“Padre dear, there is no separation, you know. God is everywhere, and so there is no separation from good––is there?”
“Not in your thought, dearest child,” he murmured huskily.
“Well, Padre dear, I am still with you, am I not? Can’t you live one day at a time? That is what Jesus taught us. You are borrowing from to-morrow, and you have no right to do it. That’s stealing. God says, ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ even from to-morrow.”
Yes, she was still at his side. Perhaps she would not go, after all. He was borrowing, and borrowing supposition. The thought seemed to lighten his load momentarily.
“Padre dear.”
“Yes, chiquita.”
“You have been thinking so many bad thoughts of late––I don’t suppose you have had any good thoughts at all about Anita’s little babe?”
“The babe?” in a tone of astonishment.
“Yes. You know, it is not blind. You promised me that every day you would just know that.”
The rebuke smote him sore. Aye, his crowning sin was revealed again in all its ugly nakedness. Egoism! His thought was always of his own troubles, his own longings, his own fears. Self-centeredness had left no room for thoughts of Ana’s blind babe. And why was he now straining this beautiful girl to himself? Was it fear for her, or for himself? Yet she gave but little heed to her own needs. Always her concern was for others, others who stumbled and drooped because of the human mind’s false, unreal, undemonstrable beliefs and ignorance of the allness of God.