“I fear nothing, Monsignor,” replied the girl, her face alight with a smile of complete confidence. “I am not the kind who may be driven by fear into acceptance of undemonstrable, unfounded theological beliefs. Fear has always been a terrible weapon in the hands of those who have sought to force their opinions upon their fellow-men. But it is powerless to influence me. Fear, Monsignor, is sin. It causes men to miss the mark. And it is time-honored. Indeed, according to the Bible allegory, it began in the very garden of Eden, when poor, deceived Adam confessed to God that he was afraid. If God was infinite then, as you admit you believe Him to be now, who or what made Adam afraid? Whence came the imaginary power of fear? For, ‘God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.’ God is love. And there is no fear in love.”
“But, surely, Miss Carmen, you will not stubbornly close your eyes to threatening evil?”
“Monsignor, I close my eyes to all that is unlike God. He is everything to me. I know nothing but Him and His perfect manifestation.”
Lafelle sat some moments in silence. The picture which he and the young girl formed was one of rare beauty and interest: he, weighted with years, white of hair, but rugged of form, with strikingly handsome features and kindly eyes––she, a child, delicate, almost wraith-like, glowing with a beauty that was not of earth, and, though untutored in the wiles of 161 men, still holding at bay the sagacious representative of a crushing weight of authority which reached far back through the centuries, even to the Greek and Latin Fathers who put their still unbroken seal upon the strange elaborations which they wove out of the simple words of the Nazarene.
When the churchman again looked up and felt himself engulfed in the boundless love which emanated from that radiant, smiling girl, there surged up within him a mighty impulse to go to her, to clasp her in his arms, to fall at her feet and pray for even a mite of her own rare spirituality. The purpose which he had that morning formulated died within him; the final card which he would have thrown lay crushed in his hand. He rose and came and stood before her.
“The people believe you a child of the ancient Incas,” he said slowly, taking her hand. “What if I should say that I know better?”
“I would say that you were right, Monsignor,” she replied gently, looking up into his face with a sweet smile.
“Then you admit the identity of your father?”
“Yes, Monsignor.”
“Ah! And that is––?”