"I do forgive you," Juan answered. "You intended no evil."

"Will you, then, do me a great kindness? It is the last I shall ask.

Tell me the names of any of the--the _victims_ that have come to your knowledge."

"It is only through rumour one can hear these things. Not yet have I succeeded in discovering whether the name dearest to me is amongst them."

"Tell me--has rumour named in your hearing--Dona Maria de Xeres y Bohorques?"

Juan was still ignorant of the secret which Dona Inez had but recently confided to his betrothed. He therefore answered, without hesitation, though in a low, sad tone, "Yes; they say she is to die to-morrow."

Don Gonsalvo flung his hand across his face, and there was a great silence.

Which the awed and wondering Juan broke at last. Guessing at the truth, he said, "It may be I have done wrong to tell you."

"No; you have done right. I knew it ere you told me. It is well--for her."

"A brave word, bravely spoken."

"Nigh upon eighteen months--long slow months of grief and pain. All ended now. To-morrow night she will see the glory of G.o.d."

There was another long pause. At last Juan said,--

"Perhaps, if you could, you would gladly share her fate?"

Gonsalvo half raised himself, and a flush overspread the wan face that already wore the ashy hue of approaching death. "Share _that_ fate!" he cried, with an eagerness contrasting strangely with his former slow and measured utterance. "Change with _them_? Ask the beggar, who sits all day at the King's gate, waiting for his dole of crumbs, would he gladly change with the King's children, when he sees the golden gate flung open before them, and watches them pa.s.s in robed and crowned, to the presence-chamber of the King himself."

"Your faith is greater than mine," said Juan in surprise.

"In one way, yes," replied Gonsalvo, sinking back, and resuming his low, quiet tone. "For the beggar dares to hope that the King has looked with pity even on _him_."

"You do well to hope in the mercy of G.o.d."

"Cousin, do you know what my life has been?"

"I think I do."

"I am past disguise now. Standing on the brink of the grave, I dare speak the truth, though it be to my own shame. There was no evil, no sin--stay, I will sum up all in one word. _One_ pure, blameless life--a man's life, too--I have watched from day to day, from childhood to manhood. All that your brother Don Carlos was, I was not; all he was not, I was."

"Yet you once thought that life incomplete, unmanly," said Juan, remembering the taunts that in past days had so often aroused his wrath.

"I was a fool. It is just retribution that I--I who called him coward--should see him march in there triumphant, with the palm of victory in his hand. But let me end; for I think it is the last time I shall speak of myself in any human ear. I sowed to the flesh, and of the flesh I have reaped--_corruption_. It is an awful word, Don Juan. All the life in me turned to death; all the good in me (what G.o.d meant for good, such as force, fire, pa.s.sion) turned to evil. What availed it me that I loved a star in heaven--a bright, lonely, distant star--while I was earthy, of the earth? Because I could not (and thank G.o.d for that!) pluck down my star from the sky and hold it in my hand, even that love became corruption too. I fulfilled my course, the earthly grew sensual, the sensual grew devilish. And then G.o.d smote me, though not then for the first time. The stroke of his hand was heavy. My heart was crushed, my frame left powerless." He paused for a while, then slowly resumed.

"The stroke of his hand, your brother's words, your brother's book--by these he taught me. There is deliverance even from the bondage of corruption, through him who came to call not the righteous, but sinners.

One day--and that soon--I, even I, shall kneel at his feet, and thank him for saving the lost. And then I shall see my star, shining far above me in his glorious heaven, and be content and glad."

"G.o.d has been very gracious to you, my cousin," said Juan in a tone of emotion. "And what he has cleansed I dare not call common. Were my brother here to-day, I think he would stretch out to you the right hand, not of forgiveness, but of fellowship. I have told you how he longed for your soul."

"G.o.d can fulfil more desires of his than that, Don Juan, and I doubt not he will. What know we of his dealings? we who all these dreary months have been mourning for and pitying his prisoners, to-morrow to be his crowned and sainted martyrs? It were a small thing with him to flood the dungeon's gloom with light, and give--even here, even now--all their hearts long for to those who suffer for him."

Juan was silent. Truly the last was first, and the first last now.

Gonsalvo had reached some truths which were still far beyond _his_ ken.

He did not know how their seed had been sown in his heart by his own brother's hand. At length he answered, in a low and faltering voice, "There is much in what you say. Fray Sebastian told me--"

"Ay," cried Gonsalvo eagerly, "what did Fray Sebastian tell you of _him_?"

"That he found him in perfect peace, though ill and weak in body. It is my hope that G.o.d himself has delivered him ere now out of their cruel hands. And I ought to tell you that he spoke of all his relatives with affection, and made special inquiry after your health."

Gonsalvo said quietly, "It is likely I shall see him before you."

Juan sighed. "To-morrow will reveal something," he said.

"Many things, perhaps," Gonsalvo returned. "Well--Dona Beatriz waits you now. There is no poison in that wine, though it be of an earthly vintage; and G.o.d himself puts the cup in your hand; so take it, and be comforted. Yet stay, have you patience for one word more?"

"For a thousand, if you will, my cousin."

"I know that in heart you share his--_our_ faith."

Juan shrank a little from his gaze.

"Of course," he replied, "I have been obliged to conceal my opinions; and, indeed, of late all things have seemed to grow dim and uncertain with me. Sometimes, in my heart of hearts, I cannot tell what truth is."

"'He came not to call the righteous, but sinners,'" said Gonsalvo. "And the sinner who has heard his call must believe, let others doubt as they may. Thank G.o.d, the sinner may not only believe, but love. Yes; in that the beggar at the gate may take his stand beside the king's children unreproved. Even I dare to say, 'Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.' Only to them it is given to prove it; while I--ay, there was the bitter thought. Long it haunted me. At last I prayed that if indeed he deigned to accept me, all sinful as I was, he would give me for a sign something to do, to suffer, or to give up, whereby I might prove my love."

"And did he hear you?"

"Yes. He showed me one thing harder to give up than life; one thing harder to do than to brave the torture and the death of fire."

"What is that?"

Once more Gonsalvo veiled his face. Then he murmured--"Harder to give up--vengeance, hatred; harder to do--to pray for _their_ murderers."

"_I_ could never do it," said Juan, starting.

"And if at last--at last--_I_ can,--I, whose anger was fierce, and whose wrath was cruel, even unto death,--is not that His own work in me?"

Juan half turned away, and did not answer immediately. In his heart many thoughts were struggling. Far, indeed, was he from praying for his brother's murderers; almost as far from wishing to do it. Rather would he invoke G.o.d's vengeance upon them. Had Gonsalvo, in the depths of his misery, remorse, and penitence, actually found something which Don Juan Alvarez still lacked? He said at last, with a humility new and strange to him,--

"My cousin, you are nearer heaven than I."

"As to time--yes," said Gonsalvo, with a faint smile. "Now farewell, cousin; and thank you."

"Can I do nothing more for you?"

"Yes; tell my sister that I know all. Now, G.o.d bless you, and deliver you from the evils that beset your path, and bring you and yours to some land where you may worship him in peace and safety."

And so the cousins parted, never to meet again upon earth.