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
God 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 coarse 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 God
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 lustful 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 God, 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 glass, "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 Passion flower," he
interrupted, "if you have conveyed to Him my infinite gratitude,
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. A