of the land. And before her, even as she prayed her
dream-prayer, the waxen Virgin became tall as a woman, and
taller,--rising to the roof and smiling as she grew. Then Carmen
would have cried out for fear, but that something smothered her
voice,--paralyzed her tongue. And the Virgin silently stooped
above her, and placed in her arms the Child,--the brown Child
with the Indian face. And the Child whitened in her hands and
changed,--seeming as it changed to send a sharp pain through her
heart: an old pain linked somehow with memories of bright windy
Spanish hills, and summer scent of olive groves, and all the
luminous Past;--it looked into her face with the soft dark gaze,
with the unforgotten smile of ... dead Conchita!

And Carmen wished to thank; the smiling Virgin for that priceless
bliss, and lifted up her eyes, but the sickness of ghostly fear
returned upon her when she looked; for now the Mother seemed as a
woman long dead, and the smile was the smile of fleshlessness,
and the places of the eyes were voids and darknesses ... And the
sea sent up so vast a roar that the dwelling rocked.

Carmen started from sleep to find her heart throbbing so that the
couch shook with it. Night was growing gray; the door had just
been opened and slammed again. Through the rain-whipped panes
she discerned the passing shape of Feliu, making for the beach--a
broad and bearded silhouette, bending against the wind. Still
the waxen Virgin smiled her Mexican smile,--but now she was only
seven inches high; and her bead-glass eyes seemed to twinkle with
kindliness while the flame of the last expiring taper struggled
for life in the earthen socket at her feet.