God; and
that is breaking the very first Commandment, isn't it? Yes, it is; and
you can prove it, just as you can prove the principles in mathematics.
Senora, do you know anything about mathematics?"

The astonished woman made an involuntary sign of negation.

"Oh, Senora," cried the enthusiastic girl, "the things that Jesus
taught can be proved just as easily as we prove the rules in
mathematics! Why not? for they are truth, and all truth can be
demonstrated, you know. You know, Senora, God is everywhere--not only
in heaven, but right here where we are. Heaven, Padre Jose used to say
so often, is only a perfect state of mind; and so it is, isn't it?
God, you know, is mind. And when we reflect Him perfectly, why, we
will be in heaven. Isn't it simple? But," she went on after catching
her breath, "we can't reflect Him as long as we believe evil to be
real and powerful. Evil isn't anything. It is just zero, nothing--"

"I've heard that before," interrupted the woman, recovering somewhat
from her surprise. "But I think that before you get out of New York
you will reverse that idea. There's a pretty fair amount of evil here,
and it is quite real, we find."

"But it isn't!" cried Carmen. "If it is real, then God made it. It
seems real to you--but that is only because you give it reality in
your consciousness. You believe it real, and so it becomes to you."

"Well," said the woman dryly, "on that basis I think the same may be
said of good, too."

"No," answered Carmen eagerly, "good is--"

"There," interrupted the Sister coldly, holding up an admonitory hand,
"we are not going to discuss the foolish theological notions which
that fallen priest put into your poor little head. Finish your
breakfast."

The child looked at the woman in mute protest. Jose a fallen priest!
Would these people up here so regard him? It was a new thought, and
one that she would not accept.

"Senora," she began again, after a brief interval, "Padre Jose is a
good man, even the human Padre Jose. And he is trying to solve his
problem and know God. And he is trying to know himself, not as other
people think they know him, but as God knows him, and as I have always
tried to know him. You have no right to judge him--and, anyway, you
are not judging him, but only your wrong idea of him. And that," she
said softly, "is nothing."

The Sister did not answer. She was beginning to feel the spell of
those great brown eyes, that soft, rich voice, and t