"I watched until I saw him go, and then I came in. He has bad thoughts, hasn't he? But--Padre dear, what is it? Did he make you think bad thoughts, too? He can't, you know, if you don't want to." She bent over him and laid her cheek against his. Josè stared unseeing up at the thatch roof. "Padre dear, everything has a rule, a principle, you told me. Don't you remember? But his thoughts haven't any principle, have they? Any more than the mistakes I make in algebra. Aren't we glad we know that!" The child kissed the suffering man and wound her arms about his neck. "Padre dear, he couldn't say anything that could make you unhappy--he just couldn't! God is _everywhere_, and you are His child--and I am, too--and--and there just isn't anything here but God, and we are in Him. Why, Padre, we are in Him, just like the little fish in the lake! Isn't it nice to know that--to really _know_ it?" Aye, if he had really known it he would not now be stretched upon a bed of torment. Yet, Carmen knew it. And his suffering was for her. Was he not really yielding to the mesmerism of human events? Why, oh, why could he not remain superior to them? Why continually rise and fall, tossed through his brief years like a dry weed in the blast? It was because he _would_ know evil, and yield to its mesmerism. His enemies were not without, but within. How could he hope to be free until he had passed from self-consciousness to the sole consciousness of infinite good? "Padre dear, his bad thoughts have only the minus sign, haven't they?" Yes, and Josè's now carried the same symbol of nothingness. Carmen was linked to the omnipresent mind that is God; and no power, be it Diego or his superior, Wenceslas, could effect a separation. But if Carmen was Diego's child, she must go with him. Josè could no longer endure this torturing thought. He rose from the bed and sought Doña Maria. "Señora," he pleaded, "tell me again what you know of Carmen's parents." The good woman was surprised at the question, but could add nothing to what Rosendo had already told him. He asked to see again the locket. Alas! study it as he might, the portrait of the man was wholly indistinguishable. The sweet, sad face of the young mother looked out from its frame like a suffering. Magdalen. In it he thought he saw a resemblance to Carmen. As for Diego, the child certainly did not resemble him in the least. But years of dissipation and evil doubtless had wrought their changes in his features. He looked around for Carmen. She had disappeared. He rose and searched through the house for her. Doña Maria, busy in the kitchen, had not seen her leave. His search futile, he returned with heavy heart to his own house and sat down to think. Mechanically he opened his Bible.