Neither Orville nor Callovan was at all moved by the tragedy each had witnessed.  Orville’s love for Marion was as if it had never existed.  The friendship of both for Thornton did not in the slightest assert itself.  They felt moved to sorrow, but the overpowering sense of another feeling—­a feeling of victory for some Great Friend or Cause—­left the vague sorrow forgotten in an instant.  Both men knew that Thornton and Marion had passed out of their ken forever, and in the future would be to them as if they had not been.  All three made haste to go toward the road which led up to the Flaming Cross.  Then upon Orville’s shoulders he felt a heavy burden, but still heavier was one which was bending Callovan down.  Michael alone stood straight, without a weight upon him.

“It will be hard to climb to the Cross with these burdens, Michael,” said Orville.

“Yes, sir, it will,” said Michael, “but you must carry them.  You brought them here.  They are the burdens of your wealth.  They will hamper you; but you saw the Cross, and in the end all will be well.”

“Then these burdens, Michael, are our riches?” asked both Orville and Callovan in the same breath.

“They are your riches,” replied Michael.  “I have no burden, for I had no riches.  Poor was I on earth, and unhampered am I now for the climb to the Cross.  Look yonder.”  He pointed to a man standing at the fork of the roads.  His burden was weighing him to the earth.  “He brought it all with him, sir,” continued Michael; “in life he gave nothing to God.  Now he must carry the burden up to the Cross, or leave it and go the other road.  He sees the Cross, too; but it will take ages for him to reach it.”

The man had thrown down the burden and now started to climb without it.  But unseen hands lifted it back to his shoulders.  Men and women going to the other road beckoned him to throw it away again and come with them; but he had seen the Cross and, keeping his eyes fixed upon it, he crawled along with his burden upon him, inch by inch, up the mountain.

“In life he was good and faithful, but he did not understand that riches were given him to use for a purpose and that he was not, himself, the purpose,” said Michael.  “It was a miracle of grace that he could see the Cross at all.”

“I knew that man in life,” said Callovan.  “But why is not my burden heavier than his?  I was richer by far.”

“You lightened it by more charity than he,” said Michael, “but you did not lighten it sufficiently:  Had you given even one-tenth of all that you had, you would now be even as I am—­free of all burden.”

“I wish I had known that,” said Callovan.

“But, alas! you did know,” replied Michael.  “We all knew these things.  We are not learning them now.  But look up, sir, and see the old man with the heavy burden above you.  You are going to pass him on your way, yet he has been dead now for a year.”