"Yes. And if so, is he correctly reported in what we call the Gospels?

Then, did he reveal the truth to his followers? And, lastly, has that

truth been correctly transmitted to us?"

"And," added Hitt, "there is still the question: Assuming that he gave

us the truth, can we apply it successfully to the meeting of our daily

needs?"

"The point is well taken," replied Father Waite. "For, though I may

know that there are very abstruse mathematical principles, yet I may

be utterly unable to demonstrate or use them. But now," he went on,

"we are brought to other vital questions concerning us. They are, I

think, points to which the theologian has given but scant thought. If

we conclude that there is a God, we are confronted with the material

universe and man. Did He create them? And what are their natures and

import?"

"Well!" ejaculated Haynerd. "Seems to me you've cut out a large

assignment for this little party. Those are questions that the world

has played football with for thousands of years. Do you think we can

settle them in a few evenings' study? I think I'll be excused!"

"No! We can't spare you," laughed Father Waite. Then he glanced at

Carmen, who had sat quiet, apparently unhearing, during the remarks.

"I think you will hear things soon that will set you thinking," he

said. "But now we are going to let our traveled friend, Mr. Hitt,

give us just a word in summation of his thought regarding the

modern world and its attitude toward the questions which we have been

propounding."

The explorer leaned back in his chair and assumed his customary

attitude when in deep thought. All eyes turned upon him in eager

expectation.

"The world," he began reflectively, "presents to me to-day the most

interesting aspect it has assumed since history began. True, the age

is one of great mental confusion. Quite as true, startling discoveries

and astounding inventions have so upset our staid old mediaeval views

that the world is hurriedly crowding them out, together with its God.

Doctrines for which our fathers bled and burned are to-day lightly

tossed upon the ash heap. The searchlight is turned never so

mercilessly upon the founder of the Christian religion, and upon the

manuscripts which relate his words and deeds. Yet most of us have

grown so busy--I often wonder with what--that we have no time for that

which can not be grasped as we run. We work desperately by day,

building up the grandest material fabric the world has ever seen; and

at night we repair the machine for the next day's run. Even our

college professors bewail the lack of time for solid reading and

research. And if our young pursue studies, it is with the almost

exclusive thought of education as a means of earning a material

livelihood later, and, if possible, rearing a mansion and stocking its

larder and garage. It is, I repeat, a grandly materialistic age,

wherein, to the casual observer, spirituality is at a very low ebb."

He thrust his long legs under the table and cast his eyes upward to

the ceiling as he resumed:

"The modern world is still in its spiritual infancy, and does not

often speak the name of God. Not that we are so much irreverent as

that we feel no special need of Him in our daily pursuits. Since we

ceased to tremble at the thunders of Sinai, and their lingering echoes

in bulls and heresy condemnations, we find that we get along just as

well--indeed, much better. And it really is quite bad form now to

speak continually of God, or to refer to Him as anything real and

vital. To be on such terms of intimacy with Him as this girl Carmen

is--in thought, at least--would be regarded to-day as evidence of

sentimentalism and weakness."

He paused again, to marshal his thought and give his auditors an

opportunity for comment. Then, as the silence remained unbroken, he

continued:

"Viewing the world from one standpoint, it has achieved remarkable

success in applying the knout to superstition and limitation. But,

like a too energetic housekeeper, it has swept out much that is

essential with the _débris_. When spirituality ceases to be real or

vital to a people, then a grave danger threatens them. Materiality has

never proved a blessing, as history shows. Life that is made up of

strain and ceaseless worry is not life. The incessant accumulation of

material wealth, when we do not know how really to enjoy it, is folly.

To pamper the flesh, to the complete ignoring of the spirit, is

suicide. The increased hankering after physical excitements and animal

pleasures, to the utter abandonment of the search for that which is

real and satisfying, is an exhibition of gross, mesmeric stupidity, to

say the least. It shows that our sense of life is awry."

"But the world is surely attempting its own betterment," protested

Haynerd.

"I grant you that," replied Hitt. "But legislation and coercion are

the wrong means to employ. They restrain, but they do not cure. They

are only narcotics."

"Oh, well, you are not going to change the race until the individual

himself changes."

"Have I disputed that?" said Hitt. "Quite the contrary, that is the

pith of my observations. Reform is a hearthside affair. And no sane

man will maintain that general reform can ever come until the

individual's needs are met--his daily, hourly, worldly needs."

"I think I get your point," said Father Waite. "It is wholly a

question of man's concept of the cause of things, himself included,

and their purpose and end, is it not?"

"Quite so," replied Hitt. "The restless spirit of the modern world is

hourly voicing its discontent with a faltering faith which has no

other basis than blind belief. It wants demonstrable fact upon which

to build. In plain words, _mankind would be better if they but knew

how_!"

"Well, we show them how," asserted Haynerd. "But they don't do as we

tell 'em."

"Are you quite sure that you show them how?" asked Hitt. "What do you

ever do toward showing them how permanently to eradicate a single

human difficulty?"

"Oh, well, putting it that way, nothing, of course."

"Quite so, my friend. The relief we afford is but temporary. And so

the world continues to wait for surcease from woe in a life beyond the

grave. But now, returning to our survey, let me say that amid all the

folly of vain pursuits, of wars and strife, of doleful living and

pitiable dying, there are more encouraging and hopeful signs hung out

to the inquiring thought to-day than ever before in history. If I

misread not, we are already entered upon changes so tremendous that

their end must be the revolutionizing of thought and conduct, and

hence of life. Our present age is one of great extremes: though we

touch the depths, we are aiming likewise at the heights. I doubt if

there ever was a time when so many sensed the nothingness of the

pleasures of the flesh. I doubt if ever there was such a quickening of

the business conscience, and such a determined desire to introduce

honesty and purity into our dealings with one another. Never was the

need of religion more keenly felt by the world than it is to-day; and

that is why mankind are willing to accept any religious belief,

however eccentric, that comes in the guise of truth and bearing the

promise of surcease from sin, sickness, and sorrow here this side of

the grave. The world was never so hungry for religious truth; and this

fact is a perpetual challenge to the Church. There is a tremendous

world-yearning to know and to do better. And what is its cause? I

answer, a growing appreciation of the idea that 'the kingdom of

harmony is within you.'"

"Jesus said that," murmured Carmen, looking up.

"He but amplified and gave form to the great fact that there was

an influence for better things always existent in the ancient Jews,

that 'something not ourselves,' if you will, 'that makes for

righteousness.' And he showed that that influence could be outwardly

externalized in freedom from the ills which beset humanity."

"Very good," put in Haynerd. "And then, what?"

"That 'something not ourselves' is the germ of the true idea of God,"

answered Hitt.

"Which makes God--?"

"Wholly mental."

"Spirit?"

"Mind," offered Carmen.

"The terms are synonymous," said Hitt. "And now let me conclude with a

final observation. Mankind's beliefs are in a whirl. Ecclesiasticism

is dying. Orthodoxy and conservatism are hanging desperately to the

world's flying skirts, but they will eventually drop off. No change in

thought has been greater than that concerning God. The absentee Lord

who started the universe and then withdrew has gone to the scrap heap,

with the ridiculous views of predestination and infant damnation. The

idea of a God who at divers times interfered with His creation and

temporarily set aside His own laws to convince puny man of His

greatness, is likewise obsolescent. The world is slowly growing into a

conception of a creator, of some kind, but at least mental, and

universally present. Nay, more, available for all our problems and

needs. And the end will be the adoption of that conception, enlarged

and purified still further, and taken into the minutest affairs of our

daily life--as this girl has done. The day of patient suffering in

this world, under the spell of a promise of compensating reward in the

heavenly future, has all but passed. We are gradually becoming

conscious of the stupendous fact that the kingdom of all harmony,

immortality, and good, is _right here within us_--and therefore can be

naught but a consciousness of absolute good, perfectly attainable by

humanity as the 'old man' of Paul is laid off, but not gained,

necessarily, through what we call death."

The silence which followed was broken at length by Miss Wall. "And

what constitutes the 'old man'?" she asked.

"Largely, I think," said Hitt, "the belief that matter is real."

"What?" exclaimed Haynerd, almost rising from his chair. "Matter,

real?"

Hitt laughed. "I stand on my statement," he replied.

Father Waite rose slowly, as if lost in thought. "History shows," he

said, meditatively, "that man's progress has been proportionate to his

freedom from the limitation of ignorance and undemonstrable belief.

And that freedom has come as man's concept of God has grown less and

less material, and more and more spiritual. From the animal nature of

the savage, to whom all is matter, down--or up--to the man of to-day,

to whom mind is assuming ever greater ascendency, man's progress has

been marked by a throwing off of limiting beliefs, theological or

other, in material power and substance. The development of the least

material forces, steam, electricity, the X-ray, has come only as the

human mind has thrown off a portion of its hampering material beliefs.

I am astounded when I think of it, and of its marvelous message to

future generations! For, from the premise that the creator of all

things is spirit, or mind, as you will, comes the corollary that the

creation itself must of necessity be _mental_. And from this come such

deductions as fairly make me tremble. Carmen has told me of the

deductions which her tutor, the priest Josè, drew from the single

premise that the universe is infinite in extent--a premise which I

think we all will accept."

"There can be no question about it," said Hitt, nodding his head.

"Well," continued Father Waite, "that granted, we must likewise grant

its creator to be infinite, must we not?"

"Certainly."

"And that puts the creator out of the matter-class entirely. The

creator must be--"

"Mind," said Carmen, supplying the thought ever-present with her.

"I see no other conclusion," said Father Waite. "But, that granted, a

flood of deductions pours in that sends human beliefs and reasoning

helter-skelter. For an infinite mind would eventually disintegrate if

it were not perfect in every part."

"Perhaps it is already disintegrating, and that's what causes the evil

in the world," hazarded Haynerd.

"Utterly untenable, my friend," put in Hitt. "For, granted an infinite

mind, we must grant the concomitant fact that such a mind is of very

necessity omnipotent, as well as perfect. What, then, could ever cause

disintegration in it?"

"You are right," resumed Father Waite. "And such a mind, of very

necessity perfect, omnipotent, and, of course, ever-present, must

likewise be eternal. For there would be nothing to contest its

existence. Age, decay, and death would be unknown to it. And so would

evil."

"And that," said Carmen, rising, "is my God."

Father Waite nodded significantly to the others, and sat down, leaving

the girl facing them, her luminous eyes looking off into unfathomed

distances, and her face aglow with spiritual light.

"My God is infinite Good, to whom evil is unknown," she said. "And

good includes all that is real. It includes wisdom, intelligence,

truth, life, and love--none of them material. How do I know? Oh, not

by human reasoning, whereby you seek to establish the fact of His

existence, but by proof, daily proof, and in the hours when the floods

of suppositional evil have swept over me. You would rest your faith on

your deductions. But, as Saint Gregory said, no merit lies in faith

where human reason supplies the proof; and that you will all some day

know. Yes, my God is Mind. And He ceaselessly expresses Himself in and

through His ideas, which He is constantly revealing. And He is

infinite in good. And these ideas express that goodness and

infinitude, from the tiniest up to the idea of God himself. And that

grandest idea is--man. Oh, no, not the men and women you think you see

about you in your daily walk. No! no! They but counterfeit the divine.

But the man that Jesus always saw back of every human concept. That

man is God's own idea of Himself. He is God's image and likeness. He

is God's reflection. That is the man we shall all put on when we have

obeyed Paul and put off the old man, its counterfeit."

"Then, Carmen," said Father Waite, "you believe all things to be

mental?"

"Yes, everything--man himself--and matter."

"But, if God is mind, and infinite, He must include all things. Hence

He must include this imperfect representation, called the physical

man. Is it not so?"

"No," returned the girl emphatically. "Did not Jesus speak often of

the one lie about his Father, God? The material man and the material

universe are but parts of that lie. And a lie is always a supposition;

not real. All evil is contained in that supposition--a supposition

that there is power and life and substance apart from God."

"But who made the supposition?" queried Haynerd.

"A supposition is not made," replied Carmen quietly. "Its existence is

suppositional."

"I don't quite get that," interposed Miss Wall, her brows knitting.

Carmen smiled down at the inquiring woman. "Listen," she said. "The

creator of all things is mind. You admit that. But you would have that

mind the creator of evil, also. Yet, your own reasoning has shown

that, on the premise of mind as infinite, such mind must be forever

whole, harmonious, perfect. The thoughts and ideas by which that mind

expresses itself must be likewise pure and perfect. Then that creative

mind can not create evil. For, a mind that creates evil must itself be

evil. And, being infinite, such a mind must include the evil it

creates. We would have, then, either a mind wholly evil, or one of

mixed evil and good. In either case, that mind must then destroy

itself. Am I not right?"

"Your reasoning is, certainly," admitted Miss Wall. "But, how to

account for evil, when God is infinite good--"

"To account for it at all," replied Carmen, "would be to make it

something real. Jesus would account for it only by classing it as a

lie about God. Now God, as the creative mind, must likewise be truth,

since He is perfection and harmony. Very well, a lie is always the

opposite of truth. Evil is the direct opposite of good."

"Yes," said Father Waite, nodding his head as certain bright memories

returned to him. "That is what you told me that day when I first

talked with you. And it started a new line of thought."

"Is it strange that God should have a suppositional opposite?"

asked Carmen. "Has not everything with which you are concerned a

suppositional opposite? God is truth. His suppositional opposite is

the great lie of evil. God is good. Hence the same opposite. God is

spirit. The suppositional opposite is matter. And matter is just as

mental as the thoughts which you are now holding. God is real. Good

is real. And so, evil and the lie are unreal."

"The distinction seems to me theoretical," protested Miss Wall.

Hitt then took the floor. "That word 'real,'" he said, "is perhaps

what is causing your confusion. The real is that which, according to

Spencer, does not pass away. We used to believe matter indestructible,

forever permanent. We learn that our views regarding it were very

incorrect. Matter is quite destructible."

"And yet," said Father Waite, "in this universe of constant change,

_something_ endures. What is it but the mind that is God, expressing

itself in such immaterial and permanent things as law, love, life,

power?"

"Exactly," replied Hitt. "But now we have been brought back again to

the question of matter. If we can prove that matter is mental, and not

real substance, we will have established Carmen's premise that

everything is mental. Then there remains but the distinction between

the mind that is God, and its suppositional opposite, as expressed in

human existence. Let us conclude, therefore, that to-night we have

established, at least as a working hypothesis, that, since a thing

existing implies a creator; and since the existent universe, being

infinite, demands an infinite creator; and since a creator can not be

infinite without being at once mind, perfect, eternal, omnipotent,

omniactive, and good, we are fully justified in assuming that the

creator of all things still exists, and is infinite, ever-present

mind. Further than that we are not prepared to go, until we have

discussed the questions of matter and the physical universe and man.

Let us leave those topics for a subsequent meeting. And now I suggest

that we unite in asking Carmen to sing for us, to crown the unity that

has marked this discussion with the harmony of her own beautiful

voice."

A few moments later, about the small upright piano which the Beaubien

had rented for Carmen, the little group sat in reverent silence, while

the young girl sent out through the little room the harmonious

expression of her own inner life, the life that had never left heaven

for earth.

CHAPTER 3

With her exit from the _beau monde_ and her entrance upon the broad

stage of University life, Carmen seemed to have awakened from the

lethargy which her abrupt transition from mediaeval Simití into the

modern world had occasioned. The static struggle to hold her own

against the rushing currents of materialism had turned at length in

her favor. Her lamp had been kept alight. The lethal influences which

rose about her like stupifying fumes in the courts of fashion had been

lifted and swept away by the fresher and more invigorating breezes

into which her bark had now been drawn.

She plunged into her new work joyously; yet not without a deeper

comprehension of its meaning than that of her fellow-students. She

knew that the University was but another stepping-stone, even as her

social life had been; another series of calls and opportunities to

"prove" her God to be immanent good. And she thankfully accepted its

offerings. For she was keenly alive to the materialistic leadings of

the "higher education," and she would stand as a living protest

against them.

It had not taken her long to discover the impotence lying at the heart

of so-called modern education. She had not been slow to mark the

disappointment written upon the faces of many of her fellow-students,

who had sought in vain a great awakening light in those sacred

precincts of learning, but, their confidence betrayed, were now

floundering in the devouring morass of materialism. To her keen

insight the University stood revealed as the great panderer to this

latest century's obsessing idea that the true function of education is

expressed in the imparting of changing, human information and a

training for the business of earning one's daily bread according to

the infamous code of the world's carnal social system. The University

did not meet the most urgent need of the race by equipping men to

stand against the great crises of human experience. It did not teach

men to lay aside the counterfeit man of material sense; but rather

emphasized the world's belief in the reality of this man by minutely

detailed courses in his mundane history and the manifestations of his

pitiable ignorance in his wanton crimes and watery ambitions. To

Carmen, God was the most insistent fact of creation. And mankind's

existence could find its only justification in ceaseless, consecrated

manifestation of His harmonious activity. True, the University vaguely

recognized God as infinitely competent. But in the same breath it

confessed its utter ignorance of a demonstrable knowledge of Him, to

know whom alone is life. True, these men of worldly learning prayed.

But their hollow prayers bore no hope, for they knew not how to gain

answers to them.

And yet the girl remained in her new environment, awaiting the call to

"come up higher." And meantime she strove to gain daily a wider

knowledge of the Christ-principle, and its application to the needs

and problems of her fellow-men. Her business was the reflection of her

Father's business. Other ambition she had none. The weak, transient,

flighty, so-called intellectual life which she saw about her sent no

call across the calm currents of her thought. Her education was

religious in the strictest, deepest sense, for she was learning to

know God.

Though the girl pursued her way quietly, unwilling that the notoriety

which had been fastened upon her should mark her as an object of

curiosity, yet her story soon spread among University circles, and the

first semester was a scant two weeks old before her name had been

debated in the numerous Sororities and Women's Clubs, and quietly

dropped. Negro blood coursed in her veins; and the stigma of parental

disgrace lay dark upon her. She lived with a woman of blackened

reputation--a reputation which waxed no brighter under the casual,

malicious comments of J. Wilton Ames, whose great financial strength

had made him a Trustee of this institution of learning. If Carmen

divined the comment that was passed concerning herself, she gave no

indication. But Hitt and Father Waite knew that the girl had not found

favor in the social and fraternal organizations of her mates; and they

knew why.

"A curse upon such little minds!" mused Hitt, when he could no longer

restrain himself. Then he called a student to his desk one day, at the

conclusion of his lecture.

"Miss West," he said, "you are leader in the most prominent Sorority

in the University. I want you to give Miss Carmen Ariza a bid."

The girl shook her head. "She is not desirable."

"But the charges against her are unfounded! They are flagrantly

false!" stormed Hitt.

"Have you proof, Professor?" the girl asked, as she arched her brows.

"None definite. But--well, what if she were a negress? Hers is the

most brilliant mind in the entire student-body!"

But, no. Race segregation is a divine tenet, scripturally justified.

What though the girl's skin vied with the lilies and rosebuds? What

though her hair was the brown of ripe fields? Had not God Almighty

decreed that the negro should remain a drawer of water? A hewer of

wood? Had the Lord designed him the equal of the noble white, He would

have bleached his face, and bridged his flat nose. Miss West was a

Southerner. And the reference to her dark-skinned sisters caused a

little _moue_ of disgust, as she flatly declined to consider Carmen an

eligible candidate for membership in her Society.

"Lord above!" ejaculated Hitt, who had been brooding over the incident

as he walked home with Father Waite. "That toadying, sycophantic,

wealth-worshiping Miss West can see no farther than the epidermis! If

we could have maintained Carmen's reputation as an Inca princess, this

same girl would have fawned at her feet, and begged to kiss the edge

of her robe! And she would have used every art of cajolery to

ingratiate herself into Carmen's favor, to catch the social crumbs

that our girl might chance to drop!"

"There, there, Hitt," soothed Father Waite. "Have you any idea that

Carmen is at all injured by Miss West's supercilious conduct?"

"Not in the least!" asseverated Hitt vigorously. "But it makes me

so--!"

"There, check that! You're forgetting the girl's influence, aren't

you?"

Hitt gulped his wrath down his long throat. "Waite," he blurted, "that

girl's an angel! She isn't real!"

"Oh, yes, she is!" replied Father Waite. "She's so real that we don't

understand her--so real that she has been totally misunderstood by the

petty minds that have sought to crush her here in New York, that's

all."

"But certainly she is unique--"

"Ah, yes; unique in that she goes about putting her arms around people

and telling them that she loves them. Yes, that certainly is unique!

And she is unique in that her purity and goodness hang about her like

an exquisite aura, and make people instinctively turn and look after

her as she passes. Unique in that in her sweet presence one seems to

hear a strain of heavenly music vibrating on the air. So unique that

the dawn, the nesting birds, the wild flowers, the daily sunset,

fairly intoxicate her with ecstasy and make her life a lyric."

Hitt essayed to reply; but the words hung in his throat.

"Yes," continued Father Waite, "she is so unique that when the

empty-headed, vain young Duke of Altern, learning that she had been

thrown out of society because of the base rumor regarding her

parentage, sent her a written statement to the effect that there was

no engagement between them, and demanded that she sign it, she did

so, with a happy smile, with an invocation, with a prayer for blessing

upon those who had tried to ruin her."

"Good God! Did she do that?"

"Aye, she did. And when Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and Ames and Lafelle

filched La Libertad from her, she would have given them the clothes on

her back with it, if they had demanded them. Yes, she's unique--so

unique that again and again I hear her murmur, as she looks off

absently into space: 'If it is right that he should have a son, then I

want it to be so.'"

"Referring to--that priest--Josè de Rincón?"

"Yes, doubtless. And time and again I have heard her say: 'God is

light. Sight depends upon light. Therefore Anita's babe sees.' Old

Rosendo's grandson, you know."

Hitt nodded. "Waite," he said earnestly, "she is simply illustrating

what would happen to any of us if we threw ourselves wholly upon

God's protecting care, and took our thoughts only from Him. That's

why she can lose her home, her family, her reputation, that

mine--everything--and still stand. _She does what we don't dare to

do!_"

"She is a living illustration," replied Father Waite, "of the mighty

fact that there is nothing so practical as _real_ Christianity. I want

you to tell Professor Cane that. He calls her 'the girl with the

Utopian views,' because of her ingenuous replies in his sociological

class. But I want you to show him that she is very far from being

impractical."

"I'll do it," said Hitt emphatically. "I'll prove to Cane that her

religion is not a visionary scheme for regulating a world inhabited

only by perfect beings, but is a working principle for the every-day

sinner to use in the solution of his daily problems. Moreover, Waite,

she is a vivid illustration of the fact that when the individual

improves, the nation does likewise. Do you get me?"

"I not only get you, but I stand as a proof of your statement,"

returned Father Waite gently.

Carmen, her thoughts above, though her feet trod the earth, came and

went, glad and happy. The change in her mode of living from the

supreme luxury of the Hawley-Crowles mansion to the common comforts of

the home where now she dwelt so simply with the Beaubien, seemed not

to have caused even a ripple in the full current of her joy. Her life

was a symphony of thanksgiving; an antiphony, in which all Nature

voiced its responses to her in a diapason, full, rich, and harmonious.

Often that autumn she might have been seen standing among the tinted

leaves on the college campus, and drinking in their silent message.

And then she might have been heard to exclaim, as she turned her rapt

gaze beyond the venerable, vine-clad buildings: "Oh, I feel as if I

just couldn't stand it, all this wealth of beauty, of love, of

boundless good!" And yet she was alone, always alone. For her dark

story had reared a hedge about her; the taboo rested upon her; and

even in the crowded classrooms the schoolmates of her own sex looked

askance and drew their skirts about them.

But if the students avoided her, the faculty did not. And those like

Professor Cane, who had the opportunity and the ability to peer into

the depths of the girl's soul, took an immediate and increasing

interest in her. Often her own naïve manners broke down the bars of

convention, and brought her enduring friendships among the men of

learning. This was especially the case with Doctor Morton, Dean of the

School of Surgery. Yielding to a harmless impulse of curiosity, the

girl one afternoon had set out on a trip of exploration, and had

chosen the Anatomy building to begin with. Many odd sights greeted her

eager gaze as she peered into classrooms and exhibit cases; but she

met with no one until she chanced to open the door of Doctor Morton's

private laboratory, and found that eminent man bending over a human

brain, which he was dissecting.

Carmen stopped, and stood hesitant. The doctor looked up, surprise

written large upon his features as he noted his fair caller. "Well!"

he said, laying down his work.

"Well!" returned Carmen. "That sounds like the Indian 'How?' doesn't

it?" Then both laughed.

"You--are--Doctor Morton?" queried the girl, twisting around and

looking at the name on the door to make certain.

"Yes," replied the genial doctor, with growing interest. He was a

gray-haired, elderly man, slightly inclined to embonpoint, and with

keen, twinkling eyes. "Will you come in?"

"Yes, indeed," returned the girl; "I'd love to. I am Carmen Ariza."

"Ah, yes. The young South American--lady. I have heard of you."

"Most everybody seems to have heard of me," sighed the girl. "Well, it

doesn't make any difference about my coming in here, does it?" She

looked up at him so wistfully that he felt a great tug at his

heartstrings.

"Not a bit!" he replied cordially. "You're as welcome as the April

sun."

She seized his hand and pressed it. "Now tell me," she said eagerly,

looking about. "What are you doing? What's that thing?"

"That," said he, taking up the pulpy gray object, "is the brain of my

erstwhile friend and collaborator, Doctor Bolton. He willed it to the

University."

"Alas, poor Yorick!" murmured Carmen, a facetious twinkle coming into

her eyes as she looked at it. "And why are you cutting it up?"

"In the interests of science," returned the man, studying her. "That

we may increase our knowledge of this marvelous mechanism of thought,

and the laws by which it operates in mental processes."

"Then you still blindly seek the living among the dead, don't you?"

she murmured. "You think that this poor thing held life, and you

search now among its ashes for the living principle. But, God is life;

and 'Canst thou by searching find out God?'"

The man regarded her intently without replying. She bent for a while

over the half-dissected brain in deep thought. Then she looked up.

"Doctor," she said, "life is not structural. God is life; and to know

Him is to reflect life. Reflecting Him, we are immortal. Doctor, don't

you think it is about time to do away with this business of dying?"

The man of science started visibly, and his eyes opened wider. The

abrupt question quite swept him off his feet.

"You didn't really expect to find anything in this brain, did you?"

she went on. "The brain is composed of--what?"

"Why, mostly water, with a few commonplace salts," he answered,

wondering what the next question would be.

"And can a compound of water and a few commonplace salts _think_?" she

asked, looking intently at him.

"N--no," he answered tentatively.

"The brain is not the cause of thought, then, but an effect, is it

not?" she pursued.

"Why, really, my dear Miss Carmen, we don't know. We call it the organ

of thought, because in some way thought seems to be associated with

it, rather than with--well, with the liver, or muscles, for example.

And we learn that certain classes of mental disturbances are

intimately associated with lesions or clots in the brain. That's about

all."

The girl reflected for a few moments. Then:

"Doctor, you wouldn't cut up a machine to discover the motive power,

would you? But that is just what you are doing there with that brain.

You are hoping by dissecting it to find the power that made it go,

aren't you? And the power that made it go was mind--life."

"But the life is not in the brain now," hazarded the doctor.

"And never was," returned Carmen promptly. "You see," she went on, "if

the brain was ever alive, it could never cease to be so. If it ever

lived, it could never die. That brain never manifested real life. It

manifested only a false sense of life. And that false sense died. Who

or what says that the man who owned that brain is dead? Why, the human

mind--human belief. It is the human mind, expressing its belief in

death, and in a real opposite to life, or God. Don't you see?"

"H'm!" The doctor regarded the girl queerly. She returned his look

with a confident smile.

"You believe in evolution, don't you?" she at length continued.

"Oh, surely," he replied unhesitatingly. "There is overwhelming

evidence of it."

"Well, then, in the process of evolution, which was evolved first, the

brain, or the mind which operates it and through it?" she asked.

"Why," he replied meditatively, "it is quite likely that they evolved

simultaneously, the brain being the mind's organ of expression."

"But don't you see, Doctor, that you are now making the mind really

come first? For that which expresses a thing is always secondary to

the thing expressed."

"Well, perhaps so," he said. "At any rate, it is quite immaterial to a

practical knowledge of how to meet the brain's ills. I am a practical

man, you know."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said simply. "Practical men are so

stupid and ignorant."

"Well, I declare!" he exclaimed, putting his hands on his hips and

staring down at the smiling face.

"And you are so nice and friendly, I wouldn't want to think you stupid

and ignorant," she went on blandly.

"H'm! Well, that kind o' takes the edge off your former classification

of me," he said, greatly amused, yet wondering just what appraisal to

place upon this frank girl.

"And evolution," she continued, "is an unfolding, isn't it? You see,

the great fact of creation is the creator, infinite mind. Well, that

mind expresses itself in its ideas. And these it is unfolding all the

time. Now a fact always gives rise to a suppositional opposite. The

opposite of a fact is an error. And that is why error has been called

'negative truth.' Of course, there isn't any such thing as negative

truth! And so all error is simply falsity, supposition, without real

existence. Do you see?"

He did not reply. But she went on unperturbed. "Now, the human, or

carnal, mind is the negative truth of the real mind, God. It is

infinite mind's suppositional opposite. And it imitates the

infinite mind, but in a very stupid, blundering way. And so the whole

physical universe manifests evolution, too--an unfolding, or

revealing, of material types, or mental concepts. And all these

manifest the human mind's sense of life, and its equally strong

sense of death. The universe, animals, men, are all human types,

evolved, or unfolded, or revealed, in the human mind. And all are

the human mind's interpretations of infinite mind's real and eternal

and perfect ideas. You see that, don't you?

"You know," she laughed, "speaking of 'negative truth', the first

chapter of Genesis sets forth positive truth, and the second chapter

sets forth its opposite, negative truth. It is very odd, isn't it? But

there it is for everybody to read. And the human mind, of course, true

to its beliefs, clings to the second chapter as the reality. Isn't it

strange?"

Meantime, Carmen's attention had been attracted to a large microscope

that stood on the table near her. Going to it, she peeped curiously

down into the tube. "Well, what have you here?" she inquired.

"Germs," he said mechanically.

"Germs! What funny, twisted things! Well," she suddenly asked, "have

you got the fear germ here?"

He broke into a laugh. But when the girl looked up, her face was quite

serious.

"You do not know it, Doctor, for you are a practical man, but you

haven't anything but fear germs under this glass," she said in a low

voice.

"Why, those are germs of typhoid and tuberculosis!" he exclaimed.

"And manifestations, externalizations, of the fear germ itself, which

is mental," she added. "These things don't cause disease," she went

on, pointing to the slide. "But the thoughts which they manifest do.

Do you scientists know why people die, Doctor?"

"No," he admitted seriously. "We really do not know why people die."

"Then I'll tell you," she said. "_It's because they don't know enough

to live._ This poor Doctor Bolton died because he didn't know that God

was life. He committed sickness, and then paid the penalty, death. He

sinned by believing that there were other powers than God, by

believing that life and thought were in matter. And so he paid the

wages of sin, death. He simply missed the mark, that's all."

She turned and perched herself upon the table. "You haven't asked me

to sit down," she commented brightly. "But, if you don't mind, I

will."

"I--I beg your pardon!" the doctor exclaimed, coloring, and hastily

setting out a chair. "I really was so interested in what you were

saying that I forgot my manners."

"No," she said, shaking her head as she declined the proffered chair,

"I'll sit here, so's I can look straight into your eyes. You go ahead

and cut up poor Yorick, and I'll talk."

The doctor laughed again. "You are much more interesting," he

returned, "than poor Bolton, dead or alive. In fact, he really was

quite a bore. But you are like a sparkling mountain rill, even if you

do give me a severe classification."

"Well," she replied, "then you are honestly more interested in life

than in death, are you?"

"Why, most assuredly!" he said.

"So am I, much! Death is _such_ a mistake; and I haven't a bit of use

for it," she continued. "It's like making mistakes in music, or

mathematics. Now when we make mistakes in those, we never stop to

discuss them. We correct them. But, dear me! The world has nearly

talked its poor old head off about the mistakes of sickness and death.

It never seems to occur to the world that Jesus always associated

sickness with sin. You know, the Rabbis of his day seem to have hit

upon a great truth, although they didn't make it really practical.

They maintained that a sick man could not be healed of his diseases

until all his sins had been forgiven. And so they attempted to forgive

sins and make men clean by their elaborate ceremonies. But they missed

the mark, too. And nobody got to the root of the difficulty until

Jesus came. He forgave sin by destroying it completely. And that cured

the disease that was the manifestation of sin. Now I ask, why do you,

nearly two thousand years after his time, still do as the old Rabbis

did, and continue to treat the body--the effect--instead of the mental

cause? But," looking down in meditation, "I suppose if you did that

the people would cry, 'He hath a devil!' They thought I was a witch in

Simití."

"H'm!" returned the doctor. "Then you do not believe that disease is

caused by microbes, I take it?"

"Disease caused by microbes? Yes, so it is. And the microbe? It is a

manifestation of the human mind again. And, as with typhoid fever,

diphtheria, and other diseases, the human mind applies its own

cherished, ignorant beliefs in certain methods, and then renders

innocuous its own manifestations, microbes. The human mind makes its

own diseases, and then in some cases removes the disease, but still by

human, material methods. Its reliefs are only temporary. At last it

yields itself to its false beliefs, and then goes out in what it calls

death. It is all a mental process--all human thought and its various

manifestations. Now why not get beyond microbes and reach the cause,

even of them, the human mind itself? Jesus did. Paul did. Others have

done so. Why do not you men of science do likewise?"

Doctor Morton himself took the chair which he had set out for the

girl. "What you say," he replied slowly, "is not new to me. But I can

only answer that the world is not ready yet for the great change which

you suggest."

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "What cant! What mesmerism you are laboring

under! Was the world ready for Jesus?"

"No. He came too soon. Events show that."

"Well, then, would he be accepted to-day, if he had not come before?"

"I can not say. But--I think he would not."

"And I quite agree with you," she said firmly. "Now the world has

doctored for more than four thousand years, despite the fact that

health is not sold in bottle or pill form. Doctor, what does the

history of all these centuries of drugging show you?"

He hesitated. Carmen waited a moment; then continued:

"Don't they demonstrate the absolute inability of medicines to cure

disease?" she asked. "Any more than putting men in prison cures

crime?" she added as an afterthought.

"They at least prove that medication has not _permanently_ removed

disease," he ventured, not wishing to go too far.

"Doctor," she said earnestly, "that man Jesus, who, according to you,

came too soon, said: 'Without me ye can do nothing.' Well, didn't he

come very, very close to the truth when he made that statement? He did

not say that without drugs or material remedies we could do nothing,

but that without the Christ-principle mankind would continue, as

before, to miss the mark. He showed that disease and discord result

from sin. Sin is lack of righteousness, lack of right-thinking about

things. It is wrong belief, false thought. Sin is mental. Its effect,

disease, is mental--a state of discordant consciousness. Can you with

drugs change a state of mind?"

"Certainly," he replied quickly. "Whiskey and opium cause changes in

one's state of mind."

"No," she answered. "But the human belief of power inherent in whiskey

and opium, or of the human body's reaction to them, causes a change in

the human thought-activity that is called consciousness. The state of

human consciousness changes with the belief, but not the real state of

mind. Can you not see that? And Doctor Bolton--"

"Bolton was not sick. He died of natural causes, old age, and general

breakdown," was the doctor's refuge.

Carmen laughed and sprang down from the table. "What an obstinately

obdurate lot you scientific men are!" she exclaimed. "Don't you know

that you doctors are only a development of the old 'medicine-man'? Now

in the first place, Mr. Bolton isn't dead; and, in the second, there

are no _natural_ causes of death. Old age? Why, that's gone out of

fashion, long since."

"You deny senile changes--?"

"I deny every human error!" she interrupted.

"Then," with a note of banter in his voice, "I take it that you do not

expect to die."

"I do not!" she replied emphatically. "I expect good, nothing but

good, ever! Don't you know that physiologists themselves admit that

the human body is composed of eighty-five per cent water and fifteen

per cent ordinary salts? Can such a combination have intelligence and

sensation? Do you still believe that life is dependent upon lungs,

stomach, or liver? Why, the so-called 'unit cell' breathes, digests,

and manifests life-functions, and yet it has no lungs, no mouth, no

stomach, no organs. It is the human mind, assuming knowledge and power

which it does _not_ possess, that says the sense of life shall depend

upon such organs in the one case and not in the other. And the human

mind could be utterly refuted if men would only learn to use the

Christ-principle. Jesus and Paul used it, and proved material laws to

be only false beliefs."

"Well," he replied meditatively, "if you are correct, then the

preachers are way off the track. And I have long since come to the

conclusion that--Well," changing abruptly back to the previous topic,

"so you refute the microbe theory, eh?"

"I said I did and did not," she laughed. "Listen: fear, worry, hatred,

malice, murder, all of which are mental things in themselves, manifest

to the human mind as microbes. These are the hurtful microbes, and

they produce toxins, which poison the system. What is the cure?

Antitoxins? No, indeed! Jesus gave the real and permanent cure. It is

the Christ-principle. Now you can learn that principle, and how to

apply it. But if you don't care to, why, then you must go on with your

material microbes and poisons, and with your diseases and death, until

you are ready to leave them and turn to that which is real. For all

human-mind activity and manifestation, whether in microbes, death, or

life, is mental, and is but the counterfeit of the real activity of

divine mind, God.

"Do you know," she pursued earnestly, "I heard a lecture the other day

in which it was said that life is a sort of fermentation in the body.

Well, as regards human life, I guess that is so. For the human body is

only a manifestation of the human mind; and the human mind surely is

in a continuous state of ferment!"

She paused and laughed. "The lecturer," she continued, "said that the

range of life was from ultra-microbe to man, and that Shakespeare

began as a single cell. Think of it! The mundane concept of

Shakespeare's body may have unfolded from a cell-concept; but

Shakespeare was a manifestation of mind! And that mind was an

interpretation, though very imperfect, of the mind that is God. Why

can't you materialists raise your eyes above the dust? Why, you would

choke the very avenues of the spirit with mud!"

"H'm! Well, your education seems to be--"

"Yes," she interrupted, "my education is beyond the vagaries that are

so generally taught in the name of knowledge. Intellectual education

is a farce. It does nothing for mankind, except to give them a false

culture. Were the so-called great men of the past really educated?

Here is an extract which I copied this afternoon from Hawthorne." She

opened her note book and read:

"'Ah, but there is a half-acknowledged melancholy like to this

when we stand in the perfected vigor of our life and feel that

Time has now given us all his flowers, and that the next work of

his never-idle fingers must be to steal them one by one away.'

"Now," she asked, "was that man really educated? In current theology,

yes. But that theology _could not solve his least earthly problem, nor

meet his slightest need_! Oh, what inexpressibly sad lives so many of

your greatest men have lived! Your Hawthorne, your Longfellow, they

yearned for the rest which they were taught was to follow death. They

were the victims of false theology. They were mesmerized. If they

believed in the Christ--and they thought they did--why, then, did they

not rise up and do as he bade them do, put death out? He taught no

such resignation to human beliefs as they practiced! He showed men how

to overcome the world. Why do we not try to overcome it? Has the time

not come? Is the world not sufficiently weary of dying?"

He looked at her intently for some moments. She seemed, as she stood

there before him, like a thing of gossamer and sunshine that had

drifted into his laboratory, despite the closed door.

"Say," he suddenly exclaimed, as a new thought struck him, "I'd like

to have you talk with my friend, Reverend Patterson Moore! Pat and I

have barked at each other for many years now, and I'm getting tired.

I'd like to shift him to a younger and more vigorous opponent. I

believe you've been providentially sent to relieve me."

"Well," she acquiesced. "You can tell Professor Hitt, and--"

"Hitt, eh? You know him?"

"Yes, indeed! He comes often to our house. He is very much interested

in these things that you and I have been talking about to-day. We have

regular meetings, with Father Waite, and Mr. Haynerd, and--"

"Well, no wonder you can argue! You've had practice, it seems.

But--suppose I have Hitt bring me to one of your meetings, eh?"

"Do!" cried the girl. "And bring your Reverend Pat."

The genial doctor laughed long and incontinently. "I imagine Reverend

Pat wouldn't thank you for referring to him that way," he said. "He is

a very high Anglican, and his dignity is marvelous--to say nothing of

his self-esteem. Well, we'll see, we'll see. But, don't go yet! We're

just getting acquainted."

"I must," replied the girl. "I didn't really mean to come in here, you

know. But I guess I was led, don't you?"

And when the door had closed upon her, the doctor sat silently beside

the pulseless brain of his deceased comrade and pondered long.

* * * * *

When Carmen entered the house, late that afternoon, she found the

Beaubien in conversation with Professor Williams, of the University

School of Music. That gentleman had learned through Hitt of the girl's

unusual voice, and had dropped in on his way home to ask that he might

hear and test it. With only a smile for reply, Carmen tossed her books

and hat upon the sofa and went directly to the piano, where she

launched into the weird Indian lament which had produced such an

astounding effect upon her chance visitors at the Elwin school that

day long gone, and which had been running in her thought and seeking

expression ever since her conversation with Doctor Morton a short

while before.

For a full half hour she sang, lost in the harmony that poured from

her soul. Father Waite entered, and quietly took a seat. She did not

see him. Song after song, most of them the characteristic soft

melodies of her people, and many her own simple improvisations, issued

from the absorbed girl's lips. The Beaubien rose and stole softly from

the room. Father Waite sat with his head resting on his hand, striving

to interpret the message which welled from the depths of his own

being, where hidden, unused chords were vibrating in unison with those

of this young girl.

Then, abruptly, the singing stopped, and Carmen turned and faced her

auditors. "There," she said, with a happy sigh, "that just _had_ to

come out!"

Professor Williams rose and took her hand. "Who, may I ask, was your

teacher?" he said, in a voice husky with emotion.

Carmen smiled up at him. "No human teacher," she said gently.

A look of astonishment came into the man's face. He turned to Father

Waite inquiringly. The latter nodded his confirmation of the girl's

words.

"Well!" exclaimed the professor. "I wonder if you realize what you

have got, Miss Carmen?"

"Yes," she replied simply. "It's a beautiful gift, isn't it?"

"But--I had thought of asking you to let me train you--but--I--I dare

not undertake to handle such a voice as yours. May I--may I send

Maitre Rossanni to you, the great Italian? Will you sing for him?"

"Oh, yes," returned the girl; "I'll sing for anybody. The gift isn't

mine, you know. It is for all. I'm only the channel."

When the professor had taken his reluctant departure, the Beaubien

returned and handed Carmen a letter. With a cry of joy the girl seized

it and tore it open. It was from Colombia, the second one that her

beloved Rosendo had succeeded in getting down the river to the distant

coast. It had been written three months prior, and it bore many stains

and evidences of the vicissitudes through which it had emerged. Yes,

Rosendo and his family were well, though still at Maria Rosa, far up

the Boque, with Don Nicolás. The war raged below them, but they were

safe.

"And not a word from Padre Josè, or about him," murmured the girl,

sinking into a chair and clasping the soiled letter to her breast.

Father Waite thought of the little newsboy of Cartagena, and his

possible share in the cause of Josè's silence. But he made no

comment.

CHAPTER 4

Carmen's first serious test of her knowledge of English composition

was made early in the semester, in an essay on town life in Colombia;

and so meritorious did her instructor consider it that he advised her

to send it to a prominent literary magazine. The result was that the

essay was accepted, and a request made for further contributions.

The girl bubbled with new-found happiness. Then she wrote another, and

still another article on the life and customs of her people. Both

were given publication; and with the money which she received for them

she bought a silk dress for Jude, much to that adoring woman's

surprise and vehement protest. Carmen might have saved the money

toward a piano--but, no; that would have been thinking of herself, and

was inadmissible. Nor did the Beaubien offer any objection. "Indeed,"

commented that fond shepherd of this lone lamb, "she would have poured

the money out into somebody's open hand anyway, and it might as well

be Jude's."

Then she choked back the tears as she added: "The girl comes home

every night with an empty purse, no matter how full it may have been

in the morning. What does she do with the money? Follow her some day

and see."

Carmen's slight success in the field of letters still further aroused

Haynerd's interest. The peacefully somnolent Social Era, he thought,

might awaken to new things under the stimulus of such fresh writing as

hers. Perhaps life did hold something of real value after all. Would

she furnish him with a column or two on the peculiar social aspect of

the metropolis?

She would, and did. And the result was that the staid conservative

sheet was given a smart shaking; and several prominent society people

sat up and blinked. The article was in no way malicious. It was not

even condemnatory. It but threw a clear light from a somewhat unusual

angle upon certain phases of New York's social life, and uncovered a

few of the more subtly hidden springs of its peculiar activity.

Among those who read her essay in the Social Era was J. Wilton Ames.

He first lay back in his chair and laughed uproariously. And then,

when his agents discovered for him the identity of the author, he

glowered. The Beaubien was still standing between him and this budding

genius. And though he might, and would, ultimately ruin the Beaubien

financially, yet this girl, despite her social ostracism, bade fair to

earn with her facile pen enough to maintain them both in luxury. So he

bent anew to his vengeful schemes, for he would make them come to him.

As Trustee, he would learn what courses the girl was pursuing in the

University--for he had long known that she was in attendance there.

Then he would learn who her associates were; what suggestions and

advice her instructors gave her; and her plans for the future. And he

would trace her sources of income and apply pressure at the most vital

point. He had never in his life been successfully balked. Much less by

a woman.

Then Haynerd came to congratulate Carmen again, and to request that

she attend with him the formal opening of the new Ames mansion, the

great Fifth Avenue palace, for he wanted her vivid, first-hand

impressions for his account of the brilliant affair in the Social Era.

As reporters, he explained, they would of necessity remain in

seclusion, and the girl might disguise to such an extent as to prevent

recognition, if she chose. It was business for him, and an opportunity

for rich experience for her. And the fearless girl went, because it

would help Haynerd, though the Beaubien inwardly trembled.

Invitations to the number of three hundred had been issued to the

_élite_ of New York, announcing the formal opening of the newly

finished, magnificent Ames dwelling. These invitations were wrought in

enamel on cards of pure gold. Each had cost thirty dollars. The

mansion itself, twelve millions. A month prior to the opening, the

newspapers had printed carefully-worded announcements of the return of

Mrs. J. Wilton Ames and her daughter, after a protracted stay at

various foreign baths and rest-cures in the hope of restoring the

former's impaired health. But Mrs. Ames now felt that she could no

longer deprive society of her needed activities, and so had returned

to conduct it through what promised to be a season of unusual

brilliancy. The papers did not, however, state that J. Wilton had

himself recalled her, after quietly destroying his bill of divorce,

because he recognized the necessity of maintaining the social side of

his complicated existence on a par with his vast business affairs.

As Carmen and Haynerd approached the huge, white marble structure,

cupolaed, gabled, buttressed, and pinnacled, an overwhelming sense of

what it stood for suddenly came upon the girl, and she saw revealed in

a flash that side of its owner's life which for so many months she had

been pondering. The great shadows that seemed to issue from the

massive exterior of the building swept out and engulfed her; and she

turned and clasped Haynerd's arm with the feeling that she would

suffocate were she to remain longer in them.

"Perk up, little one," said Haynerd, taking her hand. "We'll go round

to the rear entrance, and I will present my business card there.

Ames's secretary telephoned me instructions, and I said I was going to

bring a lady reporter with me."

Carmen caught her breath as she passed through the tall, exquisitely

wrought iron gateway and along the marble walk which led to the rear.

Up the winding steps to the front entrance, where swung the marvelous

bronze doors which had stirred the imaginations of two continents,

streamed the favored of the fashionable world. Among them Carmen saw

many whom she recognized. The buffoon, Larry Beers, was there,

swinging jauntily along with the bejeweled wife of Samson, the

multimillionaire packer. Kane and his wife, and Weston followed.

Outside the gates there was incessant chugging of automobiles, mingled

with the shouted orders of the three policemen detailed to direct the

traffic. A pinched, ragged urchin and his tattered little sister crept

up and peered wildly through the iron pickets of the fence; but a

sharp rap from a policeman's club sent them scattering. Carmen stood

for a moment in the shadows and watched the swarm mount the marble

steps and enter through those wonderful doors. There were congressmen

and senators, magnates and jurists, distillers and preachers. Each one

owed his tithe of allegiance to Ames. Some were chained to him hard

and fast, nor would break their bonds this side of the grave. Some he

owned outright. There were those who grew white under his most casual

glance. There were others who knew that his calloused hand was closing

about them, and that when it opened again they would fall to the

ground, dry as dust. Others, like moths, not yet singed, were hovering

ever closer to the bright, cruel flame. Reverend Darius Borwell,

bowing and smiling, alighted from his parochial car and tripped

blithely up the glistening marble steps. Each and all, wrapping the

skeleton of grief, greed, shame, or fear beneath swart broadcloth and

shimmering silk, floated up those ghostly steps as if drawn by a

tremendous magnet incarnate in the person of J. Wilton Ames.

Carmen shuddered and turned away. Did the pale wraith of Mrs.

Hawley-Crowles sigh in the wake of that gilded assembly? Did the moans

of poor, grief-stricken Mrs. Gannette, sitting in her poverty and

sorrow, die into silence against those bronze doors? Was he, the being

who dwelt in that marble palace, the hydra-headed embodiment of the

carnal, Scriptural, age-old power that opposes God? And could he stand

forever?

Two detectives met them at the rear door. How many others there were

scattered through the house itself, Haynerd could only guess. But he

passed inspection and was admitted with the girl. A butler took

immediate charge of them, and led them quickly through a short passage

and to an elevator, by which they mounted to another floor, where,

opening a paneled oak door, the dignified functionary preceded them

into a small reception hall, with lavatories at either end. Here he

bade them remove their wraps and await his return.

"Well," commented Haynerd, with a light, nervous laugh, "we've crossed

the Rubicon! Now don't miss a thing!"

A moment later the butler returned with a sharp-eyed young woman, Mrs.

Ames's social secretary.

"You will be very careful in your report," the latter began at once in

a business-like manner. "And you will submit the same to me for

approval before it is published in your magazine. Mr. Ames deems that

imperative, since your recent publication of an essay on modern

society in this city. I have a list here of the guests, their business

and social standing, and other data. You will run that in full. You

will say that this is the most brilliant assemblage ever gathered

under one roof in New York. The wealth represented here to-night will

total not less than three billion dollars. The jewels alone displayed

will foot up not less than twenty millions. Now, let me see," again

consulting her notes.

Haynerd stole a covert glance at Carmen and winked.

"The chef," the secretary resumed, "was brought over from Paris by

Mrs. Ames on her recent return. His name, Pierre Lotard, descendant of

the famous chef of the Emperor Napoleon First. He considers that his

menu to-night surpasses anything he ever before achieved."

"May I ask," interrupted Haynerd, "the probable cost of the supper?"

"Yes, perhaps you had better mention that item. It will be in the

neighborhood of three hundred dollars a plate. House and table

decorations, about eight thousand dollars. Here is a copy of the menu.

Run it in full. The menu cards were hand-illuminated by Parisian

artists, and each bears a sketch illustrative or suggestive of the

guest to whom it is given."

"Cost?" queried Haynerd off-handedly.

"Three thousand, if I correctly recall it," was the nonchalant reply.

"As to the viands, you will mention that they have been gathered from

every part of the world. Now come with me, and I will give you a hasty

sketch of the house, while the guests are assembling in the grand

salon. Then you will remain in the balcony, where you will make what

notes you wish on the dress displayed. Refreshments will be served to

you later in this waiting room. I need not remind you that you are not

expected to mingle with the guests, nor to address any one. Keep to

the balcony, and quite out of view."

Opening a door opposite the one through which she had entered, the

young woman led her charges directly out upon the great marble balcony

overlooking the grand salon below. A rush of brilliant light engulfed

them, and a potpourri of chatter and laughter, mingled with soft music

from a distant organ, and the less distinct notes of the orchestra in

the still more distant ballroom, rose about them in confused babel, as

they tiptoed to the exquisitely carved marble railing and peered down

upon the gorgeous pageant. The ceiling rose far above them, delicately

tinted like a soft Italian sky. The lofty walls dropped, like

gold-gray veils, to the richly carved paneled wainscoting beneath,

which had once lined the halls of a mediaeval castle on the Rhine. The

great windows were hidden behind rare Venetian lace curtains, over

which fell hangings of brocade, repeating the soft tints of the wall

and the brocade-covered chairs and divans ranged close about the sides

of the splendid room. On the floor lay a massive, priceless Persian

carpet, dating from the fifteenth century.

Haynerd drew a long breath, and whistled softly. From the end of the

salon he could mark the short flight of steps which led to the

mezzanine, with its walls heavily tapestried, and broken by rich oak

doors opening into lavatories and lounging rooms, itself widening at

the far end into the grand billiard and smoking parlors, done off in

Circassian walnut, with tables and furniture to harmonize. From the

mezzanine he saw the grand stairway falling away in great, sweeping

curves, all in blended marble from the world's greatest quarries, and

delicately chased and carved into classic designs. Two tapestries,

centuries old, hung from the walls on either side. Far above, the oak

ceiling, for which the _Schwarzwald_ had been ranged, was overlaid

with pure gold leaf. The whole was suffused with the glow of myriad

hidden and inverted lights, reflected in a thousand angles from

burnished gold and marble and rarest gems.

Haynerd turned to the waiting secretary. He groped in the chambers of

his imagery for some superlative adjective to express his emotion

before this colossal display of wealth. But his ample vocabulary had

faded quite. He could only shake his head and give vent to the inept

remark, "Swell--by George!"

The secretary, without replying, motioned them to follow. Passing

noiselessly around the balcony to the opposite side, she indicated a

door below, leading off to the right from the grand salon.

"That room beyond," she said, "is the petit salon. The decorative

effects are by French artists. Beyond that is the morning room. It is

in panels from French chateaux, covered with Gobelin tapestry. Now

from here you can see a bit of the music room. The grand organ cost,

installed, about two hundred thousand dollars. It is electrically

controlled, with its pipes running all around the room, so as to give

the effect of music coming from every corner."

Haynerd again softly whistled.