"Didst thou dream that I should be faithless and forsake thee? I—a dog?" said that mute caress.
The lad raised himself with a low cry and clasped him close.
"Let us lie down and die together," he murmured. "Men have no need of us, and we are all alone."
In answer Patrasche crept closer yet and laid his head upon the young man's breast. The tears stood in his great, brown, sad eyes. Not for himself; for himself he was happy.
Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance streamed through the vastness of the aisles. The moon, that was at her height, had broken through the clouds. The snow had ceased to fall. The light reflected from the snow without was clear as the light of dawn. It fell through the arches full upon the two pictures above, from which the boy, on his entrance, had flung back the veil. "The Elevation" and "The Descent from the Cross" for one instant were visible as by day.
Nello rose to his feet and stretched his arms to them. The tears of a passionate ecstasy glistened on the paleness of his face.
"I have seen them at last!" he cried aloud. "Oh God, it is enough!"
When the Christmas morning broke and the priests came to the temple they saw them lying on the stones together. Above, the veils were drawn back from the great visions of Rubens, and the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the thorn-crowned head of God.
As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man who wept as women weep.
"I was cruel to the lad," he murmured, "and now I would have made amends—yea, to the half of my substance—and he should have been to me as a son."