Part 28 (1/2)
”Here you can suffer alone and be strong. But how will you endure the loneliness of the long hereafter, away from G.o.d's presence, from light and life and hope? Are you content that you, and she for whom you give your life, should be sundered throughout eternity?”
”Nay; I am casting my lot in with hers. If the Church curses her (pure and holy as she ever was), its anathema shall fall on me too. If only the Church's key opens heaven, she and I will both stand without.”
”Yet you know she will enter heaven. Shall _you_?”
Gonsalvo hesitated. ”It will not be the blood of a villain that will bar my way,” he said.
”G.o.d says, 'Thou shall not kill.'”
”Then what will he do with Gonzales de Munebrga?”
”He will do that with him of which, if you but dreamed, it would change your fiercest hate into saddest, deepest pity. Have you realized what a span is our life here compared with the countless ages of eternity?
Think! For G.o.d's chosen a few weeks, or months at most, of solitude and fear and pain, ended perhaps by--but that is as he pleases; _ended_, at all events. Then add up the million years, fill them with the joy of victory, and the presence and love of Christ himself. Can they not, and we for them, be content with this?”
”Are you content with it yourself?” Gonsalvo suddenly interrupted. ”You seek flight.”
The glow faded from the face of Carlos, and his eyes sank to the ground.
”Christ has not called me yet,” he answered in a lower tone. There was a silence; then he resumed: ”Turn now to the other side. Would you change, even this hour, with Gonzales de Munebrga? But take him from his wealth, and his pomp, and his sinful luxuries, all defiled with blood, and what remains for him? Everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
”Everlasting fire!” Gonsalvo repeated, as if the thought pleased him.
”Leave him in G.o.d's hand. It is a stronger hand than yours, Don Gonsalvo.”
”Everlasting fire! I would send him there to-night.”
”And whither would you send your own sinful soul?”
”G.o.d might pardon, though the Church cursed.”
”Possibly. But to enter G.o.d's heaven you need something besides pardon.”
”What?” asked Gonsalvo, half wearily, half incredulously.
”'Holiness; without which no man can see the Lord.'”
”Holiness?” Gonsalvo questioned, as if the word was strange to him, and he attached no meaning to it.
”Yes,” Carlos went on, with intense and ever increasing earnestness; ”unless, even from that pa.s.sionate heart of yours, revenge and hatred are banished, you can never see G.o.d, never come where--”
”Hold thy peace, trifler!” Gonsalvo interrupted with angry impatience.
”Too long have I tarried, listening to thine idle talk. Priests and women are content with words; brave men _act_. Farewell to thee!”
”One word more, only one.” Carlos drew near and laid his hand on his cousin's arm. ”Nay, you _shall_ listen to me. Seemeth it to you a thing incredible that that heart of yours can be changed and softened to a love like His who prayed on the cross for his murderers? Yet it can be.
_He_ can do it. He gives pardon, holiness, peace. Peace of which you dream not now, but which _she_ knows full well. O Don Gonsalvo, better join her where she is going, than wildly, rashly, and most uselessly peril your soul to avenge her!”
”Uselessly! Were that true indeed--”
”Ay de mi! who can doubt it?”
”Would I had time for thought!”