Then, over the desolate waste, through the heavy gloom, a voice seemed borne faint on the cold air, "Occupy till I come!" He sank to his knees. His straining eyes caught the feeble glint of a light, but at an immeasurable distance. Again he called; and again the same response, but nearer. A glow began to suffuse the blackness about him. Nearer, ever nearer drew the gleam. The darkness lifted. The rocks began to bud. Trees and vines sprang from the waste sand. As if in a tremendous explosion, a dazzling light burst full upon him, shattering the darkness, fusing the stones about him, and blinding his sight. A great presence stood before him. He struggled to his feet; and as he did so a loud voice cried, "Behold, I come _quickly_!" "_Señor Padre_, you have been dreaming!" The priest, sitting upright and clutching at the rough sides of his bed, stared with wooden obliviousness into the face of the little Carmen. CHAPTER 3 "You are well now, aren't you, Padre?" It was not so much an interrogation as an affirmation, an assumption of fact. "Now you must come and see my garden--and Cucumbra, too. And Cantar-las-horas; have you heard him? I scolded him lots; and I know he wants to mind; but he just thinks he can't stop singing the Vespers--the old stupid!" While the child prattled she drew a chair to the bedside and arranged the bowl of broth and the two wheat rolls she had brought. "You are real hungry, and you are going to eat all of this and get strong again. Right away!" she added, emphatically expressing her confidence in the assumption. Josè made no reply. He seemed again to be trying to sound the unfathomable depths of the child's brown eyes. Mechanically he took the spoon she handed him. "See!" she exclaimed, while her eyes danced. "A silver spoon! Madre Ariza borrowed it from Doña Maria Alcozer. They have lots of silver. Now eat." From his own great egoism, his years of heart-ache, sorrows, and shames, the priest's heavy thought slowly lifted and centered upon the child's beautiful face. The animated little figure before him radiated such abundant life that he himself caught the infection; and with it his sense of weakness passed like an illusion. "And look, Padre! The broth--isn't it good?" Josè tasted, and declared it delicious. "Well, you know"--the enthusiastic little maid clambered up on the bed--"yesterday it was Mañuela--she was my hen. I told her a week ago that you would need her--" "And you gave up your hen for me, little one?" he interrupted. "Why--yes, Padre. It was all right. I told her how it was. And she clucked so hard, I knew she was glad to help the good _Cura_. And she was so happy about it! I told her she really wouldn't die. You know, things never do--do they?" The priest hesitated. To hide his confusion and gain time he began to eat rapidly. "No, they don't," said the girl confidently, answering her own question. "Because," she added, "God is _everywhere_--isn't He?"