"Perhaps, if you could, you would gladly share her fate?"
Gonsalvo half raised himself, and a flush overspread the wan face that
already wore the ashy hue of approaching death. "Share _that_ fate!" he
cried, with an eagerness contrasting strangely with his former slow and
measured utterance. "Change with _them_? Ask the beggar, who sits all
day at the King's gate, waiting for his dole of crumbs, would he gladly
change with the King's children, when he sees the golden gate flung open
before them, and watches them pass in robed and crowned, to the
presence-chamber of the King himself."
"Your faith is greater than mine," said Juan in surprise.
"In one way, yes," replied Gonsalvo, sinking back, and resuming his low,
quiet tone. "For the beggar dares to hope that the King has looked with
pity even on _him_."
"You do well to hope in the mercy of God."
"Cousin, do you know what my life has been?"
"I think I do."
"I am past disguise now. Standing on the brink of the grave, I dare
speak the truth, though it be to my own shame. There was no evil, no
sin--stay, I will sum up all in one word. _One_ pure, blameless life--a
man's life, too--I have watched from day to day, from childhood to
manhood. All that your brother Don Carlos was, I was not; all he was
not, I was."
"Yet you once thought that life incomplete, unmanly," said Juan,
remembering the taunts that in past days had so often aroused his wrath.
"I was a fool. It is just retribution that I--I who called him
coward--should see him march in there triumphant, with the palm of
victory in his hand. But let me end; for I think it is the last time I
shall speak of myself in any human ear. I sowed to the flesh, and of the
flesh I have reaped--_corruption_. It is an awful word, Don Juan. All
the life in me turned to death; all the good in me (what God meant for
good, such as force, fire, passion) turned to evil. What availed it me
that I loved a star in heaven--a bright, lonely, distant star--while I
was earthy, of the earth? Because I could not (and thank God for that!)
pluck down my star from the sky and hold it in my hand, even that love
became corruption too. I fulfilled my course, the earthly grew sensual,
the sensual grew devilish. And then God smote me, though not then for
the first time. The stroke of his hand was heavy. My heart was crushed,
my frame left powerless." He paused for a while, then slowly resumed.
"The stroke of his hand, your brother's words, your brother's book--by
these he taught me. There is deliverance even from the bondage of
corruption, through him who came to call not the righteous, but sinners.
One day--and that soon--I, even I, shall kneel at his feet, and thank
him for saving the lost. And then I shall see my star, shining far
above me in his glorious heaven, and be content and glad."
"God has been very gracious to you, my cousin," said Juan in a tone of
emotion. "And what he has cleansed I dare not call common. Were my
brother here to-day, I think he would stretch out to you the right hand,
not of forgiveness, but of fellowship. I have told you how he longed
for your soul."
"God can fulfil more desires of his than that, Don Juan, and I doubt not
he will. What know we of his dealings? we who all these dreary months
have been mourning for and pitying his prisoners, to-morrow to be his
crowned and sainted martyrs? It were a small thing with him to flood the
dungeon's gloom with light, and give--even here, even now--all their
hearts long for to those who suffer for him."
Juan was silent. Truly the last was first, and the first last now.
Gonsalvo had reached some truths which were still far beyond _his_ ken.
He did not know how their seed had been sown in his heart by his own
brother's hand. At length he answered, in a low and faltering voice,
"There is much in what you say. Fray Sebastian told me--"
"Ay," cried Gonsalvo eagerly, "what did Fray Sebastian tell you of
_him_?"
"That he found him in perfect peace, though ill and weak in body. It is
my hope that God himself has delivered him ere now out of their cruel
hands. And I ought to tell you that he spoke of all his relatives with
affection, and made special inquiry after your health."