"'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 passionate heart of yours, revenge and hatred are banished, you can never see God, 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!"
"Take it, in God's name, and pray him to keep you from a great crime."
For a few moments he sat still--still as the dead. Then he started suddenly. "Already the hour is passing," he exclaimed; "I shall be too late. Fool that I was, to be almost moved from my purpose by the idle words of a--The weakness is past now. Still, ere we part, give me thy hand, Don Carlos, for, on my faith, I never liked thee half so well."