Again, as the heavy shadows were gathering, Josè and Rosendo descended into the town and bore out the body of Amado Sanchez to a resting place beside the poor lad who had died the day before. To a man of such delicate sensibilities as Josè, whose nerves were raw from continual friction with a world with which he was ever at variance, this task was one of almost unendurable horror. He returned to the old church in a state bordering on collapse. "Rosendo," he murmured, as they seated themselves on the hillside in the still night, "I think we shall all die of the plague. And it were well so. I am tired, utterly tired of striving to live against such odds. _Bien_, let it come!" "Courage, _compadre_!" urged Rosendo, putting his great arm about the priest's shoulders. "We must all go some time, and perhaps now; but while we live let us live like men!" "You do not fear death?" "No--what is it that the old history of mine says? 'Death is not departing, but arriving.' I am not afraid. But the little Carmen--I wish that she might live. She--ah, Padre, she could do much good in the world. _Bien_, we are all in the hands of the One who brought us here--and He will take us in the way and at the time that He appoints--is it not so, Padre?" Josè lapsed again into meditation. No, he could not say that it was so. The thoughts which he had expressed to Carmen that morning still flitted through his mind. The child was right--Rosendo's philosophy was that of resignation born of ignorance. It was the despair of doubt. And he did not really think that Carmen would be smitten of the plague. Something seemed to tell him that it was impossible. But, on the other hand, he would himself observe every precaution in regard to her. No, he would not sleep in the church that night. He had handled the body of the plague's second victim, and he could not rest near the child. Perhaps exposure to the night air and the heavy dews would serve to cleanse him. And so he wrapped himself in the blanket which Doña Maria brought from within the church, and lay down beside the faithful pair. In the long hours of that lonely night Josè lay beneath the shimmering stars pondering, wondering. Down below in the smitten town the poor children of his flock were eating their hearts out in anxious dread and bitter sorrow. Was it through any fault of theirs that this thing had come upon them, like a bolt from a cloudless sky? No--except that they were human, mortal. And if the thing were real, it came from the mind that is God; if unreal--but it seemed real to these simple folk, terribly so!