Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/82

72 eyelids stir, the mouth open, and He, the Son of God, with outstretched arms was gazing on him with an ineffable smile.

For what Juan Perez had taken in his frenzy to be a lifeless picture was a living thing with breath and motion! A living thing — a living man, but a man clothed with glory! A living man who, how he knew not, had left the Cross and was even then moving towards him with arms extended as if he would clasp him to his heart. Was he dreaming? Nay, he was not dreaming. For a touch as soft and noiseless as a flake of snow had fallen upon his shoulder — lingered there wistfully. Eyes looked into his that confounded his senses and bewildered his brain with their sweetness.

And he, Juan Perez, the lawless gambler returned their compassionate gaze, and as he did so, his soul melted.

He often wondered afterwards whether he had heard it in a dream, or if it was only the soughing of the wind, or a voice borne from Eternity, so faint, so diaphanous that uttered no sound, woke no responsive echo in his brain. It might have been the breath of the wind. It might have been the very breath of the Holy Ghost. "Juan," it seemed to say — and it might have been the breath of the wind — "Juan Perez, thou hast sinned greatly, but much shall be forgiven thee. Great is my love, deeper than a mother's. Be your sins scarlet, yet they shall be whiter than snow! Sin no more but live, even for My sake! I have waited for you — waited for years — for a century. You have come. Go! and sin no more!"

Fray Juan de la Misericordia de Dios is still remembered in the annals of the Monastery of Toro. Thrice was he prior, and when the Bishop of Salamanca preached his funeral sermon, he described him as a man sent from God, so great the consolation Rh