"_Caramba_, I understand!" replied Diego, turning to the woman.

Ana had risen and was making for the stairs. Diego sprang to her and seized her by the wrist. With her free hand she drew the stiletto from her bosom and raised it to strike. Ricardo saw the movement, and threw himself upon her.

"_Dios_!" cried Diego, as Ricardo felled the woman and wrenched the weapon from her grasp. "My pretty angel, you have the venom of a serpent! Sly wench! did you think to deceive your doting Padre?

But--_Dios nos guarde_!"

Carmen, awakened by the noise, had left her bed, and now stood at the head of the stairs, looking with dilated eyes at the strange scene being enacted below.

Silence fell upon the group. Ana lay on the ground, her eyes strained toward the girl. Ricardo bent over her, awaiting his master's command.

He knew now that she had forever lost her power over the priest. Diego stood like a statue, his eyes riveted upon Carmen. The girl looked down upon them from the floor above with an expression of wonder, yet without fear.

Diego was the first to find his voice. "Ah, my pretty one!" he wheedled. "My lovely daughter! At last you come to your lonely padre!

Wait for me, _hermosissima_!" He puffed painfully up the steps.

"Carmen!--run!--run! Don't let him come near you--!" screamed Ana in a voice of horror. Ricardo clapped his hand heavily over her mouth.

But the child did not move. Diego reached her and seized her hand.

"_Carissima_!" he panted, feasting his eyes upon her, while a thrill pa.s.sed through his coa.r.s.e frame. "_Madre de Dios_, but you have grown beautiful! Don Mario was right--you are surely the most voluptuous object in human form that has ever crossed my path. _Bien_, the blessed G.o.d is still good to his little Diego!"

He started away with her, but was detained by the loud voice of Ricardo.

"_Bien_, Padre, my pay!"

"_Cierto, hombre_!" exclaimed Diego. "I was about to forget. But--a father's joy--ah! _Bien_, come to me to-morrow--"

"_Na, Senor Padre_, but to-day--now! I have risked my life--and I have a wife and babes! You will pay me this minute!"

"_Caramba_, ugly beast, but I will consign you to h.e.l.l! _Maldito_! get you gone! There are more convenient seasons than this for your business!" And, still holding tightly to the girl's hand, he led her into the study.

The woman turned upon Ricardo with the fury of a tiger. "See now what you have done!" she screamed. "This will cost your life, for you have put into his dirty hands the soul of an angel, and he will d.a.m.n it!

_Santa Virgen_! If you had only taken the money I brought you--"

"Demon-tongue, I will take it now!" He s.n.a.t.c.hed the roll of bills from her hand and bolted through the door. With a low moan the woman sank to the ground, while oblivion drew its sable veil across her mind.

Reaching the study, Diego pushed Carmen into the room and then followed, closing the door after him and throwing the iron bolt.

Turning about, he stood with arms akimbo upon his bulging hips and gazed long and admiringly at the girl as she waited in expectant wonder before him. A smile of satisfaction and triumph slowly spread over his coa.r.s.e features. Then it faded, and his heavy jowls and deep furrows formed into an expression, sinister and ominous, through which lewdness, debauchery, and utter corruption looked out brazenly, defiantly, into the fair, open countenance of the young girl before him. A sense of weariness and dull pain then seemed to follow. He shook his heavy head and pa.s.sed a hand across his brow, as if to brush aside the confusion left by the previous night's potations.

"_Madre de Dios_!" he muttered, falling heavily into a chair, "but had I known you were here, little rosebud, I should have tried to keep sober." He reached out to grasp her; but she eluded him and went quickly to the open window, where she stood looking down into the street below. The morning sunlight, streaming into the room, engulfed her in its golden flood and trans.m.u.ted the child of earth into a creature divinely radiant, despite the torn gown and stains of river travel.

"_Bien, carisima_," the man wheedled in a small, caressing voice, "where is your greeting to your glad padre? _Dios mio_!" he muttered, his eyes roving over her full figure, "but the Virgin herself was never more lovely! Come, daughter," he purred, extending his arms; "come to a father's heart that now, praise the Saints! shall ache no more for its lost darling."

The girl faced about and looked at him for a few moments. What her glance conveyed, the man was utterly incapable of understanding. Then she drew up a chair that stood near the window, and sinking into it, buried her face in her hands.

"_Caramba_, my smile of heaven! but why weep?" chirped Diego, affecting surprise. "Is it thus you celebrate your homecoming? Or are these, perchance, fitting tears of joy? _Bien_, your padre's doting heart itself weeps that its years of loneliness are at last ended." He held the sleeve of his gown to his eyes and sniffed affectedly.

The girl looked up quickly. "I am not weeping," she said.

"_Bien_, and what then?" he pursued.

"I was just knowing," she answered slowly, "that I was not afraid--that G.o.d was everywhere, even right here--and that He would not let any harm come to me."

Diego's eyes widened. Then he burst into a coa.r.s.e laugh. "_Hombre_!

and you ask Him to protect you from your adoring father! Come here, little wench. You are in your own home. Why be afraid?" He again held out his arms to her.

"I am not afraid--now," she answered softly. "But--I do not think G.o.d will let me come to you. If you were really my father, He would."

The man's mouth gaped in astonishment. A fleeting sense of shame swept through his festering mind. Then the l.u.s.tful meanness of his corrupted soul welled up anew, and he laughed brutally. The idea was delightfully novel; the girl beautifully audacious; the situation piquantly amusing. He would draw her out to his further enjoyment.

"So," he observed parenthetically, "I judge you are on quite familiar terms with G.o.d, eh?"

"Very," she replied, profoundly serious.

The joke was excellent, and he roared with mirth. "_Bueno, pues_!" he commented, reaching over and uncorking with shaking hand the bottle that stood on the table. Then, filling a gla.s.s, "Suppose you thank Him for sending his little Diego this estimable wine and your own charming self, eh? Then tell me what He says." Whereat he guffawed loudly and slapped his bulging sides.

The girl had already bowed her head again in her hands. A long pause ensued. Diego's beady eyes devoured the beautiful creature before him.

Then he waxed impatient. "_Bien_, little Pa.s.sion flower," he interrupted, "if you have conveyed to Him my infinite grat.i.tude, perhaps He will now let you come to me, eh?"

Carmen looked up. A faint smile hovered upon her lips. "I have thanked Him, Padre--for you and for me," she said; "for you, that you really are His child, even if you don't know it; and for me that I know He always hears me. That was what the good man Jesus said, you know, when he waked Lazarus out of the death-sleep. Don't you remember? And so I kept thanking Him all the way down the river."

Diego's eyes bulged as if they would pop from his head, and his mouth fell open wide, but no sound issued therefrom. The girl went on quietly:

"I was not afraid on the river, Padre. And I was not afraid to come in here with you. I knew, just as the good man Jesus did at the tomb of Lazarus, that G.o.d had heard me--He just couldn't be G.o.d if He hadn't, you know. And then I remembered what the good man said about not resisting evil; for, you know, if we resist evil we make it real--and we never, _never_ can overcome anything real, can we? So I resisted evil with good, just as Jesus told us to do. I just _knew_ that G.o.d was everywhere, and that evil was unreal, and had no power at all. And so the _bogas_ didn't hurt me coming down the river. And you--you will not either, Padre."

She stopped and smiled sweetly at him. Then, very seriously:

"Padre, one reason why I was not afraid to come in here with you was that I thought G.o.d might want to talk to you through me, and I could help you. You need help, you know."

The man settled back in his chair and stared stupidly at her. His face expressed utter consternation, confusion, and total lack of comprehension. Once he muttered under his breath, "_Caramba_! she is surely an _hada_!" But Carmen did not hear him. Absorbed in her mission, she went on earnestly:

"You know, Padre, we are all channels through which G.o.d talks to people--just like the _asequia_ out there in the street through which the water flows. We are all channels for divine love--so Padre Jose says."

The priest sat before her like a huge pig, his little eyes blinking dully, and his great mouth still agape.

"We are never afraid of real things, Padre, you know; and so I couldn't be afraid of the real 'you,' for that is a child of G.o.d. And the other 'you' isn't real. We are only afraid of our wrong thoughts.

But such thoughts are not really ours, you know, for they don't come from G.o.d. But," she laughed softly, "when I saw you coming up the steps after me this morning--well, lots of fear-thoughts came to me--why, they just seemed to come pelting down on me like the rain.

But I wouldn't listen to them. I turned right on them, just as I've seen Cuc.u.mbra turn on a puppy that was nagging him, and I said, 'Here, now, I know what you are; I know you don't come from G.o.d; and anything that doesn't come from G.o.d isn't really anything at all!' And so they stopped pelting me. The good man Jesus knew, didn't he? That's why he said so often, 'Be not afraid.'"

She paused again and beamed at him. Her big eyes sparkled, and her face glowed with celestial light. Diego raised a heavy arm and, groping for the bottle, eagerly drained another gla.s.s of wine.

"You think that wine makes you happy, don't you, Padre?" she observed, watching him gulp down the heavy liquor. "But it doesn't. It just gives you what Padre Jose calls a false sense of happiness. And when that false sense pa.s.ses away--for everything unreal has just _got_ to pa.s.s away--why, then you are more unhappy than you were before. Isn't it so?"

The astonished Diego now regained his voice. "_Caramba_, girl!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "will you rein that runaway tongue!"

"No, Padre," she replied evenly, "for it is G.o.d who is talking to you.

Don't you hear Him? You ought to, for you are a priest. You ought to know Him as well as the good man Jesus did. Padre, can you lay your hands on the sick babies and cure them?"

The man squirmed uncomfortably for a moment, and then broke into another brutal laugh. "Sick babies! _Caramba_! but we find it easier to raise new babies than to cure sick ones! But--little _hada_!

_Hombre_! do _hadas_ have such voluptuous bodies, such plump legs!

_Madre de Dios_, girl, enough of your preaching! Come to me quick! I hunger for you! Come!"