"You always think of individuals, Carlos, rather than of our country. You forget we are sons of Spain, Castilian nobles. Of course we rejoice when even one man here and there is won for the truth. But our Spain! our glorious land, first and fairest of all the earth! our land of conquerors, whose arms reach to the ends of the world--one hand taming the infidel in his African stronghold, while the other crowns her with the gold and jewels of the far West! She who has led the nations in the path of discovery--whose fleets gem the ocean--whose armies rule the land,--shall she not also lead the way to the great city of God, and bring in the good coming time when all shall know him from the least to the greatest--when they shall know the truth, and the truth shall make them free? Carlos, my brother, I do not dare to doubt it."
It was not often that Don Juan expressed himself in such a lengthened and energetic, not to say grandiloquent manner. But his love for Spain was a passion, and to extol her or to plead her cause words were never lacking with him. In reply to this outburst of enthusiasm, Carlos only said gently, "Amen, and the Lord establish it in his time."
Don Juan looked keenly at him. "I thought you had faith, Carlos?" he said.
"Faith?" Carlos repeated inquiringly.
"Such faith," said Juan, "as I have. Faith in truth and freedom?" And he rang out the sonorous words, "Verdad y libertad," as if he thought, as indeed he did, that they had but to go forth through a submissive, rejoicing world, "conquering and to conquer."
"I have faith in Christ," Carlos answered quietly.
And in those two brief phrases each unconsciously revealed to the other the very depths of his soul, and told the secret of his history.
XX
The First Drop of a Thunder Shower.
"Closed doorways that are folded
And prayed against in vain"--E. B. Browning