Twilight does not linger in the tropics, and already the shadows that stole down through the valley had wrapped the man and child in their mystic folds. Hand in hand they turned homeward. "Padre, if God is my mind, He will do my thinking for me. And all I have to do is to keep the door open and let His thoughts come in." Her sweet voice lingered on the still night air. There was a pensive gladness in the man's heart as he tightly held her little hand and led her to Rosendo's door. CHAPTER 18 The next morning Josè read to Rosendo portions of the communication from Wenceslas. "Chiquinquía," commented the latter. "I remember that Padre Diego collected much money from our people for Masses to be said at that shrine." "But where is it, Rosendo?" asked Josè. "You do not know the story?" queried Rosendo in surprise. "Why, there is not a shrine in the whole of Colombia that works so many cures as this one. Your grandfather, Don Ignacio, knew the place. And it was from him that my--that is, I learned the legend when I was only a boy. It is said that a poor, sick young girl in the little Indian village of Chiquinquía, north of Bogotá, stood praying in her shabby little cottage before an old, torn picture of the blessed Virgin." He stopped and crossed himself devoutly. Then he resumed: "_Bueno_, while the girl prayed, the picture suddenly rose up in the air; the torn places all closed; the faded colors came again as fresh as ever; and the girl was cured of her affliction. The people of the village immediately built a shrine, over which they hung the picture; and ever since then the most wonderful miracles have been performed by it there." Josè laughed. "You don't believe that, do you, Rosendo?" he asked in banter. "_Hombre_, yes!" exclaimed the latter a bit testily. "I know it! Did not Don Felipe go there when the doctor in Mompox told him the little white spot on his hand was leprosy? And he came back cured." Leprosy! Josè started as if he had received a blow. He looked furtively at the scar on his own hand, the hand which the leper in Maganguey had lacerated that dreadful night, and which often burned and ached as if seared by a hot iron. He had never dared to voice the carking fear that tightened about his heart at times. But often in the depths of night, when dread anticipation sat like a spectre upon his bed, he had risen and gone out into the darkness to wrestle with his black thoughts. Leprosy! All the gladness and joy left his heart, and a pall of darkness settled over his thought. He turned back into his cottage and tried to find forgetfulness in the simple duties that lay at hand. "Why is it," he asked himself, as he sat wearily down at his little table, "that I always think of evil first; while Carmen's first thought is invariably of God?"