tried in vain to prevent him.”
Doña Carlota stared slowly at Kate.
“As a woman must try to prevent a man, when he is going wrong,” she said. “As I try to prevent Ramón. As he will get himself killed, as surely as they all do, down to Francisco Villa. And when they are dead, what good is it all?”
“When they are dead,” said Kate, “then you know it’s no good.”
“You do! Oh, Señora, if you think you can help me with Ramón, do help me, do! For it means the death either of me or him. And I shall die, though he is wrong. Unless he gets killed.”
“Tell me what he wants to do,” said Kate. “What does he think he wants to do, anyhow?—Like my husband thought he wanted to make a free Ireland and a great Irish people. But I knew all the time, the Irish aren’t a great people any more, and you can’t make them free. They are only good at destroying—just mere stupid destroying. How can you make a people free, if they aren’t free. If something inside them compels them to go on destroying!”
“I know! I know! And that is Ramón. He wants to destroy even Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, for this people. Imagine it! To destroy Jesus and the Blessed Virgin! the last thing they’ve got!”
“But what does he say himself, that he wants to do?”
“He says he wants to make a new connection between the people and God. He says himself, God is always God. But man loses his connection with God. And then he can never recover it again, unless some new Saviour comes to give him his new connection. And every new connection