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 of the
Cross were for one instant visible.

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. "O God, it is enough!"

His limbs failed under him, and he sank upon his knees, still gazing
upward at the majesty that he adored. For a few brief moments the light
illumined the divine visions that had been denied to him so long--light
clear and sweet and strong as though it streamed from the throne of
Heaven. Then suddenly it passed away: once more a great darkness covered
the face of Christ.

The arms of the boy drew close again the body of the dog. "We shall see
His face--_there,_" he murmured; "and He will not part us, I think." On
the morrow, by the chancel of the cathedral, the people of Antwerp found
them both. They were both dead: the cold of the night had frozen into
stillness alike the young life and the old. When the Christmas morning
broke and the priests came to the temple, they saw them lying thus 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 the Christ.

As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man who wept as women
weep. "I was cruel to the lad," he muttered, "and now I would have made
amends--yea, to the half of my substance--and he should have been to me as
a son."