THE MONEY MASTER, Complete

By Gilbert Parker

CONTENTS

 EPOCH THE FIRST I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE II. THE REST OF THE STORY "TO-MORROW" III. "TO-MORROW"

 EPOCH THE SECOND IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A STORY V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL IX. "MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE" X. "QUIEN SABE"--WHO KNOWS! XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM

 EPOCH THE THIRD XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE XIV. "I DO NOT WANT TO GO" XV. BON MARCHE

 EPOCH THE FOURTH XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP XX. "AU 'VOIR, M'SIEU' JEAN JACQUES" XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME

 EPOCH THE FIFTH XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED. XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE EPILOGUE

INTRODUCTION

This book is in a place by itself among the novels I have written. Manycritics said that it was a welcome return to Canada, where I had made myfirst success in the field of fiction. This statement was only meagrelyaccurate, because since 'The Right of Way' was published in 1901 I hadwritten, and given to the public, 'Northern Lights', a book of shortstories, 'You Never Know Your Luck', a short novel, and 'The World forSale', though all of these dealt with life in Western Canada, and notwith the life of the French Canadians, in which field I had made myfirst firm impression upon the public. In any case, The Money Master wasfavourably received by the press and public both in England and America, and my friends were justified in thinking, and in saying, that I was athome in French Canada and gave the impression of mastery of my material. If mastery of material means a knowledge of the life, and a sympathywith it, then my friends are justified; for I have always had an intensesympathy with, and admiration for, French Canadian life. I think theFrench Canadian one of the most individual, original, and distinctivebeings of the modern world. He has kept his place, with his owncustoms, his own Gallic views of life, and his religious habits, with anassiduity and firmness none too common. He is essentially a man ofthe home, of the soil, and of the stream; he has by nature instinctivephilosophy and temperamental logic. As a lover of the soil of Canada heis not surpassed by any of the other citizens of the country, English orotherwise. 

It would almost seem as though the pageantry of past French Canadianhistory, and the beauty and vigour of the topographical surroundingsof French Canadian life, had produced an hereditary pride andexaltation--perhaps an excessive pride and a strenuous exaltation, but, in any case, there it was, and is. The French Canadian lives a moresecluded life on the whole than any other citizen of Canada, though thenative, adventurous spirit has sent him to the Eastern States ofthe American Union for work in the mills and factories, or up to thefarthest reaches of the St. Lawrence, Ottawa, and their tributaries inthe wood and timber trade. 

Domestically he is perhaps the most productive son of the North Americancontinent. Families of twenty, or even twenty-five, are not unknown, and, when a man has had more than one wife, it has even exceeded that. Life itself is full of camaraderie and good spirit, marked by religioustraits and sacerdotal influence. 

The French Canadian is on the whole sober and industrious; but when hebreaks away from sobriety and industry he becomes a vicious elementin the general organism. Yet his vices are of the surface, and do notdestroy the foundations of his social and domestic scheme. A FrenchCanadian pony used to be considered the most virile and lasting stockon the continent, and it is fair to say that the French Canadiansthemselves are genuinely hardy, long-lived, virile, and enduring. 

It was among such people that the hero of The Money Master, Jean JacquesBarbille, lived. He was the symbol or pattern of their virtues andof their weaknesses. By nature a poet, a philosopher, a farmer and anadventurer, his life was a sacrifice to prepossession and race instinct;to temperament more powerful than logic or common sense, though he wasalmost professionally the exponent of both. 

There is no man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced asthe French Canadian. He is at once modest and vain; he is even lyricalin his enthusiasms; he is a child in the intrigues and inventionsof life; but he has imagination, he has a heart, he has a love oftradition, and is the slave of legend. To him domestic life is thesummum bonum of being. His four walls are the best thing which the worldhas to offer, except the cheerful and sacred communion of the Mass, andhis dismissal from life itself under the blessing of his priest and withthe promise of a good immortality. 

Jean Jacques Barbille had the French Canadian life of pageant, pomp, andplace extraordinarily developed. His love of history and traditionwas abnormal. A genius, he was, within an inch, a tragedy to the lastbutton. Probably the adventurous spirit of his forefathers playeda greater part in his development and in the story of his days thananything else. He was wide-eyed, and he had a big soul. He trainedhimself to believe in himself and to follow his own judgment; therefore, he invited loss upon loss, he made mistake upon mistake, he heapedfinancial adventure upon financial adventure, he ran great risks; andit is possible that his vast belief in himself kept him going when othermen would have dropped by the wayside. He loved his wife and daughter, and he lost them both. He loved his farms, his mills and his manor, andthey disappeared from his control. 

It must be remembered that the story of The Money Master really runs fora generation, and it says something for Jean Jacques Barbille that hecould travel through scenes, many of them depressing, for long years, and still, in the end, provoke no disparagement, by marrying thewoman who had once out of the goodness of her heart offered himeverything--herself, her home, her honour; and it was to Jean Jacques'scredit that he took neither until the death of his wife made him free;but the tremendous gift offered him produced a powerful impression uponhis mind and heart. 

One of the most distinguished men of the world to-day wrote me in praiseand protest concerning The Money Master. He declared that the first halfof the book was as good as anything that had been done by anybody, and then he bemoaned the fact, which he believed, that the author hadsacrificed his two heroines without real cause and because he was tiredof them. There he was wrong. In the author's mind the story was plannedexactly as it worked out. He was never tired; he was resolute. He wasintent to produce, if possible, a figure which would breed and developits own disasters, which would suffer profoundly for its own mistakes;but which, in the end, would triumph over the disasters of life andtime. It was all deliberate in the main intention and plan. Any failuresthat exist in the book are due to the faults of the author, and tonothing else. 

Some critics have been good enough to call 'The Money Master' abeautiful book, and there are many who said that it was real, true, andfaithful. Personally I think it is real and true, and as time goes on, and we get older, that is what seems to matter to those who love lifeand wish to see it well harvested. 

I do not know what the future of the book may be; what the future ofany work of mine will be; but I can say this, that no one has had thepleasure in reading my books which I have had in making them. They havebeen ground out of the raw material of the soul. I have a hope that theywill outlast my brief day, but, in any case, it will not matter. Theyhave given me a chance of showing to the world life as I have seen it, and indirectly, and perhaps indistinctly, my own ideas of that life. 'The Money Master' is a vivid and somewhat emotional part of it. 

EPOCH THE FIRST

CHAPTER I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE

"Peace and plenty, peace and plenty"--that was the phrase M. JeanJacques Barbille, miller and moneymaster, applied to his home-scene, when he was at the height of his career. Both winter and summer theplace had a look of content and comfort, even a kind of opulence. Thereis nothing like a grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winterand an air of coolness in summer, so does the slightest breeze make thepine-needles swish like the freshening sea. But to this scene, wherepines made a friendly background, there were added oak, ash, and hickorytrees, though in less quantity on the side of the river where wereJean Jacques Barbille's house and mills. They flourished chiefly on theopposite side of the Beau Cheval, whose waters flowed so waywardly--nowwith a rush, now silently away through long reaches of country. Herethe land was rugged and bold, while farther on it became gentle andspacious, and was flecked or striped with farms on which low, whitehouses with dormer-windows and big stoops flashed to the passer-by themessage of the pioneer, "It is mine. I triumph. "

At the Manor Cartier, not far from the town of Vilray, where JeanJacques was master, and above it and below it, there had been battlesand the ravages of war. At the time of the Conquest the stubbornhabitants, refusing to accept the yielding of Quebec as the end ofFrench power in their proud province, had remained in arms and active, and had only yielded when the musket and the torch had done their work, and smoking ruins marked the places where homes had been. They tooktheir fortune with something of the heroic calm of men to whom anidea was more than aught else. Jean Jacques' father, grandfather, andgreat-great-grandfather had lived here, no one of them rising far, butnone worthless or unnoticeable. They all had had "a way of their own, "as their neighbours said, and had been provident on the whole. Thus itwas that when Jean Jacques' father died, and he came into his own, hefound himself at thirty a man of substance, unmarried, who "couldhave had the pick of the province. " This was what the Old Cure said indespair, when Jean Jacques did the incomprehensible thing, and marriedl'Espagnole, or "the Spanische, " as the lady was always called in theEnglish of the habitant. 

When she came it was spring-time, and all the world was budding, exudingjoy and hope, with the sun dancing over all. It was the time betweenthe sowing and the hay-time, and there was a feeling of alertness ineverything that had life, while even the rocks and solid earth seemed tostir. The air was filled with the long happy drone of the mill-stones asthey ground the grain; and from farther away came the soft, stingingcry of a saw-mill. Its keen buzzing complaint was harmonious with thegrumble of the mill-stones, as though a supreme maker of music had tunedit. So said a master-musician and his friend, a philosopher from Nantes, who came to St. Saviour's in the summer just before the marriage, andlodged with Jean Jacques. Jean Jacques, having spent a year at LavalUniversity at Quebec, had almost a gift of thought, or thinking; and henever ceased to ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questionswhich he proceeded to answer himself before they could do so; hisquaint, sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening whilethey amused his guests. They saddened the musician more than the otherbecause he knew life, while the philosopher only thought it and saw it. 

But even the musician would probably have smiled in hope that daywhen the young "Spanische" came driving up the river-road from thesteamboat-landing miles away. She arrived just when the clock strucknoon in the big living-room of the Manor. As she reached the opendoorway and the wide windows of the house which gaped with shadycoolness, she heard the bell summoning the workers in the mills and onthe farm--yes, M. Barbille was a farmer, too--for the welcome home to"M'sieu' Jean Jacques, " as he was called by everyone. 

That the wedding had taken place far down in Gaspe and not in St. Saviour's was a reproach and almost a scandal; and certainly it wasunpatriotic. It was bad enough to marry the Spanische, but to marryoutside one's own parish, and so deprive that parish and its youngpeople of the week's gaiety, which a wedding and the consequentprocession and tour through the parish brings, was little less thantreason. But there it was; and Jean Jacques was a man who had power tohurt, to hinder, or to help; for the miller and the baker are nearer tothe hearthstone of every man than any other, and credit is a good thingwhen the oven is empty and hard times are abroad. The wedding in Gaspehad not been attended by the usual functions, for it had all beenhurriedly arranged, as the romantic circumstances of the wooingrequired. Romance indeed it was; so remarkable that the master-musicianmight easily have found a theme for a comedy--or tragedy--and thephilosopher would have shaken his head at the defiance it offered to thelogic of things. 

Now this is the true narrative, though in the parish of St. Saviour's itis more highly decorated and has many legends hanging to it like tasselsto a curtain. Even the Cure of to-day, who ought to know all the truth, finds it hard to present it in its bare elements; for the historyof Jean Jacques Barbille affected the history of many a man in St. Saviour's; and all that befel him, whether of good or evil, ran throughthe parish in a thousand invisible threads. 

 . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 

What had happened was this. After the visit of the musician and thephilosopher, Jean Jacques, to sustain his reputation and to increase it, had decided to visit that Normandy from which his people had come at thetime of Frontenac. He set forth with much 'eclat' and a little innocentposturing and ritual, in which a cornet and a violin figured, togetherwith a farewell oration by the Cure. 

In Paris Jean Jacques had found himself bewildered and engulfed. He hadno idea that life could be so overbearing, and he was inclined to resenthis own insignificance. However, in Normandy, when he read the names onthe tombstones and saw the records in the baptismal register of otherJean Jacques Barbilles, who had come and gone generations before, hisself-respect was somewhat restored. This pleasure was dashed, however, by the quizzical attitude of the natives of his ancestral parish, who walked round about inspecting him as though he were a zoologicalspecimen, and who criticized his accent--he who had been at Laval forone whole term; who had had special instruction before that time fromthe Old Cure and a Jesuit brother; and who had been the friend ofmusicians and philosophers!

His cheerful, kindly self-assurance stood the test with difficulty, butit became a kind of ceremonial with him, whenever he was discomfited, toread some pages of a little dun-coloured book of philosophy, picked upon the quay at Quebec just before he sailed, and called, "Meditations inPhilosophy. " He had been warned by the bookseller that the Church had nolove for philosophy; but while at Laval he had met the independent mindsthat, at eighteen to twenty-two, frequent academic groves; and hewas not to be put off by the pious bookseller--had he not also had aphilosopher in his house the year before, and was he not going to Nantesto see this same savant before returning to his beloved St. Saviour'sparish. 

But Paris and Nantes and Rouen and Havre abashed and discomfited him, played havoc with his self-esteem, confused his brain, and vexed himby formality, and, more than all, by their indifference to himself. Headmired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished allpeople and things to be humble with him. When he halted he wanted theworld to halt; when he entered a cathedral--Notre Dame or any other; ora great building--the Law Courts at Rouen or any other; he simplywanted people to say, wanted the cathedral, or at least the cloister, towhisper to itself, "Here comes Jean Jacques Barbille. "

That was all he wanted, and that would have sufficed. He would not havehad them whisper about his philosophy and his intellect, or the millsand the ash-factory which he meant to build, the lime-kilns he hadstarted even before he left, and the general store he intended to openwhen he returned to St. Saviour's. Not even his modesty was recognized;and, in his grand tour, no one was impressed by all that he was, exceptonce. An ancestor, a grandmother of his, had come from the Basquecountry; and so down to St. Jean Pied de Port he went; for he came of arace who set great store by mothers and grandmothers. At St. Jean Piedde Port he was more at home. He was, in a sense, a foreigner amongforeigners there, and the people were not quizzical, since he wasan outsider in any case and not a native returned, as he had been inNormandy. He learned to play pelota, the Basque game taken from theSpaniards, and he even allowed himself a little of that oratory which, as they say, has its habitat chiefly in Gascony. And because he hadfound an audience at last, he became a liberal host, and spent freelyof his dollars, as he had never done either in Normandy, Paris, orelsewhere. So freely did he spend, that when he again embarked atBordeaux for Quebec, he had only enough cash left to see him through theremainder of his journey in the great world. Yet he left France withhis self-respect restored, and he even waved her a fond adieu, as thecreaking Antoine broke heavily into the waters of the Bay of Biscay, while he cried:

 "My little ship, It bears me far From lights of home To alien star. O vierge Marie, Pour moi priez Dieu! Adieu, dear land, Provence, adieu. "

Then a further wave of sentiment swept over him, and he was vaguelyconscious of a desire to share the pains of parting which he saw inlabour around him--children from parents, lovers from loved. He couldnot imagine the parting from a parent, for both of his were in the bosomof heaven, having followed his five brothers, all of whom had died ininfancy, to his good fortune, for otherwise his estate would now be onlyone-sixth of what it was. But he could imagine a parting with some sweetdaughter of France, and he added another verse to the thrilling of theheart of Casimir Delavigne:

 "Beloved Isaure, Her hand makes sign-- No more, no more, To rest in mine. O vierge Marie, Pour moi priez Dieu! Adieu, dear land, Isaure, adieu!"

As he murmured with limpid eye the last words, he saw in the forecastlenot far from him a girl looking at him. There was unmistakable sadnessin her glance of interest. In truth she was thinking of just such a manas Jean Jacques, whom she could never see any more, for he had paid withhis life the penalty of the conspiracy in which her father, standing nowbehind her on the leaky Antoine, had been a tool, and an evil tool. Herein Jean Jacques was the same ruddy brown face, black restless eye, and young, silken, brown beard. Also there was an air of certainty anduniversal comprehension, and though assertion and vanity were apparent, there was no self-consciousness. The girl's dead and gone conspiratorhad not the same honesty of face, the same curve of the ideal in thebroad forehead, the same poetry of rich wavy brown hair, the samegoodness of mind and body so characteristic of Jean Jacques--he was butJean Jacques gone wrong at the start; but the girl was of a naturethat could see little difference between things which were alikesuperficially, and in the young provincial she only saw one who lookedlike the man she had loved. True, his moustaches did not curl upwards atthe ends as did those of Carvillho Gonzales, and he did not look out ofthe corner of his eyes and smoke black cigarettes; but there he was, herCarvillho with a difference--only such a difference that made him to herCarvillho II. , and not the ghost of Carvillho I. 

She was a maiden who might have been as good as need be for all life, so far as appearances went. She had a wonderful skin, a smooth, velvetycheek, where faint red roses came and went, as it might seem at will;with a deep brown eye; and eh, but she was grandly tall--so Jean Jacquesthought, while he drew himself up to his full five feet, six and a halfwith a determined air. Even at his best, however, Jean Jacques could notreach within three inches of her height. 

Yet he did not regard her as at all overdone because of that. He thoughther hair very fine, as it waved away from her low forehead in a gracewhich reminded him of the pictures of the Empress Eugenie, and of thesister of that monsieur le duc who had come fishing to St. Saviour'sa few years before. He thought that if her hair was let down it wouldprobably reach to her waist, and maybe to her ankles. She had none ofthe plump, mellow softness of the beauties he had seen in the Basquecountry. She was a slim and long limbed Diana, with fine lines and abosom of extreme youth, though she must have been twenty-one her lastbirthday. The gown she wore was a dark green well-worn velvet, whichseemed of too good a make and quality for her class; and there was nodecoration about her anywhere, save at the ears, where two drops of goldhung on little links an inch and a half long. 

Jean Jacques Barbille's eyes took it all in with that observation ofwhich he was so proud and confident, and rested finally on the drops ofgold at her ears. Instinctively he fingered the heavy gold watch-chainhe had bought in Paris to replace the silver chain with a littlecrucifix dangling, which his father and even his great-grandfather hadworn before him. He had kept the watch, however--the great fat-belliedthing which had never run down in a hundred years. It was his mascot. To lose that watch would be like losing his share in the promises of theChurch. So his fingers ran along the new gold-fourteen-carat-chain, tothe watch at the end of it; and he took it out a little ostentatiously, since he saw that the eyes of the girl were on him. Involuntarily hewished to impress her. 

He might have saved himself the trouble. She was impressed. It was quiteanother matter however, whether he would have been pleased to know thatthe impression was due to his resemblance to a Spanish conspirator, whose object was to destroy the Monarchy and the Church, as had been theobject of the middle-aged conspirator--the girl's father--who had thegood fortune to escape from justice. It is probable that if Jean Jacqueshad known these facts, his story would never have been written, and hewould have died in course of time with twenty children and a seat in thelegislature; for, in spite of his ardent devotion to philosophy and itsaccompanying rationalism, he was a devout monarchist and a child of theChurch. 

Sad enough it was that, as he shifted his glance from the watch, whichticked loud enough to wake a farmhand in the middle of the day, he foundthose Spanish eyes which had been so lost in studying him. In the glowand glisten of the evening sun setting on the shores of Bordeaux, andflashing reflected golden light to the girl's face, he saw that theywere shining with tears, and though looking at him, appeared not tosee him. In that moment the scrutiny of the little man's mind wasvolatilized, and the Spanische, as she was ultimately called, began hercareer in the life of the money-master of St. Saviour's. 

It began by his immediately resenting the fact that she should betravelling in the forecastle. His mind imagined misfortune and a losthome through political troubles, for he quickly came to know that thegirl and her father were Spanish; and to him, Spain was a place ofmartyrs and criminals. Criminals these could not be--one had but to lookat the girl's face; while the face of her worthless father might havebeen that of a friend of Philip IV. In the Escorial, so quiet andoppressed it seemed. Nobility was written on the placid, apatheticcountenance, except when it was not under observation, and then the lookof Cain took its place. Jean Jacques, however, was not likely to seethat look; since Sebastian Dolores--that was his name--had observed fromthe first how the master-miller was impressed by his daughter, and hewas set to turn it to account. 

Not that the father entered into an understanding with the girl. He knewher too well for that. He had a wholesome respect, not to say fear, of her; for when all else had failed, it was she who had arranged hisescape from Spain, and who almost saved Carvillho Gonzales from beingshot. She could have saved Gonzales, might have saved him, wouldhave saved him, had she not been obliged to save her father. In thecircumstances she could not save both. 

Before the week was out Jean Jacques was possessed of as fine a taleof political persecution as mind could conceive, and, told as it was bySebastian Dolores, his daughter did not seek to alter it, for she hadher own purposes, and they were mixed. These refugees needed a friend, for they would land in Canada with only a few dollars, and CarmenDolores loved her father well enough not to wish to see him again insuch distress as he had endured in Cadiz. Also, Jean Jacques, theyoung, verdant, impressionable French Catholic, was like her CarvillhoGonzales, and she had loved her Carvillho in her own way verypassionately, and--this much to her credit--quite chastely. So that shehad no compunction in drawing the young money-master to her side, andkeeping him there by such arts as such a woman possesses. These areremarkable after their kind. They are combined of a frankness as to theemotions, and such outer concessions to physical sensations, as make apainful combination against a mere man's caution; even when that cautionhas a Norman origin. 

More than once Jean Jacques was moved to tears, as the Ananias of Cadiztold his stories of persecution. 

So that one day, in sudden generosity, he paid the captain the necessarysum to transfer the refugees from the forecastle to his own selectportion of the steamer, where he was so conspicuous a figure among ahandful of lower-level merchant folk and others of little mark who weregoing to Quebec. To these latter Jean Jacques was a gift of heaven, forhe knew so much, and seemed to know so much more, and could give themthe information they desired. His importance lured him to pose as aseigneur, though he had no claim to the title. He did not call himselfSeigneur in so many words, but when others referred to him as theSeigneur, and it came to his ears, he did not correct it; and when hewas addressed as such he did not reprove. 

Thus, when he brought the two refugees from the forecastle and assuredhis fellow-passengers that they were Spanish folk of good family exiledby persecution, his generosity was acclaimed, even while all saw he wasenamoured of Carmen. Once among the first-class passengers, father anddaughter maintained reserve, and though there were a few who saw thatthey were not very far removed above peasants, still the dress ofthe girl, which was good--she had been a maid in a great nobleman'sfamily--was evidence in favour of the father's story. Sebastian Doloresexplained his own workman's dress as having been necessary for hisescape. 

Only one person gave Jean Jacques any warning. This was the captainof the Antoine. He was a Basque, he knew the Spanish people well--thetypes, the character, the idiosyncrasies; and he was sure that SebastianDolores and his daughter belonged to the lower clerical or higherworking class, and he greatly inclined towards the former. In that hewas right, because Dolores, and his father before him, had been employedin the office of a great commercial firm in Cadiz, and had repaid muchconsideration by stirring up strife and disloyalty in the establishment. But before the anarchist subtracted himself from his occupation, he hadappropriated certain sums of money, and these had helped to carry himon, when he attached himself to the revolutionaries. It was on hisdaughter's savings that he was now travelling, with the only thing hehad saved from the downfall, which was his head. It was of sufficientpersonal value to make him quite cheerful as the Antoine plunged andshivered on her way to the country where he could have no steady work asa revolutionist. 

With reserve and caution the Basque captain felt it his duty to tellJean Jacques of his suspicions, warning him that the Spaniards were thechoicest liars in the world, and were not ashamed of it; but hadthe same pride in it as had their greatest rivals, the Arabs and theEgyptians. 

His discreet confidences, however, were of no avail; he was not discreetenough. If he had challenged the bona fides of Sebastian Dolores only, he might have been convincing, but he used the word "they" constantly, and that roused the chivalry of Jean Jacques. That the comely, carefulCarmen should be party to an imposture was intolerable. Everything abouther gave it the lie. Her body was so perfect and complete, so finelycontrived and balanced, so cunningly curved with every line filled in;her eye was so full of lustre and half-melancholy too; her voice hadsuch a melodious monotone; her mouth was so ripe and yet so distant inits luxury, that imposture was out of the question. 

Ah, but Jean Jacques was a champion worth while! He did nothingby halves. He was of the breed of men who grow more intense, moreconvinced, more thorough, as they talk. One adjective begets another, one warm allusion gives birth to a warmer, one flashing impulse evokes abrighter confidence, till the atmosphere is flaming with conviction. IfJean Jacques started with faint doubt regarding anything, and allowedhimself betimes the flush of a declaration of belief, there could be butone end. He gathered fire as he moved, impulse expanded into momentum, and momentum became an Ariel fleeing before the dark. He would startby offering a finger to be pricked, and would end by presenting his ownhead on a charger. He was of those who hypnotize themselves, who glowwith self-creation, who flower and bloom without pollen. 

His rejection of the captain's confidence even had a dignity. Hetook out his watch which represented so many laborious hours of otherBarbilles, and with a decision in which the strong pulse of chivalry wasbeating hard, he said:

"I can never speak well till I have ate. That is my hobby. Well, soit is. And I like good company. So that is why I sit beside Senor andSenorita Dolores at table--the one on the right, the other on the left, myself between, like this, like that. It is dinner-time now here, andmy friends--my dear friends of Cadiz--they wait me. Have you heardthe Senorita sing the song of Spain, m'sieu'? What it must be with theguitar, I know not; but with voice alone it is ravishing. I have learnedit also. The Senorita has taught me. It is a song of Aragon. It is sungin high places. It belongs to the nobility. Ah, then, you have not heardit--but it is not too late! The Senorita, the unhappy ma'm'selle, drivenfrom her ancestral home by persecution, she will sing it to you as shehas sung it to me. It is your due. You are the master of the ship. But, yes, she shall of her kindness and of her grace sing it to you. You donot know how it runs? Well, it is like this--listen and tell me if itdoes not speak of things that belong to the old regime, the ancientnoblesse--listen, m'sieu' le captainne, how it runs:

 "Have you not heard of mad Murcie? Granada gay and And'lousie? There's where you'll see the joyous rout, When patios pour their beauties out; Come, children, come, the night gains fast, And Time's a jade too fair to last. My flower of Spain, my Juanetta, Away, away to gay Jota! Come forth, my sweet, away, my queen, Though daybreak scorns, the night's between. The Fete's afoot--ah! ah! ah! ah! De la Jota Ar'gonesa. Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! De la Jota Ar'gonesa. "

Before he had finished, the captain was more than ready to go, for hehad no patience with such credulity, simplicity and sentimentalism. Hewas Basque, and to be Basque is to lack sentiment and feel none, to playever for the safe thing, to get without giving, and to mind your ownbusiness. It had only been an excessive sense of duty which had made thecaptain move in this, for he liked Jean Jacques as everyone aboard hisAntoine did; and he was convinced that the Spaniards would play the"Seigneur" to the brink of disaster at least, though it would have beenhard to detect any element of intrigue or coquetry in Carmen Dolores. 

That was due partly to the fact that she was still in grief for herGonzales, whose heart had been perforated by almost as many bulletsas the arrows of Cupid had perforated it in his short, gay life ofadventure and anarchy; also partly because there was no coquetry neededto interest Jean Jacques. If he was interested it was not necessary tointerest anyone else, nor was it expedient to do so, for the biggestfish in the net on the Antoine was the money-master of St. Saviour's. 

Carmen had made up her mind from the first to marry Jean Jacques, andshe deported herself accordingly--with modesty, circumspection andskill. It would be the easiest way out of all their difficulties. Sinceher heart, such as it was, fluttered, a mournful ghost, over the Placed'Armes, where her Gonzales was shot, it might better go to Jean Jacquesthan anyone else; for he was a man of parts, of money, and of looks, andshe loved these all; and to her credit she loved his looks betterthan all the rest. She had no real cupidity, and she was not greatlyenamoured of brains. She had some real philosophy of life learned in ahard school; and it was infinitely better founded than the smattering ofconventional philosophy got by Jean Jacques from his compendium pickedup on the quay at Quebec. 

Yet Jean Jacques' cruiser of life was not wholly unarmed. From hisNorman forebears he had, beneath all, a shrewdness and an elementaryalertness not submerged by his vain, kind nature. He was quite a goodbusiness man, and had proved himself so before his father died--veryquick to see a chance, and even quicker to see where the distant, sharpcorners in the road were; though not so quick to see the pitfalls, forhis head was ever in the air. And here on the Antoine, there crossed hismind often the vision of Carmen Dolores and himself in the parish of St. Saviour's, with the daily life of the Beau Cheval revolving about him. Flashes of danger warned him now and then, just at the beginning of thejourney, as it were; just before he had found it necessary to becomeher champion against the captain and his calumnies; but they were of theinstant only. But champion as he became, and worshipping as his mannerseemed, it all might easily have been put down to a warm, chivalrous, and spontaneous nature, which had not been bitted or bridled, and hemight have landed at Quebec without committing himself, were it not forthe fact that he was not to land at Quebec. 

That was the fact which controlled his destiny. He had spent many, manyhours with the Dona Dolores, talking, talking, as he loved to talk, andonly saving himself from the betise of boring her by the fact that hisenthusiasm had in it so fresh a quality, and because he was so likeher Gonzales that she could always endure him. Besides, quick ofintelligence as she was, she was by nature more material than shelooked, and there was certainly something physically attractive inhim--some curious magnetism. She had a well of sensuousness which mightone day become sensuality; she had a richness of feeling and a contourin harmony with it, which might expand into voluptuousness, if giventoo much sun, or if untamed by the normal restraints of a happy marriedlife. There was an earthquake zone in her being which might shake downthe whole structure of her existence. She was unsafe, not because shewas deceiving Jean Jacques now as to her origin and as to her feelingsfor him; she was unsafe because of the natural strain of the light oflove in her, joined to a passion for comfort and warmth and to a naturalself-indulgence. She was determined to make Jean Jacques offer himselfbefore they landed at Quebec. 

But they did not land at Quebec. 

CHAPTER II. "THE REST OF THE STORY TO-MORROW"

The journey wore on to the coast of Canada. Gaspe was not far off when, still held back by the constitutional tendency of the Norman not toclose a bargain till compelled to do so, Jean Jacques sat with Carmenfar forward on the deck, where the groaning Antoine broke the watersinto sullen foam. There they silently watched the sunset, golden, purpleand splendid--and ominous, as the captain knew. 

"Look, the end of life--like that!" said Jean Jacques oratorically witha wave of the hand towards the prismatic radiance. 

"All the way round, the whole circle--no, it would be too much, " Carmenreplied sadly. "Better to go at noon--or soon after. Then the onlymemory of life would be of the gallop. No crawling into the night forme, if I can help it. Mother of Heaven, no! Let me go at the top of theflight. "

"It is all the same to me, " responded Jean Jacques, "I want to know itall--to gallop, to trot, to walk, to crawl. Me, I'm a philosopher. Iwait. "

"But I thought you were a Catholic, " she replied, with a kindly, lurkingsmile, which might easily have hardened into scoffing. 

"First and last, " he answered firmly. 

"A Catholic and a philosopher--together in one?" She shrugged a shoulderto incite him to argument, for he was interesting when excited;when spurting out little geysers of other people's cheap wisdom andphilosophy, poured through the kind distortion of his own intelligence. 

He gave a toss of his head. "Ah, that is my hobby--I reconcile, I unite, I adapt! It is all the nature of the mind, the far-look, the all-roundsight of the man. I have it all. I see. "

He gazed eloquently into the sunset, he swept the horizon with his hand. "I have the all-round look. I say the Man of Calvary, He is before all, the sun; but I say Socrates, Plato, Jean Jacques--that is my name, andit is not for nothing, that--Jean Jacques Rousseau, Descartes, Locke, they are stars that go round the sun. It is the same light, but not thesame sound. I reconcile. In me all comes together like the spokes tothe hub of a wheel. Me--I am a Christian, I am philosophe, also. In St. Saviour's, my home in Quebec, if the crops are good, what do men say?'C'est le bon Dieu--it is the good God, ' that is what they say. If thecrops are bad, what do they say? 'It is the good God'--that is what theysay. It is the good God that makes crops good or bad, and it is thegood God that makes men say, 'C'est le bon Dieu. ' The good God makes thephilosophy. It is all one. "

She appeared to grow agitated, and her voice shook as she spoke. "Tsh, it is only a fool that says the good God does it, when the thing that isdone breaks you or that which you love all to pieces. No, no, no, it isnot religion, it is not philosophy that makes one raise the head whenthe heart is bowed down, when everything is snatched away that was allin all. That the good God does it is a lie. Santa Maria, what a lie!"

"Why 'Santa Maria, ' then, if it is a lie?" he asked triumphantly. He didnot observe how her breast was heaving, how her hands were clenched; forshe was really busy with thoughts of her dead Carvillho Gonzales; butfor the moment he could only see the point of an argument. 

She made a gesture of despair. "So--that's it. Habit in us is so strong. It comes through the veins of our mothers to us. We say that God isa lie one minute, and then the next minute we say, 'God guard you!'Always--always calling to something, for something outside ourselves. That is why I said Santa Maria, why I ask her to pray for the soul ofmy friend, to pray to the God that breaks me and mine, and sends us overthe seas, beggars without a home. "

Now she had him back out of the vanities of his philosophy. He was up, inflamed, looking at her with an excitement on which she depended forher future. She knew the caution of his nature, she realized how hewould take one step forward and another step back, and maybe get nowherein the end, and she wanted him--for a home, for her father's sake, forwhat he could do for them both. She had no compunctions. She thoughtherself too good for him, in a way, for in her day men of place and markhad taken notice of her; and if it had not been for her Gonzales shewould no doubt have listened to one of them sometime or another. Sheknew she had ability, even though she was indolent, and she thought shecould do as much for him as any other girl. If she gave him a handsomewife and handsome children, and made men envious of him, and filled himwith good things, for she could cook more than tortillas-she felt hewould have no right to complain. She meant him to marry her--and Quebecwas very near!

"A beggar in a strange land, without a home, without a friend--oh, mybroken life!" she whispered wistfully to the sunset. 

It was not all acting, for the past reached out and swept over her, throwing waves of its troubles upon the future. She was that saddest ofhuman beings, a victim of dual forces which so fought for masterywith each other that, while the struggle went on, the soul had no firmfoothold anywhere. That, indeed, was why her Carvillho Gonzales, whoalso had been dual in nature, said to himself so often, "I am a devil, "and nearly as often, "I have the heart of an angel. "

"Tell me all about your life, my friend, " Jean Jacques said eagerly. Now his eyes no longer hurried here and there, but fastened on hers andstayed thereabouts--ah, her face surely was like pictures he had seen inthe Louvre that day when he had ambled through the aisles of great men'sglories with the feeling that he could not see too much for nothing inan hour. 

"My life? Ah, m'sieu', has not my father told you of it?" she asked. 

He waved a hand in explanation, he cocked his head quizzically. "Scraps--like the buttons on a coat here and there--that's all, "he answered. "Born in Andalusia, lived in Cadiz, plenty of money, a beautiful home, "--Carmen's eyes drooped, and her face flushedslightly--"no brothers or sisters--visits to Madrid on politicalbusiness--you at school--then the going of your mother, and you at homeat the head of the house. So much on the young shoulders, the kitchen, the parlour, the market, the shop, society--and so on. That is the wayit was, so he said, except in the last sad times, when your father, forthe sake of Don Carlos and his rights, near lost his life--ah, I canunderstand that: to stand by the thing you have sworn to! France is arepublic, but I would give my life to put a Napoleon or a Bourbon on thethrone. It is my hobby to stand by the old ship, not sign on to a newcaptain every port. "

She raised her head and looked at him calmly now. The flush had gonefrom her face, and a light of determination was in her eyes. To that wasadded suddenly a certain tinge of recklessness and abandon in carriageand manner, as one flings the body loose from the restraints of clothes, and it expands in a free, careless, defiant joy. 

Jean Jacques' recital of her father's tale had confused her for amoment, it was so true yet so untrue, so full of lies and yet sosolid in fact. "The head of the house--visits to Madrid on politicalbusiness--the parlour, the market, society--all that!" It suggested thepicture of the life of a child of a great house; it made her a lady, and not a superior servant as she had been; it adorned her with a creditwhich was not hers; and for a moment she was ashamed. Yet from the firstshe had lent herself to the general imposture that they had fled fromSpain for political reasons, having lost all and suffered greatly; andit was true while yet it was a lie. She had suffered, both her fatherand herself had suffered; she had been in danger, in agony, in sorrow, in despair--it was only untrue that they were of good birth and blood, and had had position and comfort and much money. Well, what harm didthat do anybody? What harm did it do this little brown seigneur fromQuebec? Perhaps he too had made himself out to be more than he was. Perhaps he was no seigneur at all, she thought. When one is in distantseas and in danger of his life, one will hoist any flag, sail to anyport, pay homage to any king. So would she. Anyhow, she was as good asthis provincial, with his ancient silver watch, his plump little hands, and his book of philosophy. 

What did it matter, so all came right in the end! She would justifyherself, if she had the chance. She was sick of conspiracy, and danger, and chicanery--and blood. She wanted her chance. She had been badlyshaken in the last days in Spain, and she shrank from more worry andmisery. She wanted to have a home and not to wander. And here was achance--how good a chance she was not sure; but it was a chance. Shewould not hesitate to make it hers. After all, self-preservation was thething which mattered. She wanted a bright fire, a good table, a horse, a cow, and all such simple things. She wanted a roof over her and a warmbed at night. She wanted a warm bed at night--but a warm bed at nightalone. It was the price she would have to pay for her imposture, that ifshe had all these things, she could not be alone in the sleep-time. Shehad not thought of this in the days when she looked forward to a homewith her Gonzales. To be near him was everything; but that was alldead and done for; and now--it was at this point that, shrinking, shesuddenly threw off all restraining thoughts. With abandon of themind came a recklessness of body, which gave her, all at once, avoluptuousness more in keeping with the typical maid of Andalusia. Itgot into the eyes and senses of Jean Jacques, in a way which had nothingto do with the philosophy of Descartes, or Kant, or Aristotle, or Hegel. 

"It was beautiful in much--my childhood, " she said in a low voice, dropping her eyes before his ardent gaze, "as my father said. My motherwas lovely to see, but not bigger than I was at twelve--so petite, andyet so perfect in form--like a lark or a canary. Yes, and she couldsing--anything. Not like me with a voice which has the note of a drum oran organ--"

"Of a flute, bright Senorita, " interposed Jean Jacques. 

"But high, and with the trills in the skies, and all like a laugh with atear in it. When she went to the river to wash--"

She was going to say "wash the clothes, " but she stopped in time andsaid instead, "wash her spaniel and her pony"--her face was flushedagain with shame, for to lie about one's mother is a sickening thing, and her mother never had a spaniel or a pony--"the women on the shorewringing their clothes, used to beg her to sing. To the hum of the rivershe would make the music which they loved--"

"La Manola and such?" interjected Jean Jacques eagerly. "That's a finesong as you sing it. "

"Not La Manola, but others of a different sort--The Love of Isabella, The Flight of Bobadil, Saragosse, My Little Banderillero, and so on, andall so sweet that the women used to cry. Always, always she was singingtill the time when my father became a rebel. Then she used to cry too;and she would sing no more; and when my father was put against a wall tobe shot, and fell in the dust when the rifles rang out, she came at themoment, and seeing him lying there, she threw up her hands, and felldown beside him dead--"

"The poor little senora, dead too--"

"Not dead too--that was the pity of it. You see my father was not dead. The officer"--she did not say sergeant--"who commanded the firing squad, he was what is called a compadre of my father--"

"Yes, I understand--a made-brother, sealed with an oath, which bindscloser than a blood-brother. It is that, is it not?"

"So--like that. Well, the compadre had put blank cartridges in theirrifles, and my father pretended to fall dead; and the soldiers weremarched away; and my father, with my mother, was carried to his home, still pretending to be dead. It had been all arranged except the awfulthing, my mother's death. Who could foresee that? She ought to have beentold; but who could guess that she would hear of it all, and come at themoment like that? So, that was the way she went, and I was left alonewith my father. " She had told the truth in all, except in conveying thather mother was not of the lower orders, and that she went to the riverto wash her spaniel and her pony instead of her clothes. 

"Your father--did they not arrest him again? Did they not know?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "That is not the way in Spain. He was shot, as the orders were, with his back to the wall by a squad of soldierswith regulation bullets. If he chose to come to life again, that washis own affair. The Government would take no notice of him after he wasdead. He could bury himself, or he could come alive--it was all the sameto them. So he came alive again. "

"That is a story which would make a man's name if he wrote it down, "said Jean Jacques eloquently. "And the poor little senora, but my heartbleeds for her! To go like that in such pain, and not to know--If shehad been my wife I think I would have gone after her to tell her it wasall right, and to be with her--"

He paused confused, for that seemed like a reflection on her father'schivalry, and for a man who had risked his life for his banishedking--what would he have thought if he had been told that SebastianDolores was an anarchist who loathed kings!--it was an insult to suggestthat he did not know the right thing to do, or, knowing, had not doneit. 

She saw the weakness of his case at once. "There was his duty to theliving, " she said indignantly. 

"Ah, forgive me--what a fool I am!" Jean Jacques said repentantly atonce. "There was his little girl, his beloved child, his Carmen Dolores, so beautiful, with the voice like a flute, and--"

He drew nearer to her, his hand was outstretched to take hers; his eyeswere full of the passion of the moment; pity was drowning all caution, all the Norman shrewdness in him, when the Antoine suddenly stoppedalmost dead with a sudden jolt and shock, then plunged sideways, jerked, and trembled. 

"We've struck a sunk iceberg--the rest of the story to-morrow, Senorita, " he cried, as they both sprang to their feet. 

"The rest of the story to-morrow, " she repeated, angry at the strokeof fate which had so interrupted the course of her fortune. She said itwith a voice also charged with fear; for she was by nature a landfarer, not a sea-farer, though on the rivers of Spain she had lived almost asmuch as on land, and she was a good swimmer. 

"The rest to-morrow, " she repeated, controlling herself. 

CHAPTER III. "TO-MORROW"

The rest came to-morrow. When the Antoine struck the sunken iceberg shewas not more than one hundred and twenty miles from the coast of Gaspe. She had not struck it full on, or she would have crumpled up, but hadstruck and glanced, mounting the berg, and sliding away with a smallgaping wound in her side, broken internally where she had been weakest. Her condition was one of extreme danger, and the captain was by no meanssure that he could make the land. If a storm or a heavy sea came on, they were doomed. 

As it was, with all hands at the pumps the water gained on her, and shemoaned and creaked and ached her way into the night with no surety thatshe would show a funnel to the light of another day. Passengers and crewalike worked, and the few boats were got ready to lower away whenthe worst should come to the worst. Below, with the crew, the littlemoneymaster of St. Saviour's worked with an energy which had behind itsome generations of hardy qualities; and all the time he refused to bedowncast. There was something in his nature or in his philosophy afterall. He had not much of a voice, but it was lusty and full of goodfeeling; and when cursing began, when a sailor even dared to curse hisbaptism--the crime of crimes to a Catholic mind--Jean Jacques began tosing a cheery song with which the habitants make vocal their labours ortheir playtimes:

 "A Saint-Malo, beau port de mer, Trois gros navir's sont arrives, Trois gros navir's sont arrives Charges d'avoin', charges de ble. Charges d'avoin', charges de ble: Trois dam's s'en vont les marchander. "

And so on through many verses, with a heartiness that was a goodantidote to melancholy, even though it was no specific for a shipwreck. It played its part, however; and when Jean Jacques finished it, heplunged into that other outburst of the habitant's gay spirits, 'Balchez Boule':

 "Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule, The vespers o'er, we'll away to that; With our hearts so light, and our feet so gay, We'll dance to the tune of 'The Cardinal's Hat' The better the deed, the better the day Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule!"

And while Jean Jacques worked "like a little French pony, " as they sayin Canada of every man with the courage to do hard things in him, hedid not stop to think that the scanty life-belts had all been taken, and that he was a very poor swimmer indeed: for, as a child, he had beensubject to cramp, and so had made the Beau Cheval River less his friendthan would have been useful now. 

He realized it, however, soon after daybreak, when, within a few hundredyards of the shores of Gaspe, to which the good Basque captain had beenslowly driving the Antoine all night, there came the cry, "All handson deck!" and "Lower the boats!" for the Antoine's time had come, andwithin a hand-reach of shore almost she found the end of her ricketylife. Not more than three-fourths of the passengers and crew were gotinto the boats. Jean Jacques was not one of these; but he saw CarmenDolores and her father safely bestowed, though in different boats. Tothe girl's appeal to him to come he gave a nod of assent, and said hewould get in at the last moment; but this he did not do, pushing intothe boat instead a crying lad of fifteen, who said he was afraid to die. 

So it was that Jean Jacques took to the water side by side with theBasque captain, when the Antoine groaned and shook, and then grew still, and presently, with some dignity, dipped her nose into the shallow seaand went down. 

"The rest of the story to-morrow, " Jean Jacques had said when the vesselstruck the iceberg the night before; and so it was. 

The boat in which Carmen had been placed was swamped not far from shore, but she managed to lay hold of a piece of drifting wreckage, and beganto fight steadily and easily landward. Presently she was aware, however, of a man struggling hard some little distance away to the left of her, and from the tousled hair shaking in the water she was sure that it wasJean Jacques. 

So it proved to be; and thus it was that, at his last gasp almost, whenhe felt he could keep up no longer, the wooden seat to which Carmenclung came to his hand, and a word of cheer from her drew his head upwith what was almost a laugh. 

"To think of this!" he said presently when he was safe, with herswimming beside him without support, for the wooden seat would notsustain the weight of two. "To think that it is you who saves me!" heagain declared eloquently, as they made the shore in comparative ease, for she was a fine swimmer. 

"It is the rest of the story, " he said with great cheerfulness andaplomb as they stood on the shore in the morning sun, shoeless, coatless, but safe: and she understood. 

There was nothing else for him to do. The usual process of romance hadbeen reversed. He had not saved her life, she had saved his. The leastthat he could do was to give her shelter at the Manor Cartier yonderat St. Saviour's, her and, if need be, her father. Human gratitudemust have play. It was so strong in this case that it alone could haveovercome the Norman caution of Jean Jacques, and all his worldly wisdom(so much in his own eyes). Added thereto was the thing which had beengreatly stirred in him at the instant the Antoine struck; and now hekept picturing Carmen in the big living-room and the big bedroom of thehouse by the mill, where was the comfortable four-poster which had comefrom the mansion of the last Baron of Beaugard down by St. Laurent. 

Three days after the shipwreck of the Antoine, and as soon as sufficientfinery could be got in Quebec, it was accomplished, the fate of JeanJacques. How proud he was to open his cheque-book before the youngSpanish maid, and write in cramped, characteristic hand a cheque fora hundred dollars or so at a time! A moiety of this money was givento Sebastian Dolores, who could scarcely believe his good fortune. Asituation was got for him by the help of a good abbe at Quebec, whowas touched by the tale of the wreck of the Antoine, and by the no lesswonderful tale of the refugees of Spain, who naturally belonged to thetrue faith which "feared God and honoured the King. " Sebastian Doloreswas grateful for the post offered him, though he would rather have goneto St. Saviour's with his daughter, for he had lost the gift of work, and he desired peace after war. In other words, he had that fatal traitof those who strive to make the world better by talk and violence, thevice of indolence. 

But when Jean Jacques and his handsome bride started for St. Saviour's, the new father-in-law did not despair of following soon. He wouldgreatly have enjoyed the festivities which, after all, did follow thehome-coming of Jean Jacques Barbille and his Spanische; for while theylacked enthusiasm because Carmen was a foreigner, the romance of thestory gave the whole proceedings a spirit and interest which spread intoadjoining parishes: so that people came to mass from forty miles away tosee the pair who had been saved from the sea. 

And when the Quebec newspapers found their way into the parish, with athrilling account of the last hours of the Antoine; and of Jean Jacques'chivalrous act in refusing to enter a boat to save himself, though hewas such a bad swimmer and was in danger of cramp; and how he sang Balchez Boule while the men worked at the pumps; they permitted the apresnoces of M'sieu' and Madame Jean Jacques Barbille to be as brilliantas could be, with the help of lively improvisation. Even speech-makingoccurred again in an address of welcome some days later. This wasfollowed by a feast of Spanish cakes and meats made by the hands ofCarmen Dolores, "the lady saved from the sea"--as they called her; notknowing that she had saved herself, and saved Jean Jacques as well. Itwas not quite to Jean Jacques' credit that he did not set this errorright, and tell the world the whole exact truth. 

CHAPTER IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS ASTORY

It was hard to say which was the more important person in the parish, the New Cure or M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille. When the Old Cure wasalive Jean Jacques was a lesser light, and he accepted his degree ofillumination with content. But when Pere Langon was gathered to hisfathers, and thousands had turned away from the graveyard, where he whohad baptised them, confirmed them, blessed them, comforted them, andfirmly led them was laid to rest, they did not turn at once to hissuccessor with confidence and affection. The new cure, M. Savry, wasyoung; the Old Cure had lived to be eighty-five, bearing wherever hewent a lamp of wisdom at which the people lighted their small souls. TheNew Cure could command their obedience, but he could not command theirlove and confidence until he had earned them. 

So it was that, for a time, Jean Jacques took the place of the Old Curein the human side of the life of the district, though in a vastly lesserdegree. Up to the death of M. Langon, Jean Jacques had done very wellin life, as things go in out-of-the-way places of the world. His mill, which ground good flour, brought him increasing pence; his saw-mill morethan paid its way; his farms made a small profit, in spite of acousin who worked one on halves, but who had a spendthrift wife; theash-factory which his own initiative had started made no money, but theloss was only small; and he had even made profit out of his lime-kilns, although Sebastian Dolores, Carmen's father, had at one time mismanagedthem--but of that anon. Jean Jacques himself managed the businessof money-lending and horse-dealing; and he also was agent for fireinsurance and a dealer in lightning rods. 

In the thirteen years since he married he had been able to keep a goodmany irons in the fire, and also keep them more or less hot. Many peoplein his and neighbouring parishes were indebted to him, and it was worththeir while to stand well with him. If he insisted on debts being paid, he was never exacting or cruel. If he lent money, he never demandedmore than eight per cent. ; and he never pressed his debtors unduly. Hischeerfulness seldom deserted him, and he was notably kind to the poor. Not seldom in the winter time a poor man, here and there in the parish, would find dumped down outside his door in the early morning a half-cordof wood or a bag of flour. 

It could not be said that Jean Jacques did not enjoy his own generosity. His vanity, however, did not come from an increasing admiration of hisown personal appearance, a weakness which often belongs to middle age;but from the study of his so-called philosophy, which in time became anobsession with him. In vain the occasional college professors, who spentsummer months at St. Saviour's, sought to interest him in science andhistory, for his philosophy had large areas of boredom; but sciencemarched over too jagged a road for his tender intellectual feet; thewild places where it led dismayed him. History also meant numberlessdates and facts. Perhaps he could have managed the dates, for he wasquick at figures, but the facts were like bees in their hive, --he couldscarcely tell one from another by looking at them. 

So it was that Jean Jacques kept turning his eyes, as he thought, to theeverlasting meaning of things, to "the laws of Life and the decreesof Destiny. " He was one of those who had found, as he thought, what hecould do, and was sensible enough to do it. Let the poor fellows, who gave themselves to science, trouble their twisted minds withtrigonometry and the formula of some grotesque chemical combination; letthe dull people rub their noses in the ink of Greek and Latin, which wasno use for everyday consumption; let the heads of historians ache withthe warring facts of the lives of nations; it all made for sleep. Butphilosophy--ah, there was a field where a man could always use knowledgegot from books or sorted out of his own experiences!

It happened, therefore, that Jean Jacques, who not too vaguely realizedthat there was reputation to be got from being thought a philosopher, always carried about with him his little compendium from the quay atQuebec, which he had brought ashore inside his redflannel shirt, withthe antique silver watch, when the Antoine went down. 

Thus also it was that when a lawyer in court at Vilray, four miles fromSt. Saviour's, asked him one day, when he stepped into the witness-box, what he was, meaning what was his occupation, his reply was, "Moi-jesuis M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe--(Me--I am M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosopher). "

A little later outside the court-house, the Judge who had tried thecase--M. Carcasson--said to the Clerk of the Court:

"A curious, interesting little man, that Monsieur Jean Jacques. What'shis history?"

"A character, a character, monsieur le juge, " was the reply of M. AmandFille. "His family has been here since Frontenac's time. He is a figurein the district, with a hand in everything. He does enough foolishthings to ruin any man, yet swims along--swims along. He has many kindsof business--mills, stores, farms, lime-kilns, and all that, and keepsthem all going; and as if he hadn't enough to do, and wasn't riskingenough, he's now organizing a cheese-factory on the co-operativeprinciple, as in Upper Canada among the English. "

"He has a touch of originality, that's sure, " was the reply of theJudge. 

The Clerk of the Court nodded and sighed. "Monseigneur Giron of Laval, the greatest scholar in Quebec, he said to me once that M'sieu' JeanJacques missed being a genius by an inch. But, monsieur le juge, not tohave that inch is worse than to be an ignoramus. "

Judge Carcasson nodded. "Ah, surely! Your Jean Jacques lacks abalance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough. He has vision, but it isnot steady; he has argument, but it breaks down just where it should bemost cohesive. He interested me. I took note of every turn of his mindas he gave evidence. He will go on for a time, pulling his strings, doing this and doing that, and then, all at once, when he has got atrain of complications, his brain will not be big enough to see theway out. Tell me, has he a balance-wheel in his home--a sensible wife, perhaps?"

The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully and seemed to hesitate. Then he said, "Comme ci, comme ca--but no, I will speak the truth aboutit. She is a Spaniard--the Spanische she is called by the neighbours. Iwill tell you all about that, and you will wonder that he has carried onas well as he has, with his vanity and his philosophy. "

"He'll have need of his philosophy before he's done, or I don't knowhuman nature; he'll get a bad fall one of these days, " responded theJudge. "'Moi-je suis M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe'--that is what hesaid. Bumptious little man, and yet--and yet there's something in him. There's a sense of things which everyone doesn't have--a glimmer of lifebeyond his own orbit, a catching at the biggest elements of being, ahovering on the confines of deep understanding, as it were. SomehowI feel almost sorry for him, though he annoyed me while he was in thewitness-box, in spite of myself. He was as the English say, so 'damnsure. '"

"So damn sure always, " agreed the Clerk of the Court, with a sense ofpleasure that his great man, this wonderful aged little judge, shouldhave shown himself so human as to use such a phrase. 

"But, no doubt, the sureness has been a good servant in his business, "returned the Judge. "Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profitoften. But tell me about his wife--the Spanische. Tell me the how andwhy, and everything. I'd like to trace our little money-man wise to hissource. "

Again M. Fille was sensibly agitated. "She is handsome, and she hasgreat, good gifts when she likes to use them, " he answered. "She can doas much in an hour as most women can do in two; but then she will notkeep at it. Her life is but fits and starts. Yet she has a good head forbusiness, yes, very good. She can see through things. Still, there itis--she will not hold fast from day to day. "

"Yes, yes, but where did she come from? What was the field where shegrew?"

"To be sure, monsieur. It was like this, " responded the other. 

Thereupon M. Fille proceeded to tell the history, musical with legend, of Jean Jacques' Grand Tour, of the wreck of the Antoine, of themarriage of the "seigneur, " the home-coming, and the life that followed, so far as rumour, observation, and a mind with a gift for narrative, which was not to be incomplete for lack of imagination, could make it. It was only when he offered his own reflections on Carmen Dolores, nowCarmen Barbille, and on women generally, that Judge Carcasson pulled himup. 

"So, so, I see. She has temperament and so on, but she's unsteady, and regarded by her neighbours not quite as one that belongs. Bah, the conceit of every race! They are all the same. The English are theworst--as though the good God was English. But the child--so beautiful, you say, and yet more like the father than the mother. He is nothandsome, that Jean Jacques, but I can understand that the little oneshould be like him and yet beautiful too. I should like to see thechild. "

Suddenly the Clerk of the Court stopped and touched the arm of hisdistinguished friend and patron. "That is very easy, monsieur, " he saideagerly, "for there she is in the red wagon yonder, waiting for herfather. She adores him, and that makes trouble sometimes. Then themother gets fits, and makes things hard at the Manor Cartier. It is notall a bed of roses for our Jean Jacques. But there it is. He is verybusy all the time. Something doing always, never still, except when youwill find him by the road-side, or in a tavern with all the people roundhim, talking, jesting, and he himself going into a trance with his bookof philosophy. It is very strange that everlasting going, going, going, and yet that love of his book. I sometimes think it is all pretence, andthat he is all vanity--or almost so. Heaven forgive me for my want ofcharity!"

The little round judge cocked his head astutely. "But you say he is kindto the poor, that he does not treat men hardly who are in debt to him, and that he will take his coat off his back to give to a tramp--is itso?"

"As so, as so, monsieur. "

"Then he is not all vanity, and because of that he will feel the blowwhen it comes--alas, so much he will feel it!"

"What blow, monsieur le juge?--but ah, look, monsieur!" He pointedeagerly. "There she is, going to the red wagon--Madame Jean Jacques. Is she not a figure of a woman? See the walk of her--is it notdistinguished? She is half a hand-breadth taller than Jean Jacques. Andher face, most sure it is a face to see. If Jean Jacques was not so busywith his farms and his mills and his kilns and his usury, he would seewhat a woman he has got. It is his good fortune that she has suchsense in business. When Jean Jacques listens to her, he goes right. She herself did not want her father to manage the lime-kilns--the oldSebastian Dolores. She was for him staying at Mirimachi, where he keptthe books of the lumber firm. But no, Jean Jacques said that he couldmake her happy by having her father near her, and he would not believeshe meant what she said. He does not understand her; that is thetrouble. He knows as much of women or men as I know of--"

"Of the law--hein?" laughed the great man. 

"Monsieur--ah, that is your little joke! I laugh, yes, but I laugh, "responded the Clerk of the Court a little uncertainly. "Now once whenshe told him that the lime-kilns--"

The Judge, who had retraced his steps down the street of the town--itwas little more than a large village, but because it had a court-houseand a marketplace it was called a town--that he might have a good lookat Madame Jean Jacques and her child before he passed them, suddenlysaid:

"How is it you know so much about it all, Maitre Fille--as to whatshe says and of the inner secrets of the household? Ah, ha, my littleLothario, I have caught you--a bachelor too, with time on his hands, and the right side of seventy as well! The evidence you have given of aclose knowledge of the household of our Jean Jacques does not have itsbasis in hearsay, but in acute personal observation. Tut-tut! Fie-fie!my little gay Clerk of the Court. Fie! Fie!"

M. Fille was greatly disconcerted. He had never been a Lothario. Inforty years he had never had an episode with one of "the other sex, "but it was not because he was impervious to the softer emotions. Anintolerable shyness had ever possessed him when in the presence ofwomen, and even small girl children had frightened him, till he had madefriends with little Zoe Barbille, the daughter of Jean Jacques. Yeteven with Zoe, who was so simple and companionable and the very soul ofchildish confidence, he used to blush and falter till she made him talk. Then he became composed, and his tongue was like a running stream, andon that stream any craft could sail. On it he became at ease with madamethe Spanische, and he even went so far as to look her full in the eyeson more than one occasion. 

"Answer me--ah, you cannot answer!" teasingly added the Judge, who lovedhis Clerk of the Court, and had great amusement out of his discomfiture. "You are convicted. At an age when a man should be settling down, youare gallivanting with the wife of a philosopher. "

"Monsieur--monsieur le juge!" protested M. Fille with slowly heighteningcolour. "I am innocent, yes, altogether. There is nothing, believe me. It is the child, the little Zoe--but a maid of charm and kindness. Shebrings me cakes and the toffy made by her own hands; and if I go to theManor Cartier, as I often do, it is to be polite and neighbourly. IfMadame says things to me, and if I see what I see, and hear what I hear, it is no crime; it is no misdemeanour; it is within the law--the perfectlaw. "

Suddenly the Judge linked his arm within that of the other, for he alsowas little, and he was fat and round and ruddy, and even smaller than M. Fille, who was thin, angular and pale. 

"Ah, my little Confucius, " he said gently, "have you seen and heard meso seldom that you do not know me yet, or what I really think? Ofcourse it is within the law--the perfect law--to visit at m'sieu' thephilosopher's house and talk at length also to m'sieu' the philosopher'swife; while to make the position regular by friendship with thephilosopher's child is a wisdom which I can only ascribe to"--hisvoice was charged with humour and malicious badinage "to an extendedacquaintance with the devices of human nature, as seen in those episodesof the courts with which you have been long familiar. "

"Oh, monsieur, dear monsieur!" protested the Clerk of the Court, "youalways make me your butt. "

"My friend, " said the Judge, squeezing his arm, "if I could have you noother way, I would make you my butler!"

Then they both laughed at the inexpensive joke, and the Clerk of theCourt was in high spirits, for on either side of the street were peoplewith whom he lived every day, and they could see the doyen of the Bench, the great Judge Carcasson, who had refused to be knighted, arm in armwith him. Aye, and better than all, and more than all, here was ZoeBarbille drawing her mother's attention to him almost in the embrace ofthe magnificent jurist. 

The Judge, with his small, round, quizzical eyes which missed nothing, saw too; and his attention was strangely arrested by the faces of boththe mother and the child. His first glance at the woman's face madehim flash an inward light on the memory of Jean Jacques' face in thewitness-box, and a look of reflective irony came into his own. The faceof Carmen Dolores, wife of the philosophic miller and money-master, didnot belong to the world where she was placed--not because she was sounlike the habitant women, or even the wives of the big farmers, or thesister of the Cure, or the ladies of the military and commercial exileswho lived in that portion of the province; but because of an aliensomething in her look--a lonely, distant sense of isolation, a somethingwhich might hide a companionship and sympathy of a rare kind, or mightbe but the mask of a furtive, soulless nature. In the child's face wasnothing of this. It was open as the day, bright with the cheerfulness ofher father's countenance, alive with a humour which that countenancedid not possess. The contour was like that of Jean Jacques, but with afineness and delicacy to its fulness absent from his own; and her eyeswere a deep and lustrous brown, under a forehead which had a boldnessof gentle dignity possessed by neither father nor mother. Her hairwas thick, brown and very full, like that of her father, and in allrespects, save one, she had an advantage over both her parents. Hermouth had a sweetness which might not unfairly be called weakness, though that was balanced by a chin of commendable strength. 

But the Judge's eyes found at once this vulnerable point in hercharacter as he had found that of her mother. Delightful the child was, and alert and companionable, with no remarkable gifts, but with a rarecharm and sympathy. Her face was the mirror of her mind, and it hadno ulterior thought. Her mother's face, the Judge had noted, was theforeground of a landscape which had lonely shadows. It was a face ofsome distinction and suited to surroundings more notable, though therural life Carmen had led since the Antoine went down and her fortunescame up, had coarsened her beauty a very little. 

"There's something stirring in the coverts, " said the Judge to himselfas he was introduced to the mother and child. By a hasty gesture Zoegave a command to M. Fille to help her down. With a hand on his shouldershe dropped to the ground. Her object was at once apparent. She made apretty old-fashioned curtsey to the Judge, then held out her hand, asthough to reassert her democratic equality. 

As the Judge looked at Madame Barbille, he was involuntarily, but nonethe less industriously, noting her characteristics; and the sum of hisreflections, after a few moments' talk, was that dangers he had seenahead of Jean Jacques, would not be averted by his wife, indeed mighteasily have their origin in her. 

"I wonder it has gone on as long as it has, " he said to himself; thoughit seemed unreasonable that his few moments with her, and the story toldhim by the Clerk of the Court, should enable him to come to any definiteconclusion. But at eighty-odd Judge Carcasson was a Solon and a Solomonin one. He had seen life from all angles, and he was not prepared togive any virtue or the possession of any virtue too much rope; whilenothing in life surprised him. 

"How would you like to be a judge?" he asked of Zoe, suddenly takingher hand in his. A kinship had been at once established between them, so little has age, position, and intellect to do with the naturalgravitations of human nature. 

She did not answer direct, and that pleased him. "If I were a judgeI should have no jails, " she said. "What would you do with the badpeople?" he asked. 

"I would put them alone on a desert island, or out at sea in a littleboat, or out on the prairies without a horse, so that they'd have towork for their lives. "

"Oh, I see! If M. Fille here set fire to a house, you would drop him onthe prairie far away from everything and everybody and let him 'root hogor die'?"

"Don't you think it would kill him or cure him?" she asked whimsically. 

The Judge laughed, his eyes twinkling. "That's what they did when theworld was young, dear ma'm'selle. There was no time to build jails. Alone on the prairie--a separate prairie for every criminal--that wouldtake a lot of space; but the idea is all right. It mightn't provide theproper degree of punishment, however. But that is being too particular. Alone on the prairie for punishment--well, I should like to see ittried. "

He remembered that saying of his long after, while yet he was alive, and a tale came to him from the prairies which made his eyes turnmore intently towards a land that is far off, where the miserablemiscalculations and mistakes of this world are readjusted. Now he wasonly conscious of a primitive imagination looking out of a young girl'sface, and making a bridge between her understanding and his own. 

"What else would you do if you were a judge?" he asked presently. 

"I would make my father be a miller, " she replied. "But he is a miller, I hear. "

"But he is so many other things--so many. If he was only a miller weshould have more of him. He is at home only a little. If I get up earlyenough in the morning, or if I am let stay up at night late enough, Isee him; but that is not enough--is it, mother?" she added with a suddensense that she had gone too far, that she ought not to say this perhaps. 

The woman's face had darkened for an instant, and irritation showed inher eyes, but by an effort of the will she controlled herself. 

"Your father knows best what he can do and can't do, " she said evenly. 

"But you would not let a man judge for himself, would you, ma'm'selle?"asked the old inquisitor. "You would judge for the man what was best forhim to do?"

"I would judge for my father, " she replied. "He is too good a man tojudge for himself. "

"Well, there's a lot of sense in that, ma'm'selle philosophe, " answeredJudge Carcasson. "You would make the good idle, and make the bad work. The good you would put in a mill to watch the stones grind, and the badyou would put on a prairie alone to make the grist for the grinding. Ma'm'selle, we must be friends--is it not so?"

"Haven't we always been friends?" the young girl asked with the look ofa visionary suddenly springing up in her eyes. 

Here was temperament indeed. She pleased Judge Carcasson greatly. "Butyes, always, and always, and always, " he replied. Inwardly he said tohimself, "I did not see that at first. It is her father in her. 

"Zoe!" said her mother reprovingly. 

CHAPTER V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY

A moment afterwards the Judge, as he walked down the street still arm inarm with the Clerk of the Court, said: "That child must have good luck, or she will not have her share of happiness. She has depths that arenot deep enough. " Presently he added, "Tell me, my Clerk, theman--Jean Jacques--he is so much away--has there never been any talkabout--about. "

"About--monsieur le juge?" asked M. Fille rather stiffly. "Forinstance--about what?"

"For instance, about a man--not Jean Jacques. "

The lips of the Clerk of the Court tightened. "Never at any time--tillnow, monsieur le juge. "

"Ah--till now!"

The Clerk of the Court blushed. What he was about to say was difficult, but he alone of all the world guessed at the tragedy which was hoveringover Jean Jacques' home. By chance he had seen something on an afternoonof three days before, and he had fled from it as a child would fly froma demon. He was a purist at law, but he was a purist in life also, andnot because the flush of youth had gone and his feet were on the pathwhich leads into the autumn of a man's days. The thing he had seen hadbeen terribly on his mind, and he had felt that his own judgment was notsufficient for the situation, that he ought to tell someone. 

The Cure was the only person who had come to his mind when he becametroubled to the point of actual mental agony. But the new curb, M. Savry, was not like the Old Cure, and, besides, was it not steppingbetween the woman and her confessional? Yet he felt that something oughtto be done. It never occurred to him to speak to Jean Jacques. Thatwould have seemed so brutal to the woman. It came to him to speak toCarmen, but he knew that he dared not do so. He could not say to awoman that which must shame her before him, she who had kept her headso arrogantly high--not so much to him, however, as to the rest of theworld. He had not the courage; and yet he had fear lest some awful thingwould at any moment now befall the Manor Cartier. If it did, he wouldfeel himself to blame had he done nothing to stay the peril. So farhe was the only person who could do so, for he was the only person whoknew!

The Judge could feel his friend's arm tremble with emotion, and he said:"Come, now, my Plato, what is it? A man has come to disturb the peace ofJean Jacques, our philosophe, eh?"

"That is it, monsieur--a man of a kind. "

"Oh, of course, my bambino, of course, a man 'of a kind, ' or there wouldbe no peace disturbed. You want to tell me, I see. Proceed then; thereis no reason why you should not. I am secret. I have seen much. I haveno prejudices. As you will, however; but I can see it would relieve yourmind to tell me. In truth I felt there was something when I saw you lookat her first, when you spoke to her, when she talked with me. She is afine figure of a woman, and Jean Jacques, as you say, is much away fromhome. In fact he neglects her--is it not so?"

"He means it not, but it is so. His life is full of--"

"Yes, yes, of stores and ash-factories and debtors and lightning-rodsand lime-kilns, and mortgaged farms, and the price of wheat--butcertainly, I understand it all, my Fille. She is too much alone, and ifshe has travelled by the compass all these thirteen years without losingthe track, it is something to the credit of human nature. "

"Ah, monsieur, a vow before the good God--!" The Judge interruptedsharply. "Tut, tut--these vows! Do you not know that a vow may be athing that ruins past redemption? A vow is sacred. Well, a poor mortalin one moment of weakness breaks it. Then there is a sense of awfulshame of being lost, of never being able to put right the breaking ofthe vow, though the rest can be put right by sorrow and repentance! Iwould have no vows. They haunt like ghosts when they are broken, theytorture like fire then. Don't talk to me of vows. It is not vows thatkeep the world right, but the prayer of a man's soul from day to day. "

The Judge's words sounded almost blasphemous to M. Fille. A vow notkeep the world right! Then why the vows of the Church at baptism, atconfirmation, at marriage? Why the vows of the priests, of the nuns, ofthose who had given themselves to eternal service? Monsieur had spokenterrible things. And yet he had said at the last: "It is not vows thatkeep the world right, but the prayer of a man's soul from day to day. "That was not heretical, or atheistic, or blasphemous. It sounded logicaland true and good. 

He was about to say that, to some people, vows were the only way ofkeeping them to their duty--and especially women--but the Judge addedgently: "I would not for the world hurt your sensibilities, my littleClerk, and we are not nearly so far apart as you think at the minute. Thank God, I keep the faith that is behind all faith--the speech of aman's soul with God. .. . But there, if you can, let us hear what man itis who disturbs the home of the philosopher. It is not my Fille, that'ssure. "

He could not resist teasing, this judge who had a mind of the most rareuprightness; and he was not always sorry when his teasing hurt; for, tohis mind, men should be lashed into strength, when they drooped over thetasks of life; and what so sharp a lash as ridicule or satire!

"Proceed, my friend, " he urged brusquely, not waiting for the gaspof pained surprise of the little Clerk to end. He was glad to see thefigure beside him presently straighten itself, as though to be bracedfor a task of difficulty. Indignation and resentment were good things tostiffen a man's back. 

"It was three days ago, " said M. Fille. "I saw it with my own eyes. I had come to the Manor Cartier by the road, down the hill--MontViolet--behind the house. I could see into the windows of the house. There was no reason why I should not see--there never has been areason, " he added, as though to justify himself. 

"Of course, of course, my friend. One's eyes are open, and one sees whatone sees, without looking for it. Proceed. "

"As I looked down I saw Madame with a man's arms round her, and his lipsto hers. It was not Jean Jacques. "

"Of course, of course. Proceed. What did you do?"

"I stopped. I fell back--"

"Of course. Behind a tree?"

"Behind some elderberry bushes. "

"Of course. Elderberry bushes--that's better than a tree. I am very fondof elderberry wine when it is new. Proceed. "

The Clerk of the Court shrank. What did it matter whether or no theJudge liked elderberry wine, when the world was falling down for JeanJacques and his Zoe--and his wife. But with a sigh he continued: "Thereis nothing more. I stayed there for awhile, and then crept up the hillagain, and came back to my home and locked myself in. "

"What had you done that you should lock yourself in?"

"Ah, monsieur, how can I explain such things? Perhaps I was ashamed thatI had seen things I should not have seen. I do not blush that I wept forthe child, who is--but you saw her, monsieur le juge. "

"Yes, yes, the little Zoe, and the little philosopher. Proceed. "

"What more is there to tell!"

"A trifle perhaps, as you will think, " remarked the Judge ironically, but as one who, finding a crime, must needs find the criminal too. "I must ask you to inform the Court who was the too polite friend ofMadame. "

"Monsieur, pardon me. I forgot. It is essential, of course. You mustknow that there is a flume, a great wooden channel--"

"Yes, yes. I comprehend. Once I had a case of a flume. It was fifteenfeet deep and it let in the water of the river to the mill-wheels. A flume regulates, concentrates, and controls the water power. Icomprehend perfectly. Well?"

"So. This flume for Jean Jacques' mill was also fifteen feet deepor more. It was out of repair, and Jean Jacques called in amaster-carpenter from Laplatte, Masson by name--George Masson--to putthe flume right. "

"How long ago was that?"

"A month ago. But Masson was not here all the time. It was his workmenwho did the repairs, but he came over to see--to superintend. At firsthe came twice in the week. Then he came every day. "

"Ah, then he came every day! How do you know that?"

"It was my custom to walk to the mill every day--to watch the work onthe flume. It was only four miles away across the fields and through thewoods, making a walk of much charm--especially in the autumn, whenthe colours of the foliage are so fine, and the air has a touch ofpensiveness, so that one is induced to reflection. "

There was the slightest tinge of impatience in the Judge's response. "Yes, yes, I understand. You walked to study life and to reflect and toenjoy your intimacy with nature, but also to see our friend Zoe and herhome. And I do not wonder. She has a charm which makes me sad--for her. "

"So I have felt, so I have felt for her, monsieur. When she is gayest, and when, as it might seem, I am quite happy, talking to her, orpicnicking, or idling on the river, or helping her with her lessons, Ihave sadness, I know not why. "

The Judge pressed his friend's arm firmly. His voice grew moreinsistent. "Now, Maitre Fille, I think I understand the story, but thereare lacunee which you must fill. You say the thing happened three daysago--now, when will the work be finished?"

"The work will be finished to-morrow, monsieur. Only one workman isleft, and he will be quit of his task to-night. "

"So the thing--the comedy or tragedy will come to an end to-morrow?"remarked the Judge seriously. "How did you find out that the workmen gotomorrow, maitre?"

"Jean Jacques--he told me yesterday. "

"Then it all ends to-morrow, " responded the Judge. 

The puzzled subordinate stood almost still, and looked at the Judgein wonder. Why should it all end to-morrow simply because the work wasfinished at the flume? At last he spoke. 

"It is only twelve miles to Laplatte where George Masson lives, and hehas, besides, another contract near here, but three miles from the ManorCartier. Also besides, how can we know what she will do--Jean Jacques'wife. How can we tell but that she will perhaps go and leave the belovedZoe alone!"

"And leave our little philosopher--miller also alone?" remarked theJudge quizzically, yet with solemnity. M. Fille was agitated; he made aprotesting gesture. "Jean Jacques can find comfort, but the child--ah, no, it is too terrible! Someone should speak. I tried to do it--toMadame Carmen, to Jean Jacques; but it was no use. How could I betrayher to him, how could I tell her that I knew her shame!"

The Judge turned brusquely and caught his friend by the shoulders, fastening him with the eyes which had made many a witness forget to lie. 

"If you were an avocat in practice I would ruin your reputation, Fille, "he said. "A fool would tell Jean Jacques, or speak to the woman, andspoil all; for women go mad when they are in danger, and they do theimpossible things. But did it not occur to you that the one person tohave in a quiet room with the doors shut, with the light of the sun inhis face, with the book of the law open on your desk and the damagesto be got by an injured husband, in a Catholic province with a CatholicJudge, written down on a piece of paper, to hand over at the rightmoment--did it not strike you that that person was your George Masson?"

M. Fille's head dropped before the disdainful eyes of M. Carcasson. Hewho prided himself in keeping the court right on points of procedure, who was looked upon almost with the respect given the position of theJudge himself, that he should fail in thinking of the obvious thing washumiliating, and alas! so disconcerting. 

"I am a fool, an imbecile, " he responded, in great dejection. 

"This much must be said, my imbecile, that every man some time or othermakes just such a fool of his intelligence, " was the soft reply. 

A thin hand made a gesture of dissent. "Not you, monsieur. Never!"

"If it is any comfort to you, know then, my Solon, that I have done sopublicly in my time, while you have only done it privately. But let ussee. That Masson must be struck of a heap. What sort of a man is he tolook at? Apart from his morals, what class of creature is he?"

"He is a man of strength, of force in his way, monsieur. He made himselffrom an apprentice without a cent, and he has now thirty men at work. "

"Then he does not drink or gamble?"

"Neither, monsieur. "

"Has he a family?"

"No, monsieur. "

"How old is he?"

"Forty or thereabouts, monsieur. "

The Judge cogitated for a moment, then said: "Ah, that's bad--unmarriedand forty, and no vices except this. It gives him few escape-valves. Ishe good-looking? What is his appearance?"

"Nor short, nor tall, and square shoulders. His face like the yellowbrown of a peach, hair that curls close to his head, blue eyes that seeeverything, and a big hand that knows what it is doing. "

The Judge nodded. "Ah, you have watched him, maitre. .. . When? Sincethen?"

"No, no, monsieur, not since. If I had watched him since, I shouldperhaps have thought of the right thing to do. But I did not. I used tostudy him while the work was going on, when he first came, but I haveknown him some time from a distance. If a man makes himself what he is, you look at him, of course. "

"Truly. His temper--his disposition, what is it?" M. Fille was very muchalive now. He replied briskly. "Like the snap of a whip. He flies intoanger and flies out. He has a laugh that makes men say, 'How he enjoyshimself!' and his mind is very quick and sure. "

The Judge nodded with satisfaction. "Well done! Well done! I have gothim in my eye. He will not be so easy to handle; but, if he has brains, he will see that you have the right end of the stick; and he will kissand ride away. It will not be easy, but the game is in your hands, myFille. In a quiet room, with the book of the law open, and figures ofdamages given by a Catholic court and Judge--I think that will do it;and then the course of true philosophy will not long be interrupted inthe house of Jean Jacques Barbille. "

"Monsieur--monsieur le juge, you mean that I shall do this, shall seeGeorge Masson and warn him--me?"

"Who else? You are a friend of the family. You are a public officer, towhom the good name of your parish is dear. As all are aware, no doubt, you are the trusted ancient comrade of the daughter of the woman--Ispeak legally--Carmen Barbille nee Dolores, a name of charm to the ear. Who but you then to do it?"

"There is yourself, monsieur. "

"Dismiss me from your mind. I go to Quebec to-night, as you know, andthere is not time; but even if there were, I should not be the bestperson to do this. I am known to few; you are known to all. I have nolocus standi. You have. No, no, it would not be for me. "

Suddenly, in his desperation, the Clerk of the Court sought release forhimself from this solemn and frightening duty. 

"Monsieur, " he said eagerly, "there is another. I had forgotten. It isMadame Carmen's father, Sebastian Dolores. "

"Ah, a father! Yes, I had forgotten to ask about him; so we are one inour imbecility, my little Aristotle. This Sebastian Dolores, where ishe?"

"In the next parish, Beauharnais, keeping books for a lumber-firm. Ah, monsieur, that is the way to deal with the matter--through SebastianDolores, her father!"

"What sort is he?"

The other shook his head and did not answer. "Ah, not of the best?Drinks?"

M. Fille nodded. 

"Has a weak character?"

Again M. Fille nodded. 

"Has no good reputation hereabouts?"

The nod was repeated. "He has never been steady He goes here and there, but always he comes back to get Jean Jacques' help. He and his daughterare not close friends, and yet he likes to be near her. She can endurehim at least. He can command her interest. He is a stranger in a strangeland, and he drifts back to where she is always. But that is all. "

"Then he is out of the question, and he would be always out of thequestion except as a last resort; for sooner or later he would tell hisdaughter, and challenge our George Masson too; and that is what you donot wish, eh?"

"Precisely so, " remarked M. Fille, dropping back again into gloom. "Tobe quite honest, monsieur, even though it gives me a task which I abhor, I do not think that M. Dolores could do what is needed without mistakeswhich could not be mended. At least I can--" He stopped. 

The Judge interposed at once, well pleased with the way things weregoing for this "case. " "Assuredly. You can as can no other, my Solon. The secret of success in such things is a good heart, a right mind, aclear intelligence and some astuteness, and you have it all. It is yourtask and yours only. "

The little man's self-respect seemed restored. He preened himselfsomewhat and bowed to the Judge. "I take your commands, monsieur, toobey them as heaven gives me power so to do. Shall it be tomorrow?"

The Judge reflected a moment, then said: "Tonight would be better, but--"

"I can do it better to-morrow morning, " interposed M. Fille, "for GeorgeMasson has a meeting here at Vilray with the avocat Prideaux at teno'clock to sign a contract, and I can ask him to step into my officeon a little affair of business. He will not guess, and I shallbe armed"--the Judge frowned--"with the book of the law on suchmisdemeanours, and the figures of the damages, "--the Judge smiled--"andI think perhaps I can frighten him as he has never been frightenedbefore. "

A courage and confidence had now taken possession of the Clerk instrange contrast to his timidity and childlike manner of a few minutesbefore. He was now as he appeared in court, clothed with an austereauthority which gave him a vicarious strength and dignity. The Judge haddone his work well, and he was of those folk in the world who are notcontent to do even the smallest thing ill. 

Arm in arm they passed into the garden which fronted the vine-coveredhouse, where Maitre Fille lived alone with his sister, a tiny edition ofhimself, who whispered and smiled her way through life. 

She smiled and whispered now in welcome to the Judge; and as she did so, the three saw Jean Jacques, laughing, and cracking his whip, drive pastwith his daughter beside him, chirruping to the horses; while, moody andabstracted, his wife sat silent on the backseat of the red wagon. 

CHAPTER VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY

Jean Jacques was in great good humour as he drove away to the ManorCartier. The day, which was not yet aged, had been satisfactory fromevery point of view. He had impressed the Court, he had got a chanceto pose in the witness-box; he had been able to repeat in evidencethe numerous businesses in which he was engaged; had referred to hisacquaintance with the Lieutenant-Governor and a Cardinal; to his GrandTour (this had been hard to do in the cross-examination to which he wassubjected, but he had done it); and had been able to say at the verystart in reply as to what was his occupation--"Moi je suis M'sieu' JeanJacques, philosophe. "

Also he had, during the day, collected a debt long since wiped off hisbooks; he had traded a poor horse for a good cow; he had bought all thewheat of a Vilray farmer below market-price, because the poor fellowneeded ready money; he had issued an insurance policy; his wife anddaughter had conversed in the public streets with the great judge whowas the doyen of the provincial Bench; and his daughter had been kissedby the same judge in the presence of at least a dozen people. He was, infact, very proud of his Carmen and his Carmencita, as he called the twowho sat in the red wagon sharing his glory--so proud that he did notextol them to others; and he was quite sure they were both very proud ofhim. The world saw what his prizes of life were, and there was no needto praise or brag. Dignity and pride were both sustained by silenceand a wave of the hand, which in fact said to the world, "Look you, mymasters, they belong to Jean Jacques. Take heed. "

There his domestic scheme practically ended. He was so busy that he tookhis joys by snatches, in moments of suspension of actual life, as itwere. His real life was in the eddy of his many interests, in the fieldof his superficial culture, in the eyes of the world. The worst of himwas on the surface. He showed what other men hid, that was all. Theirvanity was concealed, he wore it in his cap. They put on a manner asthey put on their clothes, and wore it out in the world, or took it offin their own homes-behind the door of life; but he was the same vain, frank, cocksure fellow in his home as in the street. There was nodifference at all. He was vain, but he had no conceit; and therefore hedid not deceive, and was not tyrannous or dictatorial; in truth, ifyou but estimated him at his own value, he was the least insistent manalive. Many a debtor knew this; and, by asking Jean Jacques' advice, making an appeal to his logic, as it were--and it was always worthlistening to, even when wrong or sadly obvious, because of the glow withwhich he declared things this or that--found his situation immediatelyeased. Many a hard-up countryman, casting about for a five-dollar bill, could get it of Jean Jacques by telling him what agreeable thing someimportant person had said about him; or by writing to a great newspaperin Montreal a letter, saying that the next candidate for the provinciallegislature should be M. Jean Jacques Barbille, of St. Saviour's. This never failed to draw a substantial "bill" from the wad which JeanJacques always carried in his pocket-loose, not tied up in a leatherroll, as so many lesser men freighted the burdens of their wealth. 

He had changed since the day he left Bordeaux on the Antoine; sincehe had first caught the flash of interest in Carmen Dolores' eyes--aninterest roused from his likeness to a conspirator who had been shot forhis country's good. He was no stouter in body, for he was of the kindthat wear away the flesh by much doing and thinking; but there wereoccasional streaks of grey in his bushy hair, and his eye roamed lessthan it did once. In the days when he first brought Carmen home, his eyewas like a bead of brown light on a swivel. It flickered and flamed; itsaw here, saw there; it twinkled, and it pierced into life's mysteries;and all the while it was a good eye. Its whites never showed, as itwere. As an animal, his eye showed a nature free from vice. In somerespects he was easy to live with, for he never found fault with whatwas given him to eat, or the way the house was managed; and he neverinterfered with the "kitchen people, " or refused a dollar or ten dollarsto Carmen for finery. In fact, he was in a sense too lavish, for he usedat one time to bring her home presents of silks and clothes and toiletthings and stockings and hats, which were not in accord with her taste, and only vexed her. Indeed, she resented wearing them, and could hardlybring herself to thank him for them. At last, however, she induced himto let her buy what she wanted with the presents of money which he mightgive her. 

On the whole Carmen fared pretty well, for he would sometimes give her ahandful of bills from his pocket, bidding her take ten dollars, and shewould coolly take twenty, while he shrugged his shoulders and declaredshe would be his ruin. He had never repented of marrying her, inspite of the fact that she did not always keep house as his mother andgrandmother had kept it; that she was gravely remiss in going to mass;and that she quarrelled with more than one of her neighbours, who had anidea that Spain was an inferior country because it was south of France, just as the habitants regarded the United States as a low and inferiorcountry because it was south of Quebec. You went north towards heavenand south towards hell, in their view; but when they went so far as topatronize or slander Carmen, she drove her verbal stilettos home withouta button; so that on one occasion there would have been a law-suit forlibel if the Old Cure had not intervened. To Jean Jacques' credit, be itsaid, he took his wife's part on this occasion, though in his heart heknew that she was in the wrong. 

He certainly was not always in the right himself. If he had been toldthat he neglected his wife he would have been justly indignant. Also, it never occurred to him that a woman did not always want to talkphilosophy or discuss the price of wheat or the cost of flour-barrels;and that for a man to be stupidly and foolishly fond was dearer to awoman than anything else. How should he know--yet he ought to havedone so, if he really was a philosopher--that a woman would want thecleverest man in the world to be a boy and play the fool sometimes; thatshe would rather, if she was a healthy woman, go to a circus than to arevelation of the mysteries of the mind from an altar of culture, if herown beloved man was with her. 

Carmen had been left too much alone, as M. Fille had said to JudgeCarcasson. Her spirits had moments of great dullness, when she was readyto fling herself into the river--or the arms of the schoolmaster or thefarrier. When she first came to St. Saviour's, the necessity of adaptingherself to the new conditions, of keeping faith with herself, which shehad planned on the Antoine, and making a good wife to the man who was tosolve all her problems for her, prevailed. She did not at first missso much the life of excitement, of danger, of intrigue, of romance, ofcolour and variety, which she had left behind in Spain. When her childwas born, she became passionately fond of it; her maternal spiritsmothered it. It gave the needed excitement in the routine of life atSt. Saviour's. 

Yet the interest was not permanent. There came a time when she resentedthe fact that Jean Jacques made more of the child than he did ofherself. That was a bad day for all concerned, for dissimulationpresently became necessary, and the home of Jean Jacques was a home ofmystery which no philosophy could interpret. There had never been butthe one child. She was not less handsome than when Jean Jacques marriedher and brought her home, though the bloom of maiden youthfulness was nolonger there; and she certainly was a cut far above the habitant womenor even the others of a higher social class, in a circle which had anarea equal to a principality in Europe. 

The old cure, M. Langon, had had much influence over her, for few couldresist the amazing personal influence which his rare pure soul securedover the worst. It was a sad day to her when he went to his long home;and inwardly she felt a greater loss than she had ever felt, save thatonce when her Carvillho Gonzales went the way of the traitor. Memoriesof her past life far behind in Madrid did not grow fainter; indeed, theygrew more distinct as the years went on. They seemed to vivify, as herdiscontent and restlessness grew. 

Once, when there had come to St. Saviour's a middle-aged baron fromParis who had heard the fishing was good at St. Saviour's, and talked toher of Madrid and Barcelona, of Cordova and Toledo, as one who had seenand known and (he declared) loved them; who painted for her in splashingimpressionist pictures the life that still eddied in the plazas anddreamed in the patios, she had been almost carried off her feet withlonging; and she nearly gave that longing an expression which would havebrought a tragedy, while still her Zoe was only eight years old. But M. Langon, the wise priest whose eyes saw and whose heart understood, hadintervened in time; and she never knew that the sudden disappearance ofthe Baron, who still owed fifty dollars to Jean Jacques, was due to thepractical wisdom of a great soul which had worked out its own destiny ina little back garden of the world. 

When this good priest was alive she felt she had a friend who wasas large of heart as he was just, and who would not scorn the foolaccording to his folly, or chastise the erring after his deserts. In hisgreatness of soul Pere Langon had shut his eyes to things that painedhim more than they shocked him, for he had seen life in its most variousand demoralized forms, and indeed had had his own temptations when helived in Belgium and France, before he had finally decided to become apriest. He had protected Carmen with a quiet persistency since her firstday in the parish, and had had a saving influence over her. Pere Langonreproved those who criticized her and even slandered her, for it wasevident to all that she would rather have men talk to her than women;and any summer visitor who came to fish, gave her an attention nevergiven even to the youngest and brightest in the district; and the eyesof the habitant lass can be very bright at twenty. Yet whatever Carmen'scoquetry and her sport with fire had been, her own emotions had neverbeen really involved till now. 

The new cure, M. Savry, would have said they were involved now becauseshe never came to confession, and indeed, since the Old Cure died, she had seldom gone to mass. Yet when, with accumulated reproof on histongue, M. Savry did come to the Manor Cartier, he felt the inherentsupremacy of beauty, not the less commanding because it had not therefinement of the duchess or the margravine. 

Once M. Savry ventured to do what the Old Cure would never havedone--he spoke to Jean Jacques concerning Carmen's neglect of mass andconfession, and he received a rebuff which was almost au seigneur; forin Jean Jacques' eyes he was now the figure in St. Saviour's; and thiswas an occasion when he could assert his position as premier of thesecular world outside the walls of the parish church. He did it in goodstyle for a man who had had no particular training in the social arts. 

This is how he did it and what he said:

"There have been times when I myself have thought it would be a goodthing to have a rest from the duties of a Catholic, m'sieu' le cure, " heremarked to M. Savry, when the latter had ended his criticism. He saidit with an air of conflict, and with full intent to make his supremacycomplete. 

"No Catholic should speak like that, " returned the shocked priest. 

"No priest should speak to me as you have done, " rejoined Jean Jacques. "What do you know of the reasons for the abstention of madame? The soulmust enjoy rest as well as the body, and madame has a--mind which canjudge for itself. I have a body that is always going, and it gets toolittle rest, and that keeps my soul in a flutter too. It must be gettingto mass and getting to confession, and saying aves and doing penance, it is such a busy little soul of mine; but we are not all alike, andmadame's body goes in a more stately way. I am like a comet, she is likethe sun steady, steady, round and round, with plenty of sleep and thecomfortable darkness. Sometimes madame goes hard; so does the sun insummer-shines, shines, shines like a furnace. Madame's body goes likethat--at the dairy, in the garden, with the loom, among the fowls, growing her strawberries, keeping the women at the beating of the flax;and then again it is all still and idle like the sun on a cloudy day;and it rests. So it is with the human soul--I am a philosopher--I thinkthe soul goes hard the same as the body, churning, churning away in theheat of the sun; and then it gets quiet and goes to sleep in the cloudyday, when the body is sick of its bouncing, and it has a rest--the soulhas a rest, which is good for it, m'sieu'. I have worked it all out so. Besides, the soul of madame is her own. I have not made any claim uponit, and I will not expect you to do more, m'sieu' le cure. "

"It is my duty to speak, " protested the good priest. "Her soul is God's, and I am God's vicar--"

Jean Jacques waved a hand. "T'sh, you are not the Pope. You are not evenan abbe. You were only a deacon a few years ago. You did not know howto hold a baby for the christening when you came to St. Saviour's first. For the mass, you have some right to speak; it is your duty perhaps; butthe confession, that is another thing; that is the will of every soul todo or not to do. What do you know of a woman's soul-well, perhaps, youknow what they have told you; but madame's soul--"

"Madame has never been to confession to me, " interjected M. Savryindignantly. Jean Jacques chuckled. He had his New Cure now for sure. 

"Confession is for those who have sinned. Is it that you say one must goto confession, and in order to go to confession it is needful to sin?"

M. Savry shivered with pious indignation. He had a sudden desire torend this philosophic Catholic--to put him under the thumb-screw for theglory of the Lord, and to justify the Church; but the little Catholicmiller-magnate gave freely to St. Saviour's; he was popular; he had aposition; he was good to the poor; and every Christmas-time he sent ahalf-dozen bags of flour to the presbytery!

All Pere Savry ventured to say in reply was: "Upon your head be it, M. Jean Jacques. I have done my duty. I shall hope to see madame at massnext Sunday. "

Jean Jacques had chuckled over that episode, for he had conquered; hehad shown M. Savry that he was master in his own household and outsideit. That much his philosophy had done for him. No other man in theparish would have dared to speak to the Cure like that. He had neverscolded Carmen when she had not gone to church. Besides, there wasCarmen's little daughter always at his side at mass; and Carmen alwaysinsisted on Zoe going with him, and even seemed anxious for them to beoff at the first sound of the bells of St. Saviour's. Their souls werebusy, hers wanted rest; that was clear. He was glad he had worked it outso cleverly to the Cure--and to his own mind. His philosophy surely hadvindicated itself. 

But Jean Jacques was far from thinking of these things as he drove backfrom Vilray and from his episode in Court to the Manor Cartier. He wasindeed just praising himself, his wife, his child, and everything thatbelonged to him. He was planning, planning, as he talked, the newthings to do--the cheese-factory, the purchase of a steam-plough anda steam-thresher which he could hire out to his neighbours. Only onceduring the drive did he turn round to Carmen, and then it was to ask herif she had seen her father of late. 

"Not for ten months, " was her reply. "Why do you ask?"

"Wouldn't he like to be nearer you and Zoe? It's twelve miles toBeauharnais, " he replied. 

"Are you thinking of offering him another place at the Manor?" she askedsharply. 

"Well, there is the new cheese-factory--not to manage, but to keep thebooks! He's doing them all right for the lumber-firm. I hear that he--"

"I don't want it. No good comes from relatives working together. Lookat the Latouche farm where your cousin makes his mess. My father is wellenough where he is. "

"But you'd like to see him oftener--I was only thinking of that, " saidJean Jacques in a mollifying voice. It was the kind of thing in whichhe showed at once the weakness and the kindness of his nature. He was infact not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist. 

"If mother doesn't think it's sensible, why do it, father?" asked Zoeanxiously, looking up into her father's face. 

She had seen the look in her mother's eyes, and also she had no love forher grandfather. Her instinct had at one time wavered regarding him; butshe had seen an incident with a vanished female cook, and though she hadnot understood, a prejudice had been created in her mind. She was alwayscontrasting him with M. Fille, who, to her mind, was what a grandfatherought to be. 

"I won't have him beholden to you, " said Carmen, almost passionately. 

"He is of my family, " said Jean Jacques firmly and chivalrously. "Thereis no question of being beholden. "

"Let well enough alone, " was the gloomy reply. With a sigh, Jean Jacquesturned back to the study of the road before him, to gossip with Zoe, andto keep on planning subconsciously the new things he must do. 

Carmen sighed too, or rather she gave a gasp of agitation and annoyance. Her father? She had lost whatever illusion once existed regarding him. For years he had clung to her--to her pocket. He was given to drinkingin past years, and he still had his sprees. Like the rest of the world, she had not in earlier years seen the furtiveness in his handsome face;but at last, as his natural viciousness became stereotyped, and badhabits matured and emphasized, she saw beneath his mask of low-classcomeliness. When at last she had found it necessary to dismiss the bestcook she ever had, because of him, they saw little of each other. Thiswas coincident with his failure at the ash-factory, where he mismanagedand even robbed Jean Jacques right and left; and she had firmly insistedon Jean Jacques evicting him, on the ground that it was not SebastianDolores' bent to manage a business. 

This little episode, as they drove home from Vilray, had an unreasonableeffect upon her. 

It was like the touch of a finger which launches a boat balancing in theways onto the deep. It tossed her on a sea of agitation. She was sweptaway on a flood of morbid reflection. 

Her husband and her daughter, laughing and talking in the front seat ofthe red wagon, seemed quite oblivious of her, and if ever there wasa time when their influence was needed it was now. George Masson wascoming over late this afternoon to inspect the work he had been doing;and she was trembling with an agitation which, however, did not showupon the surface. She had not seen him for two days--since the day afterthe Clerk of the Court had discovered her in the arms of a man whowas not her husband; but he was coming this evening, and he was comingto-morrow for the last time; for the repair work on the flume of the damwould all be finished then. 

But would the work he had been doing all be finished then? As shethought of that incident of three days ago and of its repetition on thefollowing day, she remembered what he had said to her as she snatchedherself almost violently from his arms, in a sudden access of remorse. He had said that it had to be, that there was no escape now; and athis words she had felt every pulse in her body throbbing, every veinexpanding with a hot life which thrilled and tortured her. Life had beenso meagre and so dull, and the man who had worshipped her on the Antoinenow worshipped himself only, and also Zoe, the child, maybe; or so shethought; while the man who had once possessed her whole mind and wholeheart, and never her body, back there in Spain, he, Carvillho Gonzales, would have loved her to the end, in scenes where life had colour andpassion and danger and delightful movement. 

She was one of those happy mortals who believe that the dead and gonelover was perfect, and that in losing him she was losing all that lifehad in store; but the bare, hard truth was that her Gonzales could havebeen true neither to her nor to any woman in the world for longer thanone lingering year, perhaps one lunar month. It did not console her--shedid not think of it-that the little man on the seat of the red wagon, chirruping with their daughter, had been, would always be, true to her. Of what good was fidelity if he that was faithful desired no longer ashe once did?

A keen observer would have seen in the glowing, unrestful look, in thehot cheek, in the interlacing fingers, that a contest was going on inthe woman's soul, as she drove homeward with all that was her own inthe world. The laughter of her husband and child grated painfully on herears. Why should they be mirthful while her life was being swept by astorm of doubt, temptation, and dark passion? Why was it?

Yet she smiled at Jean Jacques when he lifted her down from the redwagon at the door of the Manor Cartier, even though he lifted hisdaughter down first. 

Did she smile at Jean Jacques because, as they came toward the Manor, she saw George Masson in the distance by the flume, and in that momentdecided to keep her promise and meet him at a secluded point on theriver-bank at sunset after supper?

CHAPTER VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP

The pensiveness of a summer evening on the Beau Cheval was like a veilhung over all the world. While yet the sun was shining, there was thetremor of life in the sadness; but when the last glint of amethyst andgold died away behind Mont Violet, and the melancholy swish of the riveragainst the osiered banks rose out of the windless dusk, all the regionaround Manor Cartier, with its cypresses, its firs, its beeches, and itselms, became gently triste. Even the weather-vane on the Manor--the goldCock of Beaugard, as it was called--did not move; and the stamping ofa horse in the stable was like the thunderous knock of a travellerfrom Beyond. The white mill and the grey manor stood out with ghostlyvividness in the light of the rising moon. Yet there were timesinnumerable when they looked like cool retreats for those who wantedrest; when, in the summer solstice, they offered the pleasant peace ofthe happy fireside. How often had Jean Jacques stood off from it all ofa summer night and said to himself: "Look at that, my Jean Jacques. Itis all yours, Manor and mills and farms and factory--all. "

"Growing, growing, fattening, while I drone in my feather bed, " he hadas often said, with the delighted observation of the philosopher. "Andme but a young man yet--but a mere boy, " he would add. "I have piledit up--I have piled it up, and it keeps on growing, first one thing andthen another. "

Could such a man be unhappy? Finding within himself his satisfaction, his fountain of appeasement, why should not his days be days ofpleasantness and peace? So it appeared to him during that summer, justpassed, when he had surveyed the World and his world within the World, and it seemed to his innocent mind that he himself had made it all. There he was, not far beyond forty, and eligible to become a member ofParliament, or even a count of the Holy Roman Empire! He had thought ofboth these honours, but there was so much to occupy him--he never hada moment to himself, except at night; and then there was planningand accounting to do, his foremen to see, or some knotty thing todisentangle. But when the big clock in the Manor struck ten, and he tookout his great antique silver watch, to see if the two marched to thesecond, he would go to the door, look out into the night, say, "All'swell, thank the good God, " and would go to bed, very often forgetting tokiss Carmen, and even forgetting his darling little Zoe. 

After all, a mind has to be very big and to have very many tentacles tohold so many things all at once, and also to remember to do the rightthing at the right moment every time. He would even forget to ask Carmento play on the guitar, which in the first days of their married lifewas the recreation of every evening. Seldom with the later years had heasked her to sing, because he was so busy; and somehow his ear had notthat keenness of sound once belonging to it. There was a time when hehimself was wont to sing, when he taught his little Zoe the tunes ofthe Chansons Canadiennes; but even that had dropped away, except at rareintervals, when he would sing Le Petit Roger Bontemps, with Petite Fleurde Bois, and a dozen others; but most he would sing--indeed there wasnever a sing-song in the Manor Cartier but he would burst forth with Ala Claire Fontaine and its haunting refrain:

 "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai. "

But this very summer, when he had sung it on the birthday of the littleZoe, his voice had seemed out of tune. At first he had thought thatCarmen was playing his accompaniment badly on the guitar, but she hadsharply protested against that, and had appealed to M. Fille, who waspresent at the pretty festivity. He had told the truth, as a Clerk ofthe Court should. He said that Jean Jacques' voice was not as he had sooften heard it; but he would also frankly admit that he did not thinkmadame played the song as he had heard her play it aforetime, and thatcovered indeed twelve years or more--in fact, since the birth of therenowned Zoe. 

M. Fille had wondered much that night of June at the listless manner andlistless playing of Carmen Barbille. For a woman of such spirit and fireit would seem as though she must be in ill-health to play like that. Yet when he looked at her he saw only the comeliness of a woman whom thelife of the haut habitant had not destroyed or, indeed, dimmed. Her skinwas smooth, she had no wrinkles, and her neck was a pillar of softlymoulded white flesh, around which a man might well string unset jewels, if he had them; for the tint and purity of her skin would be a bettersetting than platinum or fine gold. But the Clerk of the Court wasreally unsophisticated, or he would have seen that Carmen played theguitar badly because she was not interested in Jean Jacques' singing. He would have known that she had come to that stage in her marriedlife when the tenure is pitifully insecure. He would have seen thatthe crisis was near. If he had had any real observation he would havenoticed that Carmen's eyes at once kindled, and that the guitar becamea different thing, when M. Colombin, the young schoolmaster, one of theguests, caught up the refrain of A la Claire Fontaine, and in a softtenor voice sang it with Jean Jacques to the end, and then sang it againwith Zoe. Then Carmen's dark eyes deepened with the gathering light inthem, her body seemed to vibrate and thrill with emotion; and when M. Colombin and Zoe ceased, with her eyes fixed on the distance, and asthough unconscious of them all, she began to sing a song of Cadiz whichshe had not sung since boarding the Antoine at Bordeaux. Her mind had, suddenly flown back out of her dark discontent to the days when all lifewas before her, and, with her Gonzales, she had moved in an atmosphereof romance, adventure and passion. 

In a second she was transformed from the wife of the brown money-masterto the girl she was when she came to St. Saviour's from the plaza, where her Carvillho Gonzales was shot, with love behind her and memoryblazoned in the red of martyrdom. She sang now as she had not sung forsome years. Her guitar seemed to leap into life, her face shone with thehot passion of memory, her voice rang with the pain of a disappointedlife:

 "Granada, Granada, thy gardens are gay, And bright are thy stars, the high stars above; But as flowers that fade and are gray, But as dusk at the end of the day, Are ye to the light in the eyes of my love In the eyes, in the soul, of my love. 

 "Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me?

 "Beloved, beloved, have pity, and make Not the sun shut its eyes, its hot, envious eyes, And the world in the darkness of night Be debtor to thee for its light. Turn thy face, turn thy face from the skies To the love, to the pain in my eyes. 

 "Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me!"

From that night forward she had been restless and petulant and like onewatching and waiting. It seemed to her that she must fly from the lifewhich was choking her. It was all so petty and so small. People wentabout sneaking into other people's homes like detectives; they turnedyellow and grew scrofulous from too much salt pork, green tea, nativetobacco, and the heat of feather beds. The making of a rag carpet was anevent, the birth of a baby every year till the woman was forty-five wasa commonplace; but the exit of a youth to a seminary to become a priest, or the entrance to the novitiate of a young girl, were matters asimportant as a battle to Napoleon the Great. 

How had she gone through it all so long, she asked herself? The presenceof Jean Jacques had become almost unbearable when, the day done, heretired to the feather bed which she loathed, though he would havelooked upon discarding it like the abdication of his social position. A feather bed was a sign of social position; it was as much the daisto his honour as is the woolsack to the Lord Chancellor in the House ofLords. 

She was waiting for something. There was a restless, vagrant spiritalive in her now. She had been so long inactive, tied by the leg, with wings clipped; now her mind roamed into pleasant places of theimagination where life had freedom, where she could renew the impulsesof youth. A true philosopher-a man of the world-would have knownfor what she was waiting with that vague, disordered expectancy andyearning; but there was no man of the world to watch and guide her thisfateful summer, when things began to go irretrievably wrong. 

Then George Masson came. He was a man of the world in his way; he sawand knew better than the philosopher of the Manor Cartier. He graspedthe situation with the mind of an artist in his own sphere, and withthe knowledge got by experience. Thus there had been the thing which theClerk of the Court saw from Mont Violet behind the Manor; and so itwas that as Jean Jacques helped Carmen down from the red wagon on theirreturn from Vilray, she gave him a smile which was meant to deceive;for though given to him it was really given to another man in her mind'seye. At sunset she gave it again to George Masson on the river-bank, only warmer and brighter still, with eyes that were burning, with handsthat trembled, and with an agitated bosom more delicately ample than itwas on the day the Antoine was wrecked. 

Neither of these two adventurers into a wild world of feeling noticedthat a man was sitting on a little knoll under a tree, not far away fromtheir meeting-place, busy with pencil and paper. 

It was Jean Jacques, who had also come to the river-bank to work out abusiness problem which must be settled on the morrow. He had stolen outimmediately after supper from neighbours who wished to see him, and hadcome here by a roundabout way, because he wished to be alone. 

George Masson and Carmen were together for a few moments only, but JeanJacques heard his wife say, "Yes, to-morrow--for sure, " and then he sawher kiss the master-carpenter--kiss him twice, thrice. After which theyvanished, she in one direction, and the invader and marauder in another. 

If either of these two had seen the face of the man with a penciland paper under the spreading beechtree, they would not have been soimpatient for tomorrow, and Carmen would not have said "for sure. "

Jean Jacques was awake at last, man as well as philosopher. 

CHAPTER VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL. Jean Jacques was not withoutoriginality of a kind, and not without initiative; but there were alsothe elements of the very old Adam in him, and the strain of the obvious. If he had been a real genius, rather than a mere lively variation of thecommonplace--a chicken that could never burst its shell, a bird whichcould not quite break into song--he might have made his biographer guesshard and futilely, as to what he would do after having seen his wife'sarms around the neck of another man than himself--a man little morethan a manual labourer, while he, Jean Jacques Barbille, had come of thepeople of the Old Regime. As it was, this magnate of St. Saviour's, who yesterday posed so sympathetically and effectively in the Court atVilray as a figure of note, did the quite obvious thing: he determinedto kill the master-carpenter from Laplatte. 

There was no genius in that. When, from under the spreading beech-tree, Jean Jacques saw his wife footing it back to her house with a light, wayward step; when he watched the master-carpenter vault over a stonefence five feet high with a smile of triumph mingled with doubt on hisface, he was too stunned at first to move or speak. If a sledge-hammerstrikes you on the skull, though your skull is of such a hardness thatit does not break, still the shock numbs activity for awhile, at anyrate. The sledge-hammer had descended on Jean Jacques' head, and alsohad struck him between the eyes; and it is in the credit balance of hisledger of life, that he refrained from useless outcry at the moment. Such a stroke kills some men, either at once, or by lengthened torture;others it sends mad, so that they make a clamour which draws theattention of the astonished and not sympathetic world; but it onlyparalysed Jean Jacques. For a time he sat fascinated by the ferocityof the event, his eyes following the hurrying wife and the jaunty, swaggering master-carpenter with a strange, animal-like dismay andapprehension. They remained fixed with a kind of blank horror anddistraction on the landscape for some time after both had disappeared. 

At last, however, he seemed to recover his senses, and to come back fromthe place where he had been struck by the hammer of treachery. He seemedto realize again that he was still a part of the common world, not ahuman being swung through the universe on his heart-strings by a Gorgon. 

The paper and pencil in his hand brought him back from the far Gehennawhere he had been, to the world again--how stony and stormy a world itwas, with the air gone as heavy as lead, with his feet so loaded downwith chains that he could not stir! He had had great joy of this hisworld; he had found it a place where every day were problems tobe solved by an astute mind, problems which gave way before themaster-thinker. There was of course unhappiness in his world. There wasdeath, there was accident occasionally--had his own people not gonedown under the scythe of time? But in going they had left behind inreal estate and other things good compensation for their loss. There wasoccasional suffering and poverty and trouble in his little kingdom; buta cord of wood here, a barrel of flour there, a side of beefelsewhere, a little debt remitted, a bag of dried apples, or an Indianblanket--these he gave, and had great pleasure in giving; and so theworld was not a place where men should hang their heads, but a placewhere the busy man got more than the worth of his money. 

It had never occurred to him that he was ever translating the worldinto terms of himself, that he went on his way saying in effect, "I amcoming. I am Jean Jacques Barbille. You have heard of me. You know me. Wave a hand to me, duck your head to me, crack the whip or nod when Ipass. I am M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosopher. "

And all the while he had only been vaguely, not really, conscious ofhis wife and child. He did not know that he had only made of his wife anincident in his life, in spite of the fact that he thought he lovedher; that he had been proud of her splendid personality; and that, withpassionate chivalry, he had resented any criticism of her. 

He thought still, as he did on the Antoine, that Carmen's figure had thelines of the Venus of Milo, that her head would have been a model eitherfor a Madonna, or for Joan of Arc, or the famous Isabella of Aragon. Having visited the Louvre and the Luxembourg all in one day, he felt hewas entitled to make such comparisons, and that in making them he was onsure ground. He had loved to kiss Carmen in the neck, it was so fulland soft and round; and when she went about the garden with her dressshortened, and he saw her ankles, even after he had been marriedthirteen years, and she was thirty-four, he still admired, he stillthought that the world was a good place when it produced such a woman. And even when she had lashed him with her tongue, as she did sometimes, he still laughed--after the smart was over--because he liked spirit. He would never have a horse that had not some blood, and he had neverdriven a sluggard in his life more than once. But wife and child andworld, and all that therein was, existed largely because they werenecessary to Jean Jacques. 

That is the way it had been; and it was as though the firmament had beenrolled up before his eyes, exposing the everlasting mysteries, whenhe saw his wife in the arms of the master-carpenter. It was like somefrightening dream. 

The paper and pencil waked him to reality. He looked towards his house, he looked the way George Masson had gone, and he knew that what he hadseen was real life and not a dream. The paper fell from his hand. He didnot pick it up. Its fall represented the tumbling walls of life, was theearthquake which shook his world into chaos. He ground the sheet intothe gravel with his heel. There would be no cheese-factory built at St. Saviour's for many a year to come. The man of initiative, the man of thehundred irons would not have the hundred and one, or keep the hundredhot any more; because he would be so busy with the iron which hadentered into his soul. 

When the paper had been made one with the earth, a problem buried forever, Jean Jacques pulled himself up to his full height, as thoughfacing a great thing which he must do. 

"Well, of course!" he said firmly. 

That was what his honour, Judge Carcasson, had said a few hours before, when the little Clerk of the Court had remarked an obvious thing aboutthe case of Jean Jacques. 

And Jean Jacques said only the obvious thing when he made up his mind todo the obvious thing--to kill George Masson, the master-carpenter. 

This was evidence that he was no genius. Anybody could think of killinga man who had injured him, as the master-carpenter had done JeanJacques. It is the solution of the problem of the Patagonian. It is oldas Rameses. 

Yet in his own way Jean Jacques did what he felt he had to do. The thinghe was going to do was hopelessly obvious, but the doing of it was JeanJacques' own; and it was not obvious; and that perhaps was genius afterall. There are certain inevitable things to do, and for all men to do;and they have been doing them from the beginning of time; but the way itis done--is not that genius? There is no new story in the world; all thethings that happen have happened for untold centuries; but the man whotells the story in a new way, that is genius, so the great men say. If, then, Jean Jacques did the thing he had to do with a turn of his own, hewould justify to some degree the opinion he had formed of himself. 

As he walked back to his desecrated home he set himself to think. Howshould it be done? There was the rifle with which he had killed deer inthe woods beyond the Saguenay and bear beyond the Chicoutimi. That wassimple--and it was obvious; and it could be done at once. He could soonovertake the man who had spoiled the world for him. 

Yet he was a Norman, and the Norman thinks before he acts. He is thesoul of caution; he wants to get the best he can out of his bargain. Hewill throw nothing away that is to his advantage. There should be otherways than the gun with which to take a man's life--ways which might givea Norman a chance to sacrifice only one life; to secure punishment whereit was due, but also escape from punishment for doing the obvious thing. 

Poison? That was too stupid even to think of once. A pitch-fork and adung-heap? That had its merits; but again there was the risk of morethan one life. 

All the way to his house, Jean Jacques, with something of the rage ofpassion and the glaze of horror gone from his eyes, and his face not nowso ghastly, still brooded over how, after he had had his say, he wasto put George Masson out of the world. But it did not come at once. Allmakers of life-stories find their difficulty at times. Tirelessly theygrope along a wall, day in, day out, and then suddenly a great gateswings open, as though to the touch of a spring, and the whole way isclear to the goal. 

Jean Jacques went on thinking in a strange, new, intense abstraction. His restless eyes were steadier than they had ever been; his wifenoticed that as he entered the house after the Revelation. Shenoticed also his paleness and his abstraction. For an instant she wasfrightened; but no, Jean Jacques could not know anything. Yet--yet hehad come from the direction of the river!

"What is it, Jean Jacques?" she asked. "Aren't you well?"

He put his hand to his head, but did not look her in the eyes. Hisgesture helped him to avoid that. "I have a head--la, such a head! Ihave been thinking, thinking-it is my hobby. I have been planning thecheese-factory, and all at once it comes on-the ache in my head. Iwill go to bed. Yes, I will go at once. " Suddenly he turned at the doorleading to the bedroom. "The little Zoe--is she well?"

"Of course. Why should she not be well? She has gone to the top of thehill. Of course, she's well, Jean Jacques. "

"Good-good!" he remarked. Somehow it seemed strange to him that Zoeshould be well. Was there not a terrible sickness in his house, andhad not that woman, his wife, her mother, brought the infection? Was hehimself not stricken by it?

Carmen was calm enough again. "Go to bed, Jean Jacques, " she said, "andI'll bring you a sleeping posset. I know those headaches. You had onewhen the ash-factory was burned. "

He nodded without looking at her, and closed the door behind him. 

When she came to the bedroom a half-hour later, his face was turned tothe wall. She spoke, but he did not answer. She thought he was asleep. He was not asleep. He was only thinking how to do the thing whichwas not obvious, which was also safe for himself. That should be histriumph, if he could but achieve it. 

When she came to bed he did not stir, and he did not answer her when shespoke. 

"The poor Jean Jacques!" he heard her say, and if there had not been onhim the same courage that possessed him the night when the Antoine waswrecked, he would have sobbed. 

He did not stir. He kept thinking; and all the time her words, "The poorJean Jacques!" kept weaving themselves through his vague designs. Whyhad she said that--she who had deceived, betrayed him? Had he then seenwhat he had seen?

She did not sleep for a long time, and when she did it was uneasily. Butthe bed was an immense one, and she was not near him. There was no sleepfor him--not even for an hour. Once, in exhaustion, he almost rolledover into the poppies of unconsciousness; but he came back with a startand a groan to sentient life again, and kept feeling, feeling along thewall of purpose for a masterly way to kill. 

At dawn it came, suddenly spreading out before him like a picture. Hesaw himself standing at the head of the flume out there by the MillCartier with his hand on the lever. Below him in the empty flume wasthe master-carpenter giving a last inspection to the repairs. Beyond themaster-carpenter--far beyond--was the great mill-wheel! Behind himself, Jean Jacques, was the river held back by the dam; and if the lever wasopened, --the river would sweep through the raised gates down the flumeto the millwheel--with the man. And then the wheel would turn and turn, and the man would be in the wheel. 

It was not obvious; it was original; and it looked safe for JeanJacques. How easily could such an "accident" occur!

CHAPTER IX. "MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE"

The air was like a mellow wine, and the light on the landscape was fullof wistfulness. It was a thing so exquisite that a man of sentiment likeJean Jacques in his younger days would have wept to see. And the feelingwas as palpable as the seeing; as in the early spring the new life whichis being born in the year, produces a febrile kind of sorrow in themind. But the glow of Indian summer, that compromise, that after-thoughtof real summer, which brings her back for another good-bye ere shevanishes for ever--its sadness is of a different kind. Its longing has asharper edge; there stir in it the pangs of discontent; and the mind andbody yearn for solace. It is a dangerous time, even more dangerous thanspring for those who have passed the days of youth. 

It had proved dangerous to Carmen Barbille. The melancholy of thegorgeously tinted trees, the flights of the birds to the south, thesmell of the fallow field, the wind with the touch of the comingrains--these had given to a growing discontent with her monotonouslife the desire born of self-pity. In spite of all she could do she wasturning to the life she had left behind in Cadiz long ago. 

It seemed to her that Jean Jacques had ceased to care for the charmswhich once he had so proudly proclaimed. There was in her the strain ofthe religion of Epicurus. She desired always that her visible corporealself should be admired and desired, that men should say, "What asplendid creature!" It was in her veins, an undefined philosophyof life; and she had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by hiscaresses. She had no other vital standard. This she could measure, shecould grasp it and say, "Here I have a hold; it is so much harvested. "But if some one had written her a poem a thousand verses long, she wouldhave said, "Yes, all very fine, but let me see what it means; let mefeel that it is so. "

She had an inherent love of luxury and pleasure, which was far moreactive in her now than when she married Jean Jacques. For a Spanishwoman she had matured late; and that was because, in her youth, she hadbeen active and athletic, unlike most Spanish girls; and the microbes ofa sensuous life, or what might have become a sensual life, had not goodchance to breed. 

It all came, however, in the dullness of the winter days and nights, inthe time of deep snows, when they could go abroad but very little. Thenher body and her mind seemed to long for the indolent sun-spaces ofSpain. The artificial heat of the big stoves in the rooms with the lowceilings only irritated her, and she felt herself growing more amplefrom lassitude of the flesh. This particular autumn it seemed to herthat she could not get through another winter without something goingwrong, without a crisis of some sort. She felt the need of excitement, of change. She had the desire for pleasures undefined. 

Then George Masson came, and the undefined took form almost at once. It was no case of the hunter pursuing his prey with all the craft andsubtlety of his trade. She had answered his look with spontaneity, dueto the fact that she had been surprised into the candour of her feelingsby the appearance of one who had the boldness of a brigand, the healthof a Hercules, and the intelligence of a primitive Jesuit. He had nothesitated; he had yielded himself to the sumptuous attraction, and thefire in his eyes was only the window of the furnace within him. He hadgone headlong to the conquest, and by sheer force of temperament andweight of passion he had swept her off her feet. 

He had now come to the last day of his duty at the Mill Cartier, whenall he had to do was to inspect the work done, give assurance andguarantee that it was all right, and receive his cheque from JeanJacques. He had come early, because he had been unable to sleep well, and also he had much to do before keeping his tryst with Carmen Barbillein the afternoon. 

As he passed the Manor Cartier this fateful morning, he saw her at thewindow, and he waved his hat at her with a cheery salutation which shedid not hear. He knew that she did not hear or see. "My beauty!" hesaid aloud. "My splendid girl, my charmer of Cadiz! My wonder of theAlhambra, my Moorish maid! My bird of freedom--hand of Charlemagne, yourlips are sweet, yes, sweet as one-and-twenty!"

His lips grew redder at the thought of the kisses he had taken, hischeek flushed with the thought of those he meant to take; and he laughedgreedily as he lowered himself into the flume by a ladder, just underthe lever that opened the gates, to begin his inspection. 

It was not a perfunctory inspection, for he was a good craftsman, and hehad pride in what his workmen did. 

"Ah!"

It was a sound of dumbfounded amazement, a hoarse cry of horror whichwas not in tune with the beauty of the morning. 

"Ah!"

It came from his throat like the groan of a trapped and wounded lion. George Masson had almost finished his inspection, when he heard a noisebehind him. He turned and looked back. There stood Jean Jacques with hishand on the lever. The noise he had heard was the fourteen-foot ladderbeing dropped, after Jean Jacques had drawn it up softly out of theflume. 

"Ah! Nom de Dieu!" George Masson exclaimed again in helpless fury andwith horror in his eyes. 

By instinct he understood that Carmen's husband knew all. He realizedwhat Jean Jacques meant to do. He knew that the lever locking themill-wheel had been opened, and that Jean Jacques had his hand on thelever which raised the gate of the flume. 

By instinct--for there was no time for thought--he did the only thingwhich could help him, he made a swift gesture to Jean Jacques, a gesturethat bade him wait. Time was his only friend in this--one minute, twominutes, three minutes, anything. For if the gates were opened, he wouldbe swept into the millwheel, and there would be the end--the everlastingend. 

"Wait!" he called out after his gesture. "One second!"

He ran forward till he was about thirty feet from Jean Jacques standingthere above him, with the set face and the dark malicious, half-insaneeyes. Even in his fear and ghastly anxiety, the subconscious mind ofGeorge Masson was saying, "He looks like the Baron of Beaugard--like theBaron of Beaugard that killed the man who abused his wife. "

It was so. Great-great-grand-nephew of the Baron of Beaugard as he was, Jean Jacques looked like the portrait of him which hung in the ManorCartier. "Wait--but wait one minute!" exclaimed George Masson; and now, all at once, he had grown cool and determined, and his brain was at workagain with an activity and a clearness it had never known. He had gainedone minute of time, he might be able to gain more. In any case, no onecould save him except himself. There was Jean Jacques with his hand onthe lever--one turn and the thing was done for ever. If a rescuer waseven within one foot of Jean Jacques, the deed could still be done. Itwas so much easier opening than shutting the gates of the flume!

"Why should I wait, devil and rogue?" The words came from Jean Jacques'lips with a snarl. "I am going to kill you. It will do you no good towhine--cochon!"

To call a man a pig is the worst insult which could be offered by oneman to another in the parish of St. Saviour's. To be called a pig as youare going to die, is an offensive business indeed. 

"I know you are going to kill me--that you can kill me, and I can donothing, " was the master-carpenter's reply. "There it is--a turn of thelever, and I am done. Bien sur, I know how easy! I do not want to die, but I will not squeal even if I am a pig. One can only die once. Andonce is enough. .. . No, don't--not yet! Give me a minute till I tell yousomething; then you can open the gates. You will have a long time tolive--yes, yes, you are the kind that live long. Well, a minute or twois not much to ask. If you want to murder, you will open the gates atonce; but if it is punishment, if you are an executioner, you will giveme time to pray. "

Jean Jacques did not soften. His voice was harsh and grim. "Well, get onwith your praying, but don't talk. You are going to die, " he added, hishands gripping the lever tighter. 

The master-carpenter had had the true inspiration in his hour of danger. He had touched his appeal with logic, he had offered an argument. Jean Jacques was a logician, a philosopher! That point made about thedifference between a murder and an execution was a good one. Besideit was an acknowledgment, by inference, from his victim, that he wasgetting what he deserved. 

"Pray quick and have it over, pig of an adulterer!" added Jean Jacques. 

The master-carpenter raised a protesting hand. "There you are mistaken;but it is no matter. At the end of to-day I would have been anadulterer, if you hadn't found out. I don't complain of the word. Butsee, as a philosopher"--Jean Jacques jerked a haughty assent--"as aphilosopher you will want to know how and why it is. Carmen will nevertell you--a woman never tells the truth about such things, because shedoes not know how. She does not know the truth ever, exactly, aboutanything. It is because she is a woman. But I would like to tell you theexact truth; and I can, because I am a man. For what she did you are asmuch to blame as she . .. No, no--not yet!"

Jean Jacques' hand had spasmodically tightened on the lever as though hewould wrench the gates open, and a snarl came from his lips. 

"Figure de Christ, but it is true, as true as death! Listen, M'sieu'Jean Jacques. You are going to kill me, but listen so that you will knowhow to speak to her afterwards, understanding what I said as I died. "

"Get on--quick!" growled Jean Jacques with white wrinkled lips and thesun in his agonized eyes. George Masson continued his pleading. "Youwere always a man of mind"--Jean Jacques' fierce agitation visiblysubsided, and a surly sort of vanity crept into his face--"andyou married a girl who cared more for what you did than what youthought--that is sure, for I know women. I am not married, and I havehad much to do with many of them. I will tell you the truth. I leftthe West because of a woman--of two women. I had a good business, but Icould not keep out of trouble with women. They made it too easy for me. "

"Peacock-pig!" exclaimed Jean Jacques with an ugly sneer. 

"Let a man when he is dying tell all the truth, to ease his mind, " saidthe master-carpenter with a machiavellian pretence and cunning. "Itwas vanity, it was, as you say; it was the peacock in me made me be thefriend of many women and not the husband of one. I came down hereto Quebec from the Far West to get away from consequences. It wasexpensive. I had to sacrifice. Well, here I am in trouble again--mylast trouble, and with the wife of a man that I respect and admire, notenough to keep my hands off his wife, but still that I admire. It ismy weakness that I could not be, as a man, honourable to Jean JacquesBarbille. And so I pay the price; so I have to go without time to makemy will. Bless heaven above, I have no wife--"

"If you had a wife you would not be dying now. You would not then meddlewith the home of Jean Jacques Barbille, " sneered Jean Jacques. The notewas savage yet. 

"Ah, for sure, for sure! It is so. And if I lived I would marry atonce. "

Desperate as his condition was, the master-carpenter could almost havelaughed at the idea of marriage preventing him from following the bentof his nature. He was the born lover. If he had been as high as theCzar, or as low as the ditcher, he would have been the same; but itwould be madness to admit that to Jean Jacques now. 

"But, as you say, let me get on. My time has come--"

Jean Jacques jerked his head angrily. "Enough of this. You keep onsaying 'Wait a little, ' but your time has come. Now take it so, anddon't repeat. "

"A man must get used to the idea of dying, or he will die hard, " repliedthe master-carpenter, for he saw that Jean Jacques' hands were notso tightly clenched on the lever now; and time was everything. He hadalready been near five minutes, and every minute was a step to a chanceof escape--somehow. 

"I said you were to blame, " he continued. "Listen, Jean JacquesBarbille. You, a man of mind, married a girl who cared more for a touchof your hand than a bucketful of your knowledge, which every man in theprovince knows is great. At first you were almost always thinking ofher and what a fine woman she was, and because everyone admired her, you played the peacock, too. I am not the only peacock. You are a goodman--no one ever said anything against your character. But always, always, you think most of yourself. It is everywhere you go as if yousay, 'Look out. I am coming. I am Jean Jacques Barbille. 

"'Make way for Jean Jacques. I am from the Manor Cartier. You have heardof me. '. .. That is the way you say things in your mind. But all the timethe people say, 'That is Jean Jacques Barbille, but you should see hiswife. She is a wonder. She is at home at the Manor with the cows and thegeese. Jean Jacques travels alone through the parish to Quebec, to ThreeRivers, to Tadousac, to the great exhibition at Montreal, but madame, she stays at home. M'sieu' Jean Jacques is nothing beside her'--thatis what the people say. They admire you for your brains, but they wouldhave fallen down before your wife, if you had given her half a chance. "

"Ah, that's bosh--what do you know!" exclaimed Jean Jacques fiercely, but he was fascinated too by the argument of the man whose life he wasgoing to take. 

"I know the truth, my money-man. Do you think she'd have looked at meif you'd been to her what she thought I might be? No, bien sur! Did youtake her where she could see the world? No. Did you bring her presents?No. Did you say, 'Come along, we will make a little journey to see theworld?' No. Do you think that a woman can sit and darn your socks, andtidy your room, and bake you pancakes in the morning while you roastyour toes, and be satisfied with just that, and not long for somethingoutside?"

Jean Jacques was silent. He did not move. He was being hypnotized by amind of subtle strength, by the logic of which he was so great a lover. 

The master-carpenter pressed his logic home. "No, she must sit in yourshadow always. She must wait till you come. And when you come, it was'Here am I, your Jean Jacques. Fall down and worship me. I am yourhusband. ' Did you ever say, 'Heavens, there you are, the woman of allthe world, the rising and the setting sun, the star that shines, thegarden where all the flowers of love grow'? Did you ever do that? Butno, there was only one person in the world--there was only you, JeanJacques. You were the only pig in the sty. "

It was a bold stroke, but if Jean Jacques could stand that, he couldstand anything. There was a savage start on the part of Jean Jacques, and the lever almost moved. 

"Stop one second!" cried the master-carpenter, sharply now, for inspite of the sudden savagery on Jean Jacques' part, he felt he had anadvantage, and now he would play his biggest card. 

"You can kill me. It is there in your hand. No one can stop you. Butwill that give you anything? What is my life? If you take it away, willyou be happier? It is happiness you want. Your wife--she will love you, if you give her a chance. If you kill me, I will have my revenge indeath, for it is the end of all things for you. You lose your wife forever. You need not do so. She would have gone with me, not becauseof me, but because I was a man who she thought would treat her like afriend, like a comrade; who would love her--sacre, what husband couldhelp make love to such a woman, unless he was in love with himselfinstead of her!"

Jean Jacques rocked to and fro over the lever in his agitation, yet hemade no motion to move it. He was under a spell. 

Straight home drove the master-carpenter's reasoning now. "Kill me, andyou lose her for ever. Kill me, and she will hate you. You think shewill not find out? Then see: as I die I will shriek out so loud that shecan hear me, and she will understand. She will go mad, and give you overto the law. And then--and then! Did you ever think what will become ofyour child, of your Zoe, if you go to the gallows? That would be yourlegacy and your blessing to her--the death of a murderer; and she wouldbe left alone with the woman that would hate you in death! Voila--do younot see?"

Jean Jacques saw. The terrific logic of the thing smote him. His wifehating him, himself on the scaffold, his little Zoe disgraced anddishonoured all her life; and himself out of it all, unable to help her, and bringing irremediable trouble on her! As a chemical clears a muddyliquid, leaving it pure and atomless, so there seemed to pass over JeanJacques' face a thought like a revelation. 

He took his hand from the lever. For a moment he stood like one awakenedout of a sleep. He put his hands to his eyes, then shook his head asthough to free it of some hateful burden. An instant later he stooped, lifted up the ladder beside him, and let it down to the floor of theflume. 

"There, go--for ever, " he said. 

Then he turned away with bowed head. He staggered as he stepped downfrom the bridge of the flume, where the lever was. He swayed from sideto side. Then he raised his head and looked towards his house. His childlived there--his Zoe. 

"Moi je suis philosophe!" he said brokenly. 

After a moment or two, as he stumbled on, he said it again--"Me, I am aphilosopher!"

CHAPTER X. "QUIEN SABE"--WHO KNOWS!

This much must be said for George Masson, that after the terribleincident at the flume he would have gone straight to the Manor Cartierto warn Carmen, if it had been possible, though perhaps she alreadyknew. But there was Jean Jacques on his way back to the Manor, andnothing remained but to proceed to Laplatte, and give the woman up forever. He had no wish to pull up stakes again and begin life afresh, though he was only forty, and he had plenty of initiative left. But ifhe had to go, he would want to go alone, as he had done before. Yes, hewould have liked to tell Carmen that Jean Jacques knew everything;but it was impossible. She would have to face the full shock from JeanJacques' own battery. But then again perhaps she knew already. He hopedshe did. 

At the very moment that Masson was thinking this, while he went to themain road where he had left his horse and buggy tied up, Carmen came toknow. 

Carmen had not seen her husband that morning until now. She had wakedlate, and when she was dressed and went into the dining-room to look forhim, with an apprehension which was the reflection of the bad dreams ofthe night, she found that he had had his breakfast earlier than usualand had gone to the mill. She also learned that he had eaten verylittle, and that he had sent a man into Vilray for something or other. Try as she would to stifle her anxiety, it obtruded itself, and shecould eat no breakfast. She kept her eyes on the door and the window, watching for Jean Jacques. 

Yet she reproved herself for her stupid concern, for Jean Jacques wouldhave spoken last night, if he had discovered anything. He was not theman to hold his tongue when he had a chance of talking. He would be sureto make the most of any opportunity for display of intellectual emotion, and he would have burst his buttons if he had known. That was the wayshe put it in a vernacular which was not Andalusian. Such men love agrievance, because it gives them an opportunity to talk--with a goodcase and to some point, not into the air at imaginary things, as she hadso often seen Jean Jacques do. She knew her Jean Jacques. That is, she thought she knew her Jean Jacques after living with him for overthirteen years; but hers was a very common mistake. It is not time whichgives revelation, or which turns a character inside out, and exposes anew and amazing, maybe revolting side to it. She had never really seenJean Jacques, and he had never really seen himself, as he was, but onlyas circumstances made him seem to be. What he had showed of his natureall these forty odd years was only the ferment of a more or less shallowlife, in spite of its many interests: but here now at last was life, with the crust broken over a deep well of experience and tragedy. She knew as little what he would do in such a case as he himself knewbeforehand. As the incident of the flume just now showed, he knew littleindeed, for he had done exactly the opposite of what he meant to do. Itwas possible that Carmen would also do exactly the opposite of what shemeant to do in her own crisis. 

Her test was to come. Would she, after all, go off with themaster-carpenter, leaving behind her the pretty, clever, volatile Zoe. .. Zoe--ah, where was Zoe? Carmen became anxious about Zoe, she knewnot why. Was it the revival of the maternal instinct?

She was told that Zoe had gone off on her pony to take a basket of goodthings to a poor old woman down the river three miles away. She wouldbe gone all morning. By so much, fate was favouring her; for the child'spresence would but heighten the emotion of her exit from that placewhere her youth had been wasted. Already the few things she had meantto take away were secreted in a safe place some distance from the house, beside the path she meant to take when she left Jean Jacques forever. George Masson wanted her, they were to meet to-day, and she wasgoing--going somewhere out of this intolerable dullness and discontent. 

When she pushed her coffee-cup aside and rose from the table withouteating, she went straight to her looking-glass and surveyed herself witha searching eye. Certainly she was young enough (she said to herself) todraw the eyes of those who cared for youth and beauty. There was not agrey hair in the dark brown of her head, there was not a wrinkle--yes, there were two at the corners of her mouth, which told the story of herrestlessness, of her hunger for the excitement of which she had beendeprived all these years. To go back to Cadiz?--oh, anywhere, anywhere, so that her blood could beat faster; so that she could feel the stirof life which had made her spirit flourish even in the dangers of thefar-off day when Gonzales was by her side. 

She looked at her guitar. She was sorry she could not take that awaywith her. But Jean Jacques would, no doubt, send it after her with hiscurse. She would love to play it once again with the old thrill; withthe thrill she had felt on the night of Zoe's birthday a little whileago, when she was back again with her lover and the birds in the gardensof Granada. She would sing to someone who cared to hear her, and tosomeone who would make her care to sing, which was far more important. She would sing to the master-carpenter. Though he had not asked her togo with him--only to meet in a secret place in the hills--she meant todo so, just as she once meant to marry Jean Jacques, and had done so. Itwas true she would probably not have married Jean Jacques, if it had notbeen for the wreck of the Antoine; but the wreck had occurred, and shehad married him, and that was done and over so far as she was concerned. She had determined to go away with the master-carpenter, and though hemight feel the same hesitation as that which Jean Jacques had shown--shehad read her Norman aright aboard the Antoine--yet, still, George Massonshould take her away. A catastrophe had thrown Jean Jacques intoher arms; it would not be a catastrophe which would throw themaster-carpenter into her arms. It would be that they wanted each other. 

The mirror gave her a look of dominance--was it her regular features andher classic head? Does beauty in itself express authority, just becauseit has the transcendent thing in it? Does the perfect form conveysomething of the same thing that physical force--an army in arms, a battleship--conveys? In any case it was there, that inherentmasterfulness, though not in its highest form. She was not anaristocrat, she was no daughter of kings, no duchess of Castile, no donaof Segovia; and her beauty belonged to more primary manifestations; butit was above the lower forms, even if it did not reach to the highest. "A handsome even splendid woman of her class" would have been thejudgment of the connoisseur. 

As she looked in the glass at her clear skin, at the wonderful throatshowing so soft and palpable and tower-like under the black velvetribbon brightened by a paste ornament; as she saw the smooth breadth ofbrow, the fulness of the lips, the limpid lustre of the large eyes, thewell-curved ear, so small and so like ivory, it came home to her, as ithad never done before, that she was wasted in this obscure parish of St. Saviour's. 

There was not a more restless soul or body in all the hemisphere thanthe soul and body of Carmen Barbille, as she went from this to thaton the morning when Jean Jacques had refrained from killing thesoul-disturber, the master-carpenter, who had with such skill destroyedthe walls and foundations of his home. Carmen was pointlessly busy asshe watched for the return of Jean Jacques. 

At last she saw him coming from the flume of the mill! She saw that hestumbled as he walked, and that, every now and then, he lifted his headwith an effort and threw it back, and threw his shoulders back also, asthough to assert his physical manhood. He wore no hat, his hands weremaking involuntary gestures of helplessness. But presently he seemedto assert authority over his fumbling body and to come erect. His handsclenched at his sides, his head came up stiffly and stayed, and withquickened footsteps he marched rigidly forward towards the Manor. 

Then she guessed at the truth, and as soon as she saw his face she wassure beyond peradventure that he knew. 

His figure darkened the doorway. Her first thought was to turn and flee, not because she was frightened of what he would do, but because she didnot wish to hear what he would say. She shrank from the uprolling ofthe curtain of the last thirteen years, from the grim exposure of thenakedness of their life together. Her indolent nature in repose wantedthe dust of existence swept into a corner out of sight; yet when she wasroused, and there were no corners into which the dust could be swept, she could be as bold as any better woman. 

She hesitated till it was too late to go, and then as he entered thehouse from the staring sunlight and the peace of the morning, shestraightened herself, and a sulky, stubborn look came into her eyes. Hemight try to kill her, but she had seen death in many forms far awayin Spain, and she would not be afraid till there was cause. Imaginationwould not take away her courage. She picked up a half-knitted stockingwhich lay upon the table, and standing there, while he came into themiddle of the room, she began to ply the needles. 

He stood still. Her face was bent over her knitting. She did not look athim. 

"Well, why don't you look at me?" he asked in a voice husky withpassion. 

She raised her head and looked straight into his dark, distracted eyes. 

"Good morning, " she said calmly. 

A kind of snarling laugh came to his lips. "I said good morning to mywife yesterday, but I will not say it to-day. What is the use of sayinggood morning, when the morning is not good!"

"That's logical, anyhow, " she said, her needles going faster now. Shewas getting control of them--and of herself. 

"Why isn't the morning good? Speak. Why isn't it good, Carmen?"

"Quien sabe--who knows!" she replied with exasperating coolness. 

"I know--I know all; and it is enough for a lifetime, " he challenged. 

"What do you know--what is the 'all'?" Her voice had lost timbre. It wassuddenly weak, but from suspense and excitement rather than from fear. 

"I saw you last night with him, by the river. I saw what you did. Iheard you say, 'Yes, to-morrow, for sure. ' I saw what you did. "

Her eyes were busy with the knitting now. She did not know what tosay. Then, he had known all since the night before! He knew it when hepretended that his head ached--knew it as he lay by her side all night. He knew it, and said nothing! But what had he done--what had he done?She waited for she knew not what. George Masson was to come and inspectthe flume early that morning. Had he come? She had not seen him. Butthe river was flowing through the flume: she could hear the mill-wheelturning--she could hear the mill-wheel turning!

As she did not speak, with a curious husky shrillness to his voice hesaid: "There he was down in the flume, there was I at the lever above, there was the mill-wheel unlocked. There it was. I gripped the lever, and--"

Her great eyes stared with horror. The knitting-needles stopped; apallor swept across her face. She felt as she did when she heard thecourt-martial sentence Carvillho Gonzales to death. 

The mill-wheel sounded louder and louder in her ears. 

"You let in the river!" she cried. "You drove him into the wheel--youkilled him!"

"What else was there to do?" he demanded. "It had to be done, and itwas the safest way. It would be an accident. Such a thing might easilyhappen. "

"You have murdered him!" she gasped with a wild look. 

"To call it murder!" he sneered. "Surely my wife would not call itmurder. "

"Fiend--not to have the courage to fight him!" she flung back at him. "To crawl like a snake and let loose a river on a man! In any othercountry, he'd have been given a chance. "

This was his act in a new light. He had had only one idea in his mindwhen he planned the act, and that was punishment. What rights had a manwho had stolen what was nearer and dearer than a man's own flesh, andfor which he would have given his own flesh fifty times? Was it thatCarmen would now have him believe he ought to have fought the man, whohad spoiled his life and ruined a woman's whole existence. 

"What chance had I when he robbed me in the dark of what is worth fiftytimes my own life to me?" he asked savagely. 

"Murderer--murderer!" she cried hoarsely. "You shall pay for this. "

"You will tell--you will give me up?"

Her eyes were on the mill and the river. .. "Where--where is he? Has hegone down the river? Did you kill him and let him go--like that!"

She made a flinging gesture, as one would toss a stone. 

He stared at her. He had never seen her face like that--so strained andhaggard. George Masson was right when he said that she would give himup; that his life would be in danger, and that his child's life would bespoiled. 

"Murderer!" she repeated. "And when you go to the gallows, your child'slife--you did not think of that, eh? To have your revenge on the man whowas no more to blame than I, thinking only of yourself, you killed him;but you did not think of your child. "

Ah, yes, surely George Masson was right! That was what he had said abouthis child, Zoe. What a good thing it was he had not killed the ravagerof his home!

But suddenly his logic came to his aid. In terrible misery as he was, hewas almost pleased that he could reason. "And you would give me over tothe law? You would send me to the gallows--and spoil your child's life?"he retorted. 

She threw the knitting down and flung her hands up. "I have no husband. I have no child. Take your life. Take it. I will go and find his body, "she said, and she moved swiftly towards the door. "He has gone down theriver--I will find him!"

"He has gone up the river, " he exclaimed. "Up the river, I say!"

She stopped short and looked at him blankly. Then his meaning becameclear to her. 

"You did not kill him?" she asked scarce above a whisper. 

"I let him go, " he replied. 

"You did not fight him--why?" There was scorn in her tone. 

"And if I had killed him that way?" he asked with terrible logic, as hethought. 

"There was little chance of that, " she replied scornfully, and steadiedherself against a chair; for, now that the suspense was over, she feltas though she had been passed between stones which ground the strengthout of her. 

A flush of fierce resentment crossed over his face. "It is noteverything to be big, " he rejoined. "The greatest men in the world havebeen small like me, but they have brought the giant things to theirfeet. "

She waved a hand disdainfully. "What are you going to do now?" sheasked. 

He drew himself up. He seemed to rearrange the motions of his mind witha little of the old vanity, which was at once grotesque and piteous. "I am going to forgive you and to try to put things right, " he said. "Ihave had my faults. You were not to blame altogether. I have left youtoo much alone. I did not understand everything all through. I had neverstudied women. If I had I should have done the right thing always. Imust begin to study women. " The drawn look was going a little from hisface, the ghastly pain was fading from his eyes; his heart was speakingfor her, while his vain intellect hunted the solution of his problem. 

She could scarcely believe her ears. No Spaniard would ever have actedas this man was doing. She had come from a land of No Forgiveness. Carvillho Gonzales would have killed her, if she had been untrue to him;and she would have expected it and understood it. 

But Jean Jacques was going to forgive her--going to study women, and sounderstand her and understand women, as he understood philosophy! Thiswas too fantastic for human reason. She stared at him, unable to say aword, and the distracted look in her face did not lessen. Forgivenessdid not solve her problem. 

"I am going to take you to Montreal--and then out to Winnipeg, when I'vegot the cheese-factory going, " he said with a wise look in his face, andwith tenderness even coming into his eyes. "I know what mistakes I'vemade"--had not George Masson the despoiler told him of them?--"and Iknow what a scoundrel that fellow is, and what tricks of the tongue hehas. Also he is as sleek to look at as a bull, and so he got a hold onyou. I grasp things now. Soon we will start away together again as wedid at Gaspe. "

He came close to her. "Carmen!" he said, and made as though he wouldembrace her. 

"Wait--wait a little. Give me time to think, " she said with dry lips, her heart beating hard. Then she added with a flattery which she knewwould tell, "I cannot think quick as you do. I am slow. I must havetime. I want to work it all out. Wait till to-night, " she urged. "Thenwe can--"

"Good, we will make it all up to-night, " he said, and he patted hershoulder as one would that of a child. It had the slight flavour of thesuperior and the paternal. 

She almost shrank from his touch. If he had kissed her she would havefelt that she must push him away; and yet she also knew how good a manhe was. 

CHAPTER XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE

"Well, what is it, M'sieu' Fille? What do you want with me? I've got alot to do before sundown, and it isn't far off. Out with it. "

George Masson was in no good humour; from the look on the face of thelittle Clerk of the Court he had no idea that he would disclose any goodnews. It was probably some stupid business about "money not being paidinto the Court, " which had been left over from cases tried and lost;and he had had a number of cases that summer. His head was not so clearto-day as usual, but he had had little difficulties with M'sieu' Fillebefore, and he was sure that there was something wrong now. 

"Do you want to make me a present?" he added with humorous impatience, for though he was not in a good temper, he liked the Clerk of the Court, who was such a figure at Vilray. 

The opening for his purpose did not escape M. Fille. He had been at aloss to begin, but here was a natural opportunity for him. 

"Well, good advice is not always a present, but I should like mine to betaken as such, monsieur, " he said a little oracularly. 

"Oh, advice--to give me advice--that's why you've brought me in here, when I've so much to do I can't breathe! Time is money with me, old'un. "

"Mine is advice which may be money in your pocket, monsieur, " remarkedthe Clerk of the Court with meaning. "Money saved is money earned. "

"How do you mean to save me money--by getting the Judge to givedecisions in my favour? That would be money in my pocket for sure. TheCourt has been running against my interests this year. When I thinkI was never so right in my life--bang goes the judgment of the Courtagainst me, and into my pocket goes my hand. I don't only need to savemoney, I need to make it; so if you can help me in that way I'm yourman, M'sieu' la Fillette?"

The little man bristled at the misuse of his name, and he flushedslightly also; but there was always something engaging in thepleasure-loving master-carpenter. He had such an eloquent and warmtemperament, the atmosphere of his personality was so genial, thathis impertinence was insulated. Certainly the master-carpenter was notunpopular, and people could not easily resist the grip of his physicalinfluence, while mentally he was far indeed from being deficient. Helooked as little like a villain as a man could, and yet--and yet--anature like that of George Masson (even the little Clerk could see that)was not capable of being true beyond the minute in which he took hisoath of fidelity. While the fit of willingness was on him he would betrue; yet in reality there was no truth at all--only self-indulgenceunmarked by duty or honour. 

"Give me a judgment for defamation of character. Give me a thousanddollars or so for that, m'sieu', and you'll do a good turn to adeserving fellow-citizen and admirer--one little thousand, that's all, m'sieu'. Then I'll dance at your wedding and weep at your tomb--sothere!"

How easy he made the way for the little Clerk of the Court! "Defamationof character"--could there possibly be a better opening for what he hadpromised Judge Carcasson he would say!

"Ah, Monsieur Masson, " very officially and decorously replied M. Fille, "but is it defamation of character? If the thing is true, then what isthe judgment? It goes against you--so there!" There was irony in thelast words. 

"If what thing is true?" sharply asked the mastercarpenter, catching atthe fringe of the idea in M. Fille's mind. "What thing?"

"Ah, but it is true, for I saw it! Yes, alas! I saw it with my owneyes. By accident of course; but there it was--absolute, uncompromising, deadly and complete. "

It was a happy moment for the little Clerk of the Court when he could, in such an impromptu way, coin a phrase, or a set of adjectives, whichwould bear inspection of purists of the language. He loved totalk, though he did not talk a great deal, but he made innumerableconversations in his mind, and that gave him facility when he didspeak. He had made conversations with George Masson in his mind sinceyesterday, when he gave his promise to Judge Carcasson; but none ofthem was like the real conversation now taking place. It was allthe impression of the moment, while the phrases in his mind had beenwonderfully logical things which, from an intellectual standpoint, wouldhave delighted the man whose cause he was now engaged in defending. 

"You saw what, M'sieu' la Fillette? Out with it, and don't use such bigadjectives. I'm only a carpenter. 'Absolute, uncompromising, deadly, complete'--that's a mouthful of grammar, my lords! Come, my sprig ofjurisprudence, tell us what you saw. " There was an apparent nervousnessin Masson's manner now. Indeed he showed more agitation than when, a fewhours before, Jean Jacques had stood with his hand on the lever of thegates of the flume, and the life of the master-carpenter at his feet, tobe kicked into eternity. 

"Four days ago at five o'clock in the afternoon"--in a voice formal andexact, the little Clerk of the Court seemed to be reading from a paper, since he kept his eyes fixed on the blotter before him, as he did inCourt--"I was coming down the hill behind the Manor Cartier, when myattention--by accident--was drawn to a scene below me in the Manor. Istopped short, of course, and--"

"Diable! You stopped short 'of course' before what you saw! Spit itout--what did you see?" George Masson had had a trying day, and therewas danger of losing control of himself. There was a whiteness growinground the eyes, and eating up the warmth of the cheek; his admirablysmooth brow was contracted into heavy wrinkles, and a foot shifteduneasily on the floor with a scraping sole. This drew the attention ofM. Fille, who raised his head reprovingly--he could not get rid of thefeeling that he was in court, and that a case was being tried; and theseverity of a Judge is naught compared with the severity of a Clerk ofthe Court, particularly if he is small and unmarried, and has no one tobeat him into manageable humanity. 

M. Fille's voice was almost querulous. 

"If you will but be patient, monsieur! I saw a man with a woman in hisarms, and I fear that I must mention the name of the man. It is notnecessary to give the name of the woman, but I have it written here"--hetapped the paper--"and there is no mistake in the identity. The man'sname is George Masson, master-carpenter, of the town of Laplatte in theprovince of Quebec. "

George Masson was as one hit between the eyes. He made a motion asthough to ward off a blow. "Name of Peter, old cock!" he exclaimedabruptly. "You saw enough certainly, if you saw that, and you needn'tmention the lady's name, as you say. The evidence is not merelycircumstantial. You saw it with your own eyes, and you are an officialof the Court, and have the ear of the Judge, and you look like a saintto a jury. Well for sure, I can't prove defamation of character, as yousay. But what then--what do you want?"

"What I want I hope you may be able to grant without demur, monsieur. I want you to give your pledge on the Book"--he laid his hand ona Testament lying on the table--"that you will hold no furthercommunication with the lady. "

"Where do you come inhere? What's your standing in the business?"Masson jerked out his words now. The Clerk of the Court made a reprovinggesture. "Knowing what I did, what I had seen, it was clear that I mustapproach one or other of the parties concerned. Out of regard for thelady I could not approach her husband, and so betray her; out of regardfor the husband I could not approach himself and destroy his peace; outof regard for all concerned I could not approach the lady's father, forthen--"

Masson interrupted with an oath. 

"That old reprobate of Cadiz--well no, bagosh!

"And so you whisked me into your office with the talk of urgent businessand--"

"Is not the business urgent, monsieur?"

"Not at all, " was the sharp reply of the culprit. 

"Monsieur, you shock me. Do you consider that your conduct is notcriminal? I have here"--he placed his hand on a book--"the Statutes ofVictoria, and it lays down with wholesome severity the law concerningthe theft of the affection of a wife, with the accompanying penalty, going as high as twenty thousand dollars. "

George Masson gasped. Here was a new turn of affairs. But he set histeeth. 

"Twenty thousand dollars--think of that!" he sneered angrily. 

"That is what I said, monsieur. I said I could save you money, and moneysaved is money earned. I am your benefactor, if you will but permit meto be so, monsieur. I would save you from the law, and from the damageswhich the law gives. Can you not guess what would be given in a court ofthe Catholic province of Quebec, against the violation of a good man'shome? Do you not see that the business is urgent?"

"Not at all, " curtly replied the master-carpenter. M. Fille bridled up, and his spare figure seemed to gain courage and dignity. 

"If you think I will hold my peace unless you give your sacred pledge, you are mistaken, monsieur. I am no meddler, but I have had muchkindness at the hands of Monsieur and Madame Barbille, and I will dowhat I can to protect them and their daughter--that good and sweetdaughter, from the machinations, corruptions and malfeasance--"

"Three damn good words for the Court, bagosh!" exclaimed Masson with ajeer. 

"No, with a man devoid of honour, I shall not hesitate, for the ManorCartier has been the home of domestic peace, and madame, who came tous a stranger, deserves well of the people of that ancient abode ofchivalry-the chivalry of France. "

"When we are wound up, what a humming we can make!" laughed GeorgeMasson sourly. "Have you quite finished, m'sieu'?"

"The matter is urgent, you will admit, monsieur?" again demanded M. Fille with austerity. 

"Not at all. "

The master-carpenter was defiant and insolent, yet there was a devilishkind of humour in his tone as in his attitude. 

"You will not heed the warning I give?" The little Clerk pointed to theopen page of the Victorian statutes before him. 

"Not at all. "

"Then I shall, with profound regret--"

Suddenly George Masson thrust his face forward near that of M. Fille, who did not draw back. 

"You will inform the Court that the prisoner refuses to incriminatehimself, eh?" he interjected. 

"No, monsieur, I will inform Monsieur Barbille of what I saw. I will dothis without delay. It is the one thing left me to do. "

In quite a grand kind of way he stood up and bowed, as though to dismisshis visitor. 

As George Masson did not move, the other went to the door and openedit. "It is the only thing left to do, " he repeated, as he made a gentlegesture of dismissal. 

"Not at all, my legal bombardier. Not at all, I say. All you know JeanJacques knows, and a good deal more--what he has seen with his owneyes, and understood with his own mind, without legal help. So, you see, you've kept me here talking when there's no need and while my businesswaits. It is urgent, M'sieu' la Fillette--your business is stale. Itbelongs to last session of the Court. " He laughed at his joke. "M'sieu'Jean Jacques and I understand each other. " He laughed grimly now. "Weknow each other like a book, and the Clerk of the Court couldn't get inan adjective that would make the sense of it all clearer. "

Slowly M. Fille shut the door, and very slowly he came back. Almostblindly, as it might seem, and with a moan, he dropped into his chair. His eyes fixed themselves on George Masson. 

"Ah--that!" he said helplessly. "That! The little Zoe--dear God, thelittle Zoe, and the poor madame!" His voice was aching with pain andrepugnance. 

"If you were not such an icicle naturally, I'd be thinking your interestin the child was paternal, " said the master-carpenter roughly, for thevirtuous horror of the other's face annoyed him. He had had a vexingday. 

The Clerk of the Court was on his feet in a second. "Monsieur, youdare!" he exclaimed. "You dare to multiply your crimes in that shamelessway. Begone! There are those who can make you respect decency. I amnot without my friends, and we all stand by each other in our love ofhome--of sacred home, monsieur. "

There was something right in the master-carpenter at the bottom, withall his villainy. It was not alone that he knew there were fifty menin the Parish of St. Saviour's who would man-handle him for such asuggestion, and for what he had done at the Manor Cartier, if they wereroused; but he also had a sudden remorse for insulting the man who, after all, had tried to do him a service. His amende was instant. 

"I take it back with humble apology--all I can hold in both hands, m'sieu', " he said at once. "I would not insult you so, much less MadameBarbille. If she'd been like what I've hinted at, I wouldn't have goneher way, for the promiscuous is not for me. I'll tell you the wholetruth of what happened to-day this morning. Last night I met her at theriver, and--Then briefly he told all that had happened to the momentwhen Jean Jacques had left him at the flume with the words, 'Moi, jesuis philosophe!' And at the last he said:

"I give you my word--my oath on this"--he laid his hand on the Testamenton the table--"that beyond what you saw, and what Jean Jacques saw, there has been nothing. " He held up a hand as though taking an oath. 

"Name of God, is it not enough what there has been?" whispered thelittle Clerk. 

"Oh, as you think, and as you say! It is quite enough for me afterto-day. I'm a teetotaller, but I'm not so fond of water as to want totake my eternal bath in it. " He shuddered slightly. "Bien sur, I've hadmy fill of the Manor Cartier for one day, my Clerk of the Court. "

"Bien sur, it was enough to set you thinking, monsieur, " was the drycomment of M. Fille, who was now recovering his composure. 

At that moment there came a knock at the door, and another followedquickly; then there entered without waiting for a reply--CarmenBarbille. 

CHAPTER XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM

The Clerk of the Court came to his feet with a startled "Merci!" and themaster-carpenter fell back with a smothered exclamation. Both men staredconfusedly at the woman as she shut the door slowly and, as it mightseem, carefully, before she faced them. 

"Here I am, George, " she said, her face alive with vital adventure. 

His face was instantly swept by a storm of feeling for her, his natureresponded to the sound of her voice and the passion of her face. 

"Carmen--ah!" he said, and took a step forward, then stopped. The hoarsefeeling in his voice made her eyes flash gratitude and triumph, and shewaited for him to take her in his arms; but she suddenly remembered M. Fille. She turned to him. 

"I am sorry to intrude, m'sieu', " she said. "I beg your pardon. Theytold me at the office of avocat Prideaux that M'sieu' Masson was here. So I came; but be sure I would not interrupt you if there was notcause. "

M. Fille came forward and took her hand respectfully. "Madame, it isthe first time you have honoured me here. I am very glad to receive you. Monsieur and Mademoiselle Zoe, they are with you? They will also come inperhaps?"

M. Fille was courteous and kind, yet he felt that a duty was devolvingon him, imposed by his superior officer, Judge Carcasson, and by hisown conscience, and with courage he faced the field of trouble which hissimple question opened up. George Masson had but now said there had beennothing more than he himself had seen from the hill behind the Manor;and he had further said, in effect, that all was ended between CarmenBarbille and himself; yet here they were together, when they ought to bea hundred miles apart for many a day. Besides, there was the look inthe woman's face, and that intense look also in the face of themaster-carpenter! The Clerk of the Court, from sheer habit of hisprofession, watched human faces as other people watch the weather, orthe rise or fall in the price of wheat and potatoes. He was an archaiclittle official, and apparently quite unsophisticated; yet there washidden behind his ascetic face a quiet astuteness which would havebeen a valuable asset to a worldly-minded and ambitious man. Besides, affection sharpens the wits. Through it the hovering, protecting sensebecomes instinctive, and prescience takes on uncanny certainty. He hada real and deep affection for Jean Jacques and his Carmen, and a deeperone still for the child Zoe; and the danger to the home at the ManorCartier now became again as sharp as the knife of the guillotine. Hiseyes ran from the woman to the man, and back again, and then with greatcourage he repeated his question:

"Monsieur and mademoiselle, they are well--they are with you, I hope, madame?"

She looked at him in the eyes without flinching, and on the instant shewas aware that he knew all, and that there had been talk with GeorgeMasson. She knew the little man to be as good as ever can be, but sheresented the fact that he knew. It was clear George Masson had toldhim--else how could he know; unless, perhaps, all the world knew!

"You know well enough that I have come alone, my friend, " she answered. "It is no place for Zoe; and it is no place for my husband and himtogether, " she made a motion of the head towards the mastercarpenter. "Santa Maria, you know it very well indeed!"

The Clerk of the Court bowed, but made no reply. What was there to sayto a remark like that! It was clear that the problem must be worked outalone between these two people, though he was not quite sure what theproblem was. The man had said the thing was over; but the woman hadcome, and the look of both showed that it was not all over. 

What would the man do? What was it the woman wished to do? Themaster-carpenter had said that Jean Jacques had spared him, and meant toforgive his wife. No doubt he had done so, for Jean Jacques was a manof sentiment and chivalry, and there was no proof that there had beenanything more than a few mad caresses between the two misdemeanants; yethere was the woman with the man for whom she had imperilled her futureand that of her husband and child!

As though Carmen understood what was going on in his mind, she said:"Since you know everything, you can understand that I want a few wordswith M'sieu' George here alone. "

"Madame, I beg of you, " the Clerk of the Court answered instantly, hisvoice trembling a little--"I beg that you will not be alone with him. As I believe, your husband is willing to let bygones be bygones, and tobegin to-morrow as though there was no to-day. In such case you shouldnot see Monsieur Masson here alone. It is bad enough to see him here inthe office of the Clerk of the Court, but to see him alone--what wouldMonsieur Jean Jacques say? Also, outside there in the street, if ourneighbours should come to know of the trouble, what would they say? Iwish not to be tiresome, but as a friend, a true friend of your wholefamily, madame--yes, in spite of all, your whole family--I hope youwill realize that I must remain here. I owe it to a past made happy bykindness which is to me like life itself. Monsieur Masson, is itnot so?" he added, turning to the master-carpenter. More flushedand agitated than when he had faced Jean Jacques in the flume, themaster-carpenter said: "If she wants a few words-of farewell--alonewith me, she must have it, M'sieu' Fille. The other room--eh? Outsidethere"--he jerked a finger towards the street--"they won't know that youare not with us; and as for Jean Jacques, isn't it possible for a Clerkof the Court to stretch the truth a little? Isn't the Clerk of the Courta man as well as a mummy? I'd do as much for you, little lawyer, anytime. A word to say farewell, you understand!" He looked M. Fillesquarely in the eye. 

"If I had to answer M. Jean Jacques on such a matter--and so much atstake--"

Masson interrupted. "Well, if you like we'll bind your eyes and put wadsin your ears, and you can stay, so that you'll have been in the roomall the time, and yet have heard and seen nothing at all. How is that, m'sieu'? It's all right, isn't it?"

M. Fille stood petrified for a moment at the audacity of theproposition. For him, the Clerk of the Court, to be blinded and maderidiculous with wads in his ears-impossible!

"Grace of Heaven, I would prefer to lie!" he answered quickly. "I willgo into the next room, but I beg that you be brief, monsieur and madame. You owe it to yourselves and to the situation to be brief, and, if I maysay so, you owe it to me. I am not a practised Ananias. "

"As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, m'sieu', " returned Masson. 

"I must beg that you will make your farewells of a minute and no more, "replied the Clerk of the Court firmly. He took out his watch. "It issix o'clock. I will come again at three minutes past six. That is longenough for any farewell--even on the gallows. "

Not daring to look at the face of the woman, he softly disappeared intothe other room, and shut the door without a sound. 

"Too good for this world, " remarked the master-carpenter when thedoor closed tight. He said it after the disappearing figure and not toCarmen. "I don't suppose he ever kissed a real grown-up woman in hislife. It would have shattered his frail little carcass if, if"--heturned to his companion--"if you had kissed him, Carmen. He's made oftissue-paper, --not tissue--and apple-jelly. Yes, but a stiff littlebackbone, too, or he'd not have faced me down. "

Masson talked as though he were trying to gain time. "He said threeminutes, " she returned with a look of death in her face. As GeorgeMasson had talked with the Clerk of the Court, she had come to see, inso far as agitation would permit, that he was not the same as when heleft her by the river the evening before. 

"There's no time to waste, " she continued. "You spoke offarewells--twice you spoke, and three times he spoke of farewellsbetween us. Farewells--farewells--George--!"

With sudden emotion she held out her arms, and her face flushed withpassion and longing. 

The tempest which shook her shook him also, and he swayed from side toside like an animal uncertain if the moment had come to try its strengthwith its foe; and in truth the man was fighting with himself. Hismoments with Jean Jacques at the flume had expanded him in a curiouskind of way. His own arguments while he was fighting for his lifehad, in a way, convinced himself. She was a rare creature, and she wasalluring--more alluring than she had ever been; for a tragic sense hadmade her thinner, had refined the boldness of her beauty, had given awonderful lustre to her eyes; and suffering has its own attraction tothe degenerate. But he, George Masson, had had a great shock, and he hadcome out of the jaws of death by the skin of his teeth. It had been thenearest thing he had ever known; for though once he had had a pistolpointed at him, there was the chance that it might miss at half-a-dozenyards, while there was no chance of the lever of the flume going wrong;and water and a mill-wheel were as absolute as the rope of the gallows. 

In a sense he had saved himself by his cleverness, but if Jean Jacqueshad not been just the man he was, he could not have saved himself. Itdid not occur to him that Jean Jacques had acted weakly. He would nothave done what Jean Jacques had done, had Jean Jacques spoiled his home. He would have sprung the lever; but he was not so mean as to despiseJean Jacques because he had foregone his revenge. This master-carpenterhad certain gifts, or he could not have caused so much trouble in theworld. There is a kind of subtlety necessary to allure or delude eventhe humblest of women, if she is not naturally bad; and Masson had hadexperiences with the humblest, and also with those a little higher up. This much had to be said for him, that he did not think Jean Jacquescontemptible because he had been merciful, or degraded because he hadchosen to forgive his wife. 

The sight of the woman, as she stood with arms outstretched, had madehis pulses pound in his veins, but the heat was suddenly chilled by thewave of tragedy which had passed over him. When he had climbed out ofthe flume, and opened the lever for the river to rush through, he hadfelt as though ice--cold liquid flowed in his veins, not blood; and allday he had been like that. He had moved much as one in a dream, and hehad felt for the first time in his life that he was not ready to bluffcreation. He had always faced things down, as long as it could be done;and when it could not, he had retreated, with the comment that no manwas wise who took gruel when he needn't. He was now face to face withhis greatest problem. One thing was clear--they must either part forever, or go together, and part no more. There could be no half measures. She was a remarkable woman in her way, with a will of her own, and akind of madness in her; and there could be no backing and filling. Theyonly had three minutes to talk together alone, and two of them were up. 

Her arms were held out to him, but he stood still, and before the fireof her eyes his own eyes dropped. "No, not yet!" he exclaimed. "It'sbeen a day--heaven and hell, what a day it's been! He had me like that!"He opened and shut his hand with fierce, spasmodic strength. "And he letme go--oh, let me go like a fox out of a trap! I've had enough for oneday--blood of St. Peter, enough, enough!"

The flame of desire in her eyes suddenly turned to fury. "It isfarewell, then, that you wish, " she said hoarsely. "It is no more andfarewell then? You said it to him"--she pointed to the other room--"yousaid it to Jean Jacques, and you say it to me--to me that's given youall I have. Ah, what a beast you are, George Masson!"

"No, Carmen, you have not given me all. If you had, there would be nofarewell. I would stand by you to the end of life, if I had taken all. "He lied, but that does not matter here. 

"All--all!" she cried. "What is all? Is it but the one thing that theworld says must part husband and wife? Caramba! Is that all? I havegiven everything--I have had your arms around me--"

"Yes, the Clerk of the Court saw that, " he interrupted. "He saw from thehill behind the Manor on Tuesday last. "

There was a tap at the door of the other room; it slowly opened, and thefigure of the Clerk appeared. "Two minutes--just two minutes more, oldtrump!" said the master-carpenter, stretching out a hand. "One minutewill be enough, " said Carmen, who was suffering the greatest humiliationwhich can come to a woman. 

The Clerk looked at them both, and he was content. He saw that oneminute would certainly be enough. "Very well, monsieur and madame, " hesaid, and closed the door again. 

Carmen turned fiercely on the man. "M. Fille saw, did he, from MontViolet? Well, when I came here I did not care who saw. I only thought ofyou--that you wanted me, and that I wanted you. What the world thoughtwas nothing, if you were as when we parted last night. .. . I could notface Jean Jacques' forgiveness. To stay there, feeling that I must bealways grateful, that I must be humble, that I must pretend, that Imust kiss Jean Jacques, and lie in his arms, and go to mass and toconfession, and--"

"There is the child, there is Zoe--"

"Oh, it is you that preaches now--you that tempted me, that said I waswasted at the Manor; that the parish did not understand me; that JeanJacques did not know a jewel of price when he saw it--little did youthink of Zoe then!"

He made a protesting gesture. "Maybe so, Carmen, but I think now beforeit is too late. "

"The child loves her father as she never loved me, " she declared. "Sheis twelve years old. She will soon be old enough to keep house for him, and then to marry--ah, before there is time to think she will marry!"

"It would be better then for you to wait till she marriesbefore--before--"

"Before I go away with you!" She gave a shrill, agonized laugh. "So thatis the end of it all! What did you think of my child when you forcedyour way into my life, when you made me think of you--ah, quelbete--what a coward and beast you are!"

"No, I am not all coward, though I may be a beast, " he answered. "Ididn't think of your child when I began to talk to you as I did. I wasout for all I could get. I was the hunter. And you were the finest womanthat I'd ever met and talked with; you--"

"Oh, stop lying!" she cried with a face suddenly grown white and cold. 

"It isn't lying. You're the sort of woman to drive men mad. I went mad, and I didn't think of your child. But this morning in the flume Isaved my life by thinking of her, and I saved your life, too, maybe, bythinking of her; and I owe her something. I'm going to try to pay backby letting her keep her mother. I never felt towards a woman as I'vefelt towards you; and that's why I want to make things not so bad foryou as they might be. "

In her bitter eagerness she took a step nearer to him. "As thingsmight be, if you were the man you were yesterday, willing to throw upeverything for me?"

"Like that--if you put it so, " he answered. 

She walked slowly up to him, looking as though she would plunge a knifeinto his heart. "I wish Jean Jacques had opened the gates, " she said. "It would have saved the hangman trouble. "

Then suddenly, and with a cry, she raised her hand and struck him fullin the face with her fist. At that instant came a tap at the door of theother room, and the Clerk of the Court appeared. He saw the blow, anddrew back with an exclamation. 

Carmen turned to him. "Farewell has been said, M'sieu' Fille, " sheremarked in a voice sombre with rage and despair, and she went to thedoor leading to the street. 

Masson had winced at the blow, but he remained silent. He knew not whatto say or do. 

M. Fille hastily followed Carmen to the door. "You are going home, dear madame? Permit me to accompany you, " he said gently. "I have to dobusiness with Jean Jacques. "

A hand upon his chest, she pushed him back. "Where I go I'm goingalone, " she said. Opening the door she went out, but turning backagain she gave George Masson a look that he never forgot. Then the doorclosed. 

"Grace of God, she is not going home!" brokenly murmured the Clerk ofthe Court. 

With a groan the master-carpenter started forward towards the door, butM. Fille stepped between, laid a hand on his arm, and stopped him. 

CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE

 "Oh, who will walk the wood with me, I fear to walk alone; So young am I, as you may see; No dangers have I known. So young, so small--ah, yes, m'sieu', I'll walk the wood with you!"

In the last note of the song applause came instantaneously, almostimpatiently, as it might seem. With cries of "Encore! Encore!" it lastedsome time, while the happy singer looked around with frank pleasure onthe little group encircling her in the Manor Cartier. 

"Did you like it so much?" she asked in a general way, and not lookingat any particular person. A particular person, however, replied, and shehad addressed the question to him, although not looking at him. He wasthe Man from Outside, and he sat near the bright wood-fire; for thoughit was almost June the night was cool and he was delicate. 

"Ah, but splendid, but splendid--it got into every corner of every oneof us, " the Man from Outside responded, speaking his fluent French witha slight English accent, which had a pleasant piquancy--at least to theears of the pretty singer, Mdlle. Zoe Barbille. He was a man ofabout thirty-three, clean-shaven, dark-haired, with an expression ofcleverness; yet with an irresponsible something about him which M. Fille had reflected upon with concern. For this slim, eager, talkative, half-invalid visitor to St. Saviour's had of late shown a marked likingfor the presence and person of Zoe Barbille; and Zoe was as dear to M. Fille as though she were his own daughter. He it was who, in sarcasm, had spoken of this young stranger as "The Man from Outside. "

Ever since Zoe's mother had vanished--alone--seven years before from theManor Cartier, or rather from his office at Vilray, M. Fille had beenas much like a maiden aunt or a very elder brother to the Spanische'sdaughter as a man could be. Of M. Fille's influence over his daughterand her love of his companionship, Jean Jacques had no jealousywhatever. Very often indeed, when he felt incompetent to do for hischild all that he wished--philosophers are often stupid in humanaffairs--he thought it was a blessing Zoe had a friend like M. Fille. Since the terrible day when he found that his wife had gone fromhim--not with the master-carpenter who only made his exit from Laplattesome years afterwards--he had had no desire to have a woman at the Manorto fill her place, even as housekeeper. He had never swerved fromthat. He had had a hard row to hoe, but he had hoed it with a will notaffected by domestic accidents or inconveniences. The one woman fromoutside whom he permitted to go and come at will--and she did notcome often, because she and M. Fille agreed it would be best not to doso--was the sister of the Cure. To be sure there was Seraphe Corniche, the old cook, but she was buried in her kitchen, and Jean Jacquestreated her like a man. 

When Zoe was confirmed, and had come back from Montreal, having spenttwo years in a convent there--the only time she had been away from herfather in seven years--having had her education chiefly from a Catholic"brother, " the situation developed in a new way. Zoe at once becameas conspicuous in the country-side as her father had been over so manyyears. She was fresh, volatile, without affectation or pride, and hada temperament responsive to every phase of life's simple interests. Shetook the attention of the young men a little bit as her due, but yetwithout conceit. The gallants had come about her like bees, for therewas Jean Jacques' many businesses and his reputation for wealth; andthere was her own charm, concerning which there could be far less doubtthan about Jean Jacques' magnificent solvency. 

Zoe had gone heart-whole and with no especial preference for any youngman, until the particular person came, the Man from Outside. 

His name was Gerard Fynes, and his business was mumming. He was a younglawyer turned actor, and he had lived in Montreal before he went on thestage. He was English--that was a misfortune; he was an actor--that wasa greater misfortune, for it suggested vagabondage of morals as wellas of profession; and he was a Protestant, which was the greatestmisfortune of all. But he was only at St. Saviour's for hisconvalescence after a so-called attack of congestion of the lungs; andas he still had a slight cough and looked none too robust, and as, morethan all, he was simple in his ways, enjoying the life of the parishwith greater zest than the residents, he found popularity. Undoubtedlyhe had a taking way with him. He was lodging with Louis Charron, asmall farmer and kinsman of Jean Jacques, who sold whisky--"whitewhisky"--without a license. It was a Charron family habit to sellliquor illegally, and Louis pursued the career with all an amateur'senthusiasm. He had a sovereign balm for "colds, " composed of camomileflowers, boneset, liquorice, pennyroyal and gentian root, which he soldto all comers; and it was not unnatural that a visitor with weak lungsshould lodge with him. 

Louis and his wife had only good things to say about Gerard Fynes; forthe young man lived their life as though he was born to it. He ate theslap-jacks, the buttermilk-pop, the pork and beans, the Indian corn onthe cob, the pea-soup, and the bread baked in the roadside oven, with arelish which was not all pretence; for indeed he was as primitive as hewas subtle. He himself could not have told how much of him was true andhow much was make-believe. But he was certainly lovable, and he was notbad by nature. Since coming to St. Saviour's he had been constant to oneattraction, and he had not risked his chances with Zoe by response tothe shy invitations of dark eyes, young and not so young, which met hisown here and there in the parish. 

Only M. Fille and Jean Jacques himself had feelings of real antagonismto him. Jean Jacques, though not naturally suspicious, had, however, seen an understanding look pass between his Zoe and this stranger--thisProtestant English stranger from the outer world, to which Jean Jacqueswent less frequently since his fruitless search for his vanished Carmen. The Clerk of the Court saw that Jean Jacques had observed the intimateglances of the two young people, and their eyes met in understanding. Itwas just before Zoe had sung so charmingly, 'Oh, Who Will Walk the WoodWith Me'. 

At first after Carmen's going Jean Jacques had found it hard to enduresinging in his house. Zoe's trilling was torture to him, though he hadnever forbidden her to sing, and she had sung on to her heart's content. By a subtle instinct, however, and because of the unspoken sorrow in herown heart, she never sang the songs like 'La Manola'. Never after theday Carmen went did Zoe speak of her mother to anyone at all. It wasworse than death; it was annihilation, so far as speech was concerned. The world at large only knew that Carmen Barbille had run away, and thateven Sebastian Dolores her father did not know where she was. The oldman had not heard from her, and he seldom visited at the Manor Cartieror saw his grand-daughter. His own career of late years had been markedby long sojourns in Quebec, Montreal and even New York; yet he alwayscame back to St. Saviour's when he was penniless, and was there startedafresh by Jean Jacques. Some said that Carmen had gone back to Spain, but others discredited that, for, if she had done so, certainly oldSebastian Dolores would have gone also. Others continued to insist thatshe had gone off with a man; but there was George Masson at Laplatteliving alone, and never going twenty miles away from home, and he wasthe only person under suspicion. Others again averred that since herflight Carmen had become a loose woman in Montreal; but the New Curecame down on that with a blow which no one was tempted to invite again. 

M. Savry's method of punishing was of a kind to make men shrink. IfCarmen Barbille had become a loose woman in Montreal, how did any memberof his flock know that it was the case? What company had he kept inMontreal that he could say that? Did he see the woman--or did he hearabout her? And if he heard, what sort of company was he keeping when hewent to Montreal without his wife to hear such things? That was final, and the slanderer was under a cloud for a time, by reason of the angerof his own wife. It was about this time that the good priest preachedfrom the text, "Judge not that ye be not judged, " and said that therewere only ten commandments on the tables of stone; but that the tenincluded all the commandments which the Church made for every man, andwhich every man, knowing his own weakness, must also make for himself. 

His flock understood, though they did refrain, every one, from lookingtowards the place where Jean Jacques sat with Ma'm'selle--she was alwayscalled that, as though she was a great lady; or else she was called "thelittle Ma'm'selle Zoe, " even when she had grown almost as tall as hermother had been. 

Though no one looked towards the place where Jean Jacques and hisdaughter sat when this sermon was preached, and although Zoe seemed notto apprehend personal reference in the priest's words, when she reachedhome, after talking to her father about casual things all the way, sheflew to her room, and, locking the door, flung herself on her bed andcried till her body felt as though it had been beaten by rods. Thenshe suddenly got up and, from a drawer, took out two things--an oldphotograph of her mother at the time of her marriage, and Carmen'sguitar, which she had made her own on the day after the flight, and hadkept hidden ever since. She lay on the bed with her cheek pressed tothe guitar, and her eyes hungrily feeding on the face of a woman whosebeauty belonged to spheres other than where she had spent the thirteenyears of her married life. 

Zoe had understood more even at the time of the crisis than they thoughtshe did, child though she was; and as the years had gone on she hadgrasped the meaning of it all more clearly perhaps than anyone at allexcept her adored friends Judge Carcasson, at whose home she had visitedin Montreal, and M. Fille. 

The thing last rumoured about her mother in the parish was that shehad become an actress. To this Zoe made no protest in her mind. It wasbetter than many other possibilities, and she fixed her mind on it, sosaving herself from other agonizing speculations. In a fixed imaginationlay safety. In her soul she knew that, no matter what happened, hermother would never return to the Manor Cartier. 

The years had not deepened confidence between father and daughter. Ashadow hung between them. They laughed and talked together, were evenboisterous in their fun sometimes, and yet in the eyes of both was theforbidden thing--the deserted city into which they could not enter. Hecould not speak to the child of the shame of her mother; she could notspeak of that in him which had contributed to that mother's shame--theneglect which existed to some degree in her own life with him. Thiswas chiefly so because his enterprises had grown to such a number andheight, that he seemed ever to be counting them, ever struggling to theheight, while none of his ventures ever reached that state of successwhen it "ran itself", although as years passed men called him rich, and he spent and loaned money so freely that they called him the MoneyMaster, or the Money Man Wise, in deference to his philosophy. 

Zoe was not beautiful, but there was a wondrous charm in her deepbrown eyes and in the expression of her pretty, if irregular, features. Sometimes her face seemed as small as that of a young child, and alivewith eerie fancies; and always behind her laughter was something whichgot into her eyes, giving them a haunting melancholy. She had no signsof hysteria, though now and then there came heart-breaking littleoutbursts of emotion which had this proof that they were nothysteria--they were never seen by others. They were sacred to her ownsolitude. While in Montreal she had tasted for the first time the joysof the theatre, and had then secretly read numbers of plays, which shebought from an old bookseller, who was wise enough to choose them forher. She became possessed of a love for the stage even before GerardFynes came upon the scene. The beginning of it all was the rumour thather mother was now an actress; yet the root-cause was far down in atemperament responsive to all artistic things. 

The coming of the Man from Outside acted on the confined elements ofher nature like the shutter of a camera. It let in a world of light uponunexplored places, it set free elements of being which had not beforebeen active. She had been instantly drawn to Gerard Fynes. He had thedistance from her own life which provoked interest, and in that distancewas the mother whom perhaps it was her duty to forget, yet for whom shehad a longing which grew greater as the years went on. 

Gerard Fynes could talk well, and his vivid pictures of his shortplay-acting career absorbed her; and all the time she was vigilant forsome name, for the description of some actress which would seem to bea clue to the lost spirit of her life. This clue never came, but beforeshe gave up hope of it, the man had got nearer to her than any man hadever done. 

After meeting him she awoke to the fact that there was a differencebetween men, that it was not the same thing to be young as to be old;that the reason why she could kiss the old Judge and the little Clerk ofthe Court, and not kiss, say, the young manager of the great lumber firmwho came every year for a fortnight's fishing at St. Saviour's, wasone which had an understandable cause and was not a mere matter ofindividual taste. She had been good friends with this young manager, whowas only thirty years of age, and was married, but when he had wantedto kiss her on saying good-bye one recent summer, she had said, "Oh, no, oh, no, that would spoil it all!" Yet when he had asked her why, andwhat she meant, she could not tell him. She did not know; but by theend of the first week after Gerard Fynes had been brought to the ManorCartier by Louis Charron, she knew. 

She had then been suddenly awakened from mere girlhood. Judge Carcassonsaw the difference in her on a half-hour's visit as he passed westward, and he had said to M. Fille, "Who is the man, my keeper of thetreasure?" The reply had been of such a sort that the Judge wasstartled:

"Tut, tut, " he had exclaimed, "an actor--an actor once a lawyer! That'sserious. She's at an age--and with a temperament like hers she'llbelieve anything, if once her affections are roused. She has a flair forthe romantic, for the thing that's out of reach--the bird on the highestbranch, the bird in the sky beyond ours, the song that was lost beforetime was, the light that never was on sea or land. Why, damn it, damn itall, my Solon, here's the beginning of a case in Court unless we can laythe fellow by the heels! How long is he here for?"

When M. Fille had told him that he would stay for another month forcertain, and no doubt much longer, if there seemed a prospect of winningthe heiress of the Manor Cartier, the Judge gave a groan. 

"We must get him away, somehow, " he said. "Where does he stay?"

"At the house of Louis Charron, " was the reply. "Louis Charron--isn't hethe fellow that sells whisky without a license?"

"It is so, monsieur. "

The Judge moved his head from side to side like a bear in a cage. "Itis that, is it, my Fille? By the thumb of the devil, isn't it time thenthat Louis Charron was arrested for breaking the law? Also how do weknow but that the interloping fellow Fynes is an agent for a whisky firmperhaps? Couldn't he, then, on suspicion, be arrested with--"

The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully. His Judge was surelybecoming childish in his old age. He looked again closely at the greatman, and saw a glimmer of moisture in the grey eyes. It was clear thatJudge Carcasson felt deeply the dangers of the crisis, and that thefutile outburst had merely been the agitated protest of the helpless. 

"The man is what he says he is--an actor; and it would be folly toarrest him. If our Zoe is really fond of him, it would only make amartyr of him. "

As he made this reply M. Fille looked furtively at the other--out ofthe corner of his eye, as it were. The reply of the Judge wasimpatient, almost peevish and rough. "Did you think I was in earnest, my punchinello? Surely I don't look so young as all that. I am oversixty-five, and am therefore mentally developed!"

M. Fille was exactly sixty-five years of age, and the blow was a shrewdone. He drew himself up with rigid dignity. 

"You must feel sorry sometimes for those who suffered when your mind wasundeveloped, monsieur, " he answered. "You were a judge at forty-nine, and you defended poor prisoners for twenty years before that. "

The Judge was conquered, and he was never the man to pretend he was notbeaten when he was. He admired skill too much for that. He squeezed M. Fille's arm and said:

"I've been quick with my tongue myself, but I feel sure now, that it'sthrough long and close association with my Clerk of the Court. "

"Ah, monsieur, you are so difficult to understand!" was the reply. "Ihave known you all these years, and yet--"

"And yet you did not know how much of the woman there was in me!. .. But yes, it is that. It is that which I fear with our Zoe. Women breakout--they break out, and then there is the devil to pay. Look at hermother. She broke out. It was not inevitable. It was the curse ofopportunity, the wrong thing popping up to drive her mad at the wrongmoment. Had the wrong thing come at the right time for her, when she wasquite sane, she would be yonder now with our philosopher. Perhaps shewould not be contented if she were there, but she would be there; andas time goes on, to be where we were in all things which concern theaffections, that is the great matter. "

"Ah, yes, ah, yes, " was the bright-eyed reply of that Clerk, "there isno doubt of that! My sister and I there, we are fifty years together, never with the wrong thing at the wrong time, always the thing as itwas, always to be where we were. "

The Judge shook his head. "There is an eternity of difference, Fille, between the sister and brother and the husband and wife. The sacrednessof isolation is the thing which holds the brother and sister together. The familiarity of--but never mind what it is that so often forceshusband and wife apart. It is there, and it breaks out in rebellion asit did with the wife of Jean Jacques Barbille. As she was a strong womanin her way, it spoiled her life, and his too when it broke out. "

M. Fille's face lighted with memory and feeling. "Ah, a woman ofpowerful emotions, monsieur, that is so! I think I never told you, butat the last, in my office, when she went, she struck George Masson inthe face. It was a blow that--but there it was; I have never liked tothink of it. When I do, I shudder. She was a woman who might have beenin other circumstances--but there!"

The Judge suddenly stopped in his walk and faced round on his friend. "Did you ever know, my Solon, " he said, "that it was not Jean Jacqueswho saved Carmen at the wreck of the Antoine, but it was she who savedhim; and yet she never breathed of it in all the years. One who wassaved from the Antoine told me of it. Jean Jacques was going down. Carmen gave him her piece of wreckage to hang on to, and swam ashorewithout help. He never gave her the credit. There was something big inthe woman, but it did not come out right. "

M. Fille threw up his hands. "Grace de Dieu, is it so that she savedJean Jacques? Then he would not be here if it had not been for her?"

"That is the obvious deduction, Maitre Fille, " replied the Judge. 

The Clerk of the Court seemed moved. "He did not treat her ill. Iknow that he would take her back to-morrow if he could. He has neverforgotten. I saw him weeping one day--it was where she used to sing tothe flax-beaters by the Beau Cheval. I put my hand on his shoulder, andsaid, 'I know, I comprehend; but be a philosopher, Jean Jacques. '"

"What did he say?" asked the Judge. 

"He drew himself up. 'In my mind, in my soul, I am philosopher always, 'he said, 'but my eyes are the windows of my heart, m'sieu'. They lookout and see the sorrow of one I loved. It is for her sorrow that I weep, not for my own. I have my child, I have money; the world says to me, "How goes it, my friend?" I have a home--a home; but where is she, andwhat does the world say to her?'"

The Judge shook his head sadly. "I used to think I knew life, but I cometo the belief in the end that I know nothing. Who could have guessedthat he would have spoken like that!"

"He forgave her, monsieur. "

The Judge nodded mournfully. "Yes, yes, but I used to think it is suchmen who forgive one day and kill the next. You never can tell where theywill explode, philosophy or no philosophy. "

The Judge was right. After all the years that had passed since his wifehad left him, Jean Jacques did explode. It was the night of his birthdayparty at which was present the Man from Outside. It was in the hour whenhe first saw what the Clerk of the Court had seen some time before--theunderstanding between Zoe and Gerard Fynes. It had never occurred to himthat there was any danger. Zoe had been so indifferent to the young menof St. Saviour's and beyond, had always been so much his friend and thefriend of those much older than himself, like Judge Carcasson and M. Fille, that he had not yet thought of her electing to go and leave himalone. 

To leave him alone! To be left alone--it had never become a possibilityto his mind. It did not break upon him with its full force all at once. He first got the glimmer of it, then the glimmer grew to a glow, and theglow to a great red light, in which his brain became drunk, and all hisphilosophy was burned up like wood-shavings in a fiery furnace. 

"Did you like it so much?" Zoe had asked when her song was finished, andthe Man from Outside had replied, "Ah, but splendid, splendid! It gotinto every corner of every one of us. "

"Into the senses--why not into the heart? Songs are meant for theheart, " said Zoe. 

"Yes, yes, certainly, " was the young man's reply, "but it depends uponthe song whether it touches the heart more than the senses. Won't yousing that perfect thing, 'La Claire Fontaine'?" he added, with eyes asbright as passion and the hectic fires of his lung-trouble could makethem. 

She nodded and was about to sing, for she loved the song, and it hadbeen ringing in her head all day; but at that point M. Fille rose, andwith his glass raised high--for at that moment Seraphe Corniche andanother carried round native wine and cider to the company--he said:

"To Monsieur Jean Jacques Barbille, and his fifty years, goodhealth--bonne sante! This is his birthday. To a hundred years for JeanJacques!"

Instantly everyone was up with glass raised, and Zoe ran and threw herarms round her father's neck. "Kiss me before you drink, " she said. 

With a touch almost solemn in its tenderness Jean Jacques drew her headto his shoulder and kissed her hair, then her forehead. "My blessedone--my angel, " he whispered; but there was a look in his eyes whichonly M. Fille had seen there before. It was the look which had been inhis eyes at the flax-beaters' place by the river. 

"Sing--father, you must sing, " said Zoe, and motioned to the fiddler. "Sing It's Fifty Years, " she cried eagerly. They all repeated herrequest, and he could but obey. 

Jean Jacques' voice was rather rough, but he had some fine resonantnotes in it, and presently, with eyes fastened on the distance, andwith free gesture and much expression, he sang the first verse of thehaunting ballad of the man who had reached his fifty years:

 "Wherefore these flowers? This fete for me? Ah, no, it is not fifty years, Since in my eyes the light you see First shone upon life's joys and tears! How fast the heedless days have flown Too late to wail the misspent hours, To mourn the vanished friends I've known, To kneel beside love's ruined bowers. Ah, have I then seen fifty years, With all their joys and hopes and fears!"

Through all the verses he ranged, his voice improving with each phrase, growing more resonant, till at last it rang out with a ragged richnesswhich went home to the hearts of all. He was possessed. All at once hewas conscious that the beginning of the end of things was come forhim; and that now, at fifty, in no sphere had he absolutely "arrived, "neither in home nor fortune, nor--but yes, there was one sphere ofsuccess; there was his fatherhood. There was his daughter, his wonderfulZoe. He drew his eyes from the distance, and saw that her ardent lookwas not towards him, but towards one whom she had known but a few weeks. 

Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a verse, and broke forward withhis arms outstretched, laughing. He felt that he must laugh, or he wouldcry; and that would be a humiliating thing to do. 

"Come, come, my friends, my children, enough of that!" he cried. "We'llhave no more maundering. Fifty years--what are fifty years! Think ofMethuselah! It's summer in the world still, and it's only spring atSt. Saviour's. It's the time of the first flowers. Let's dance--no, no, never mind the Cure to-night! He will not mind. I'll settle it with him. We'll dance the gay quadrille. "

He caught the hands of the two youngest girls present, and nodded at thefiddler, who at once began to tune his violin afresh. One of the joyousyoung girls, however, began to plead with him. 

"Ah, no, let us dance, but at the last--not yet, M'sieu' Jean Jacques!There is Zoe's song, we must have that, and then we must have charades. Here is M'sieu' Fynes--he can make splendid charades for us. Then thedance at the last--ah, yes, yes, M'sieu' Jean Jacques! Let it be likethat. We all planned it, and though it is your birthday, it's us aremaking the fete. "

"As you will then, as you will, little ones, " Jean Jacques acquiescedwith a half-sigh; but he did not look at his daughter. Somehow, suddenly, a strange constraint possessed him where Zoe was concerned. "Then let us have Zoe's song; let us have 'La Claire Fontaine', " criedthe black-eyed young madcap who held Jean Jacques' arms. 

But Zoe interrupted. "No, no, " she protested, "the singing spell isbroken. We will have the song after the charades--after the charades. "

"Good, good--after the charades!" they all cried, for there would becharades like none which had ever been played before, with a real actorto help them, to carry them through as they did on the stage. To themthe stage was compounded of mystery, gaiety and the forbidden. 

So, for the next half-hour they were all at the disposal of the Man fromOutside, who worked as though it was a real stage, and they were realplayers, and there were great audiences to see them. It was all quitewonderful, and it involved certain posings, attitudes, mimicry andpantomime, for they were really ingenious charades. 

So it happened that Zoe's fingers often came in touch with those ofthe stage-manager, that his hands touched her shoulders, that his cheekbrushed against her dark hair once, and that she had sensations neverexperienced before. Why was it that she thrilled when she came near tohim, that her whole body throbbed and her heart fluttered when theirshoulders or arms touched? Her childlike nature, with all its warmth andvibration of life, had never till now felt the stir of sex in its vitalsense. All men had in one way been the same to her; but now she realizedthat there was a world-wide difference between her Judge Carcasson, herlittle Clerk of the Court, and this young man whose eyes drank hers. Shehad often been excited, even wildly agitated, had been like a sprite letloose in quiet ways; but that was mere spirit. Here was body and sensestoo; here was her whole being alive to a music, which had an achingsweetness and a harmony coaxing every sense into delight. 

"To-morrow evening, by the flume, where the beechtrees are--come--atsix. I want to speak with you. Will you come?"

Thus whispered the maker of this music of the senses, who directed thecharades, but who was also directing the course of another life than hisown. 

"Yes, if I can, " was Zoe's whispered reply, and the words shook as shesaid them; for she felt that their meeting in the beech-trees by theflume would be of consequence beyond imagination. 

Judge Carcasson had always said that Zoe had judgment beyond her years;M. Fille had remarked often that she had both prudence and shrewdness aswell as a sympathetic spirit; but M. Fille's little whispering sister, who could never be tempted away from her home to any house, to whom themarket and the church were like pilgrimages to distant wilds, had saidto her brother:

"Wait, Armand--wait till Zoe is waked, and then prudence and wisdom willbe but accident. If all goes well, you will see prudence and wisdom; butif it does not, you will see--ah, but just Zoe!"

The now alert Jean Jacques had seen the whispering of the two, though hedid not know what had been said. It was, however, something secret, andif it was secret, then it was--yes, it was love; and love between hisdaughter and that waif of the world--the world of the stage--in whichmen and women were only grown-up children, and bad grown-up children atthat--it was not to be endured. One thing was sure, the man should cometo the Manor Cartier no more. He would see to that to-morrow. Therewould be no faltering or paltering on his part. His home had been shakento its foundations once, and he was determined that it should not fallabout his ears a second time. An Englishman, an actor, a Protestant, anda renegade lawyer! It was not to be endured. 

The charade now being played was the best of the evening. One of themadcap friends of Zoe was to be a singing-girl. She was supposed tocarry a tambourine. When her turn to enter came, with a look of mischiefand a gay dancing step, she ran into the room. In her hands was aguitar, not a tambourine. When Zoe saw the guitar she gave a cry. 

"Where did you get that?" she asked in a low, shocked, indignant voice. 

"In your room--your bedroom, " was the half-frightened answer. "I saw iton the dresser, and I took it. "

"Come, come, let's get on with the charade, " urged the Man from Outside. 

On the instant's pause, in which Zoe looked at her lover almostinvoluntarily, and without fully understanding what he said, someoneelse started forward with a smothered exclamation--of anger, of horror, of dismay. It was Jean Jacques. He was suddenly transformed. 

His eyes were darkened by hideous memory, his face alight with passion. He caught from the girl's hands the guitar--Carmen's forgotten guitarwhich he had not seen for seven years--how well he knew it! With bothhands he broke it across his knee. The strings, as they snapped, gavea shrill, wailing cry, like a voice stopped suddenly by death. Steppingjerkily to the fireplace he thrust it into the flame. 

"Ah, there!" he said savagely. "There--there!" When he turned roundslowly again, his face--which he had never sought to control beforehe had his great Accident seven years ago--was under his command. Astrange, ironic-almost sardonic-smile was on his lips. 

"It's in the play, " he said. 

"No, it's not in the charade, Monsieur Barbille, " said the Man fromOutside fretfully. 

"That is the way I read it, m'sieu', " retorted Jean Jacques, and he madea motion to the fiddler. 

"The dance! The dance!" he exclaimed. 

But yet he looked little like a man who wished to dance, save upon agrave. 

CHAPTER XIV. "I DO NOT WANT TO GO"

It is a bad thing to call down a crisis in the night-time. A "scene" atmidnight is a savage enemy of ultimate understanding, and that Devil, called Estrangement, laughs as he observes the objects of his attentionin conflict when the midnight candle burns. 

He should have been seized with a fit of remorse, however, at the sighthe saw in the Manor Cartier at midnight of the day when Jean JacquesBarbille had reached his fiftieth year. There is nothing which, forpathos and for tragedy, can compare with a struggle between the youngand the old. 

The Devil of Estrangement when he sees it, may go away and indulgehimself in sleep; for there will be no sleep for those who, one youngand the other old, break their hearts on each other's anvils, when thelights are low and it is long till morning. 

When Jean Jacques had broken the forgotten guitar which his daughter hadretrieved from her mother's life at the Manor Cartier (all else he hadhad packed and stored away in the flour-mill out of sight) and thrown itin the fire, there had begun a revolt in the girl's heart, founded on asense of injustice, but which itself became injustice also; and that isa dark thing to come between those who love--even as parent and child. 

After her first exclamation of dismay and pain, Zoe had regained hercomposure, and during the rest of the evening she was full of feverishgaiety. Indeed her spirits and playful hospitality made the evening asuccess in spite of the skeleton at the feast. Jean Jacques had alsoroused himself, and, when the dance began, he joined in with spirit, though his face was worn and haggard even when lighted by his smile. Butthough the evening came to the conventional height of hilarity, therewas a note running through it which made even the youngest look at eachother, as though to say, "Now, what's going to happen next!"

Three people at any rate knew that something was going to happen. Theywere Zoe, the Man from Outside and M. Fille. Zoe had had more than onerevelation that night, and she felt again as she did one day, sevenyears before, when, coming home from over the hills, she had steppedinto a house where Horror brooded as palpably as though it sat besidethe fire, or hung above the family table. She had felt something as soonas she had entered the door that far-off day, though the house seemedempty. It was an emptiness which was filled with a torturing presence ortorturing presenes. It had stilled her young heart. What was it? Shehad learned the truth soon enough. Out of the sunset had come her fatherwith a face twisted with misery, and as she ran to him, he had caughther by both shoulders, looked through her eyes to something far beyond, and hoarsely said: "She is gone--gone from us! She has run away fromhome! Curse her baptism--curse it, curse it!"

Zoe could never forget these last words she had ever heard her fatherspeak of Carmen. They were words which would make any Catholic shudderto hear. It was a pity he had used them, for they made her think at lastthat her mother had been treated with injustice. This, in spite of thefact that in the days, now so far away, when her mother was with themshe had ever been nearer to her father, and that, after first childhood, she and her mother were not so close as they had been, when she went tosleep to the humming of a chanson of Cadiz. Her own latent motherhood, however, kept stealing up out of the dim distances of childhood'signorance and, with modesty and allusiveness, whispering knowledge inher ear. So it was that now she looked back pensively to the years shehad spent within sight and sound of her handsome mother, and out of thehunger of her own spirit she had come to idealize her memory. It wasgood to have a loving father; but he was a man, and he was so busy justwhen she wanted--when she wanted she knew not what, but at least to goand lay her head on a heart that would understand what was her sorrow, her joy, or her longing. 

And now here at last was come Crisis, which showed its thunderoushead in the gay dance, and shook his war-locks in the fire, where hermother's guitar had shrieked in its last agony. 

When all the guests had gone, when the bolts had been shot home, and oldSeraphe Corniche had gone to bed, father and daughter came face to face. 

There was a moment's pause, as the two looked at each other, and thenZoe came up to Jean Jacques to kiss him good-night. It was her way offacing the issue. Instinctively she knew that he would draw back, andthat the struggle would begin. It might almost seem that she had invitedit; for she had let the Man from Outside hold her hand for far longerthan courtesy required, while her father looked on with fretfuleyes--even with a murmuring which was not a benediction. Indeed, he hadevaded shaking hands with his hated visitor by suddenly offering him acigar, and then in the doorway itself handing a lighted match. 

"His eminence, Cardinal Christophe, gave these cigars to me when hepassed through St. Saviour's five years ago, " Jean Jacques had remarkedloftily, "and I always smoke one on my birthday. I am a good Catholic, and his eminence rested here for a whole day. "

He had had a grim pleasure in avoiding the handshake, and in having theProtestant outsider smoke the Catholic cigar! In his anger it seemed tohim that he had done something worthy almost of the Vatican, indeed ofthe great Cardinal Christophe himself. Even in his moments of crisis, in his hours of real tragedy, in the times when he was shaken to thecentre, Jean Jacques fancied himself more than a little. It was asthe master-carpenter had remarked seven years before, he was alwaysinvoluntarily saying, "Here I come--look at me. I am Jean JacquesBarbille!"

When Zoe reached out a hand to touch his arm, and raised her face asthough to kiss him good-night, Jean Jacques drew back. 

"Not yet, Zoe, " he said. "There are some things--What is all thisbetween you and that man?. .. I have seen. You must not forget who youare--the daughter of Jean Jacques Barbille, of the Manor Cartier, whosename is known in the whole province, who was asked to stand for thelegislature. You are Zoe Barbille--Mademoiselle Zoe Barbille. We do notput on airs. We are kind to our neighbours, but I am descended from theBaron of Beaugard. I have a place--yes, a place in society; and it isfor you to respect it. You comprehend?"

Zoe flushed, but there was no hesitation whatever in her reply. "I amwhat I have always been, and it is not my fault that I am the daughterof M. Jean Jacques Barbille! I have never done anything which was notgood enough for the Manor Cartier. " She held her head firmly as she saidit. 

Now Jean Jacques flushed, and he did hesitate in his reply. He hatedirony in anyone else, though he loved it in himself, when heaven gavehim inspiration thereto. He was in a state of tension, and was readyto break out, to be a force let loose--that is the way he would haveexpressed it; and he was faced by a new spirit in his daughter whichwould surely spring the mine, unless he secured peace by strategy. Hehad sense enough to feel the danger. 

He did not see, however, any course for diplomacy here, for she hadgiven him his cue in her last words. As a pure logician he was bound totake it, though it might lead to drama of a kind painful to them both. 

"It is not good enough for the Manor Cartier that you go falling in lovewith a nobody from nowhere, " he responded. 

"I am not falling in love, " she rejoined. 

"What did you mean, then, by looking at him as you did; by whisperingtogether; by letting him hold your hand when he left, and him looking atyou as though he'd eat you up--without sugar!"

"I said I was not falling in love, " she persisted, quietly, but withcharacteristic boldness. "I am in love. "

"You are in love with him--with that interloper! Heaven of heavens, doyou speak the truth? Answer me, Zoe Barbille. "

She bridled. "Certainly I will answer. Did you think I would let a manlook at me as he did, that I would look at a man as I looked at him, that I would let him hold my hand as I did, if I did not love him? Haveyou ever seen me do it before?"

Her voice was even and quiet--as though she had made up her mind on acourse, and meant to carry it through to the end. 

"No, I never saw you look at a man like that, and everything is as yousay, but--" his voice suddenly became uneven and higher--pitched and alittle hoarse, "but he is English, he is an actor--only that; and he isa Protestant. "

"Only that?" she asked, for the tone of his voice was such as one woulduse in speaking of a toad or vermin, and she could not bear it. "Is it adisgrace to be any one of those things?"

"The Barbilles have been here for two hundred years; they have beenFrench Catholics since the time of"--he was not quite sure--"since thetime of Louis XI. , " he added at a venture, and then paused, overcome byhis own rashness. 

"Yes, that is a long time, " she said, "but what difference does it make?We are just what we are now, and as if there never had been a Baron ofBeaugard. What is there against Gerard except that he is an actor, thathe is English, and that he is a Protestant? Is there anything?"

"Sacre, is it not enough? An actor, what is that--to pretend to besomeone else and not to be yourself!"

"It would be better for a great many people to be someone else ratherthan themselves--for nothing; and he does it for money. "

"For money! What money has he got? You don't know. None of us know. Besides, he's a Protestant, and he's English, and that ends it. Therenever has been an Englishman or a Protestant in the Barbille family, andit shan't begin at the Manor Cartier. " Jean Jacques' voice was rising inproportion as he perceived her quiet determination. Here was somethingof the woman who had left him seven years ago--left this comfortablehome of his to go to disgrace and exile, and God only knew what else!Here in this very room--yes, here where they now were, father anddaughter, stood husband and wife that morning when he had his hand onthe lever prepared to destroy the man who had invaded his home; who hadcast a blight upon it, which remained after all the years; after he haddone all a man could do to keep the home and the woman too. The womanhad gone; the home remained with his daughter in it, and now again therewas a fight for home and the woman. Memory reproduced the picture of themother standing just where the daughter now stood, Carmen quiet and wellin hand, and himself all shaken with weakness, and with all power goneout of him--even the power which rage and a murderous soul give. 

But yet this was different. There was no such shame here as had fallenon him seven years ago. But there was a shame after its kind; and if itwere not averted, there was the end of the home, of the prestige, thepride and the hope of "M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe. "

"What shall not begin here at the Manor Cartier?" she asked with burningcheek. 

"The shame--it shall not begin here. "

"What shame, father?"

"Of marriage with a Protestant and an actor. "

"You will not let me marry him?" she persisted stubbornly. 

Her words seemed to shake him all to pieces. It was as though he wasgoing through the older tragedy all over again. It had possessed himever since the sight of Carmen's guitar had driven him mad three hoursago. He swayed to and fro, even as he did when his hand left the leverand he let the master-carpenter go free. It was indeed a philosopherunder torture, a spirit rocking on its anchor. Just now she had put intowords herself what, even in his fear, he had hoped had no place in hermind--marriage with the man. He did not know this daughter of his verywell. There was that in her which was far beyond his ken. Thousands ofmiles away in Spain it had origin, and the stream of tendency came downthrough long generations, by courses unknown to him. 

"Marry him--you want to marry him!" he gasped. "You, my Zoe, want tomarry that tramp of a Protestant!"

Her eyes blazed in anger. Tramp--the man with the air of a youngAlexander, with a voice like the low notes of the guitar thrown to theflames! Tramp!

"If I love him I ought to marry him, " she answered with a kind ofcalmness, however, though all her body was quivering. Suddenly she cameclose to her father, a great sympathy welled up in her eyes, and hervoice shook. 

"I do not want to leave you, father, and I never meant to do so. I neverthought of it as possible; but now it is different. I want to stay withyou; but I want to go with him too. "

Presently as she seemed to weaken before him, he hardened. "You can'thave both, " he declared with as much sternness as was possible to him, and with a Norman wilfulness which was not strength. "You shallnot marry an actor and a Protestant. You shall not marry a man likethat--never--never--never. If you do, you will never have a penny ofmine, and I will never--"

"Oh, hush--Mother of Heaven, hush!" she cried. "You shall not put acurse on me too. "

"What curse?" he burst forth, passion shaking him. "You cursed mymother's baptism. It would be a curse to be told that you would seeme no more, that I should be no more part of this home. There has beenenough of that curse here. .. . Ah, why--why--" she added with a suddenrush of indignation, "why did you destroy the only thing I had of hers?It was all that was left--her guitar. I loved it so. "

All at once, with a cry of pain, she turned and ran to thedoor--entering on the staircase which led to her room. In the doorwayshe turned. 

"I can't help it. I can't help it, father. I love him--but I love youtoo, " she cried. "I don't want to go--oh, I don't want to go! Why doyou--?" her voice choked; she did not finish the sentence; or if shedid, he could not hear. 

Then she opened the door wide, and disappeared into the darkness ofthe unlighted stairway, murmuring, "Pity--have pity on me, holy Mother, Vierge Marie!" Then the door closed behind her almost with a bang. 

After a moment of stupefied inaction Jean Jacques hurried over andthrew open the door she had closed. "Zoe--little Zoe, come back andsay good-night, " he called. But she did not hear, for, with a burst ofcrying, she had hurried into her own room and shut and locked the door. 

It was a pity, a measureless pity, as Mary the Mother must have seen, if she could see mortal life at all, that Zoe did not hear him. It mighthave altered the future. As it was, the Devil of Estrangement might wellbe content with his night's work. 

CHAPTER XV. BON MARCHE

Vilray was having its market day, and everyone was either going to orcoming from market, or buying and selling in the little square bythe Court House. It was the time when the fruits were coming in, whenvegetables were in full yield, when fish from the Beau Cheval were to behad in plenty--from mud-cats and suckers, pike and perch, to rock-bass, sturgeon and even maskinonge. Also it was the time of year when butterand eggs, chickens and ducks were so cheap that it was a humiliationnot to buy. There were other things on sale also, not for eatingand drinking, but for wear and household use--from pots and pans torag-carpets and table-linen, from woollen yarn to pictures of the Virginand little calvaries. 

These were side by side with dried apples, bottled fruits, jars of maplesyrup, and cordials of so generous and penetrating a nature that thecurrant and elderberry wine by which they were flanked were tipple forbabes beside them. Indeed, when a man wanted to forget himself quicklyhe drank one of these cordials, in preference to the white whisky socommonly imbibed in the parishes. But the cordials being expensive, theywere chiefly bought for festive occasions like a wedding, a funeral, aconfirmation, or the going away of some young man or young woman tothe monastery or the convent to forget the world. Meanwhile, if thesespiritual argonauts drank it, they were likely to forget the world onthe way to their voluntary prisons. It was very seldom that a man orwoman bought the cordials for ordinary consumption, and when that wasdone, it would almost make a parish talk! Yet cordials of nice brown, of delicate green, of an enticing yellow colour, were here for saleat Vilray market on the morning after the painful scene at the ManorCartier between Zoe and her father. 

The market-place was full--fuller than it had been for many a day. Agreat many people were come in as much to "make fete" as to buy andsell. It was a saint's day, and the bell of St. Monica's had beenringing away cheerfully twice that morning. To it the bell of the CourtHouse had made reply, for a big case was being tried in the court. Itwas a river-driving and lumber case for which many witnesses hadbeen called; and there were all kinds of stray people in theplace--red-shirted river-drivers, a black-coated Methodist minister fromChalfonte, clerks from lumber-firms, and foremen of lumber-yards; andamong these was one who greatly loved such a day as this when he couldbe free from work, and celebrate himself!

Other people might celebrate saints dead and gone, and drink to 'LaPatrie', and cry "Vive Napoleon!" or "Vive la Republique!" or "Vive laReine!" though this last toast of the Empire was none too common--but hecould only drink with real sincerity to the health of Sebastian Dolores, which was himself. Sebastian Dolores was the pure anarchist, the mostcomplete of monomaniacs. 

"Here comes the father of the Spanische, " remarked Mere Langlois, whopresided over a heap of household necessities, chiefly dried fruits, preserves and pickles, as Sebastian Dolores appeared not far away. 

"Good-for-nothing villain! I pity the poor priest that confesses him. "

"Who is the Spanische?" asked a young woman from her own stall or standvery near, as she involuntarily arranged her hair and adjusted herwaist-belt; for the rakish-looking reprobate, with the air of havingbeen somewhere, was making towards them; and she was young enough tocare how she looked when a man, who took notice, was near. Her ownhusband had been a horse-doctor, farmer, and sportsman of a kind, andshe herself was now a farmer of a kind; and she had only resided in theparish during the three years since she had been married to, and buried, Palass Poucette. 

Old Mere Langlois looked at her companion in merchanting irritably, thenshe remembered that Virginie Poucette was a stranger, in a way, and wastherefore deserving of pity, and she said with compassionate patronage:"Newcomer you--I'd forgotten. Look you then, the Spanische was the wifeof my third cousin, M'sieu' Jean Jacques, and--"

Virginie Poucette nodded, and the slight frown cleared from her low yetshapely forehead. "Yes, yes, of course I know. I've heard enough. Whata fool she was, and M'sieu' Jean Jacques so rich and kind andgood-looking! So this is her father--well, well, well!"

Palass Poucette's widow leaned forward, and looked intently at SebastianDolores, who had stopped near by, and facing a couple of barrels onwhich were exposed some bottles of cordial and home-made wine. Hewas addressing himself with cheerful words to the dame that owned themerchandise. 

"I suppose you think it's a pity Jean Jacques can't get a divorce, "said Mere Langlois, rather spitefully to Virginie, for she had hersex's aversion to widows who had had their share of mankind, and wereafterwards free to have someone else's share as well. But suddenlyrepenting, for Virginie was a hard-working widow who had behavedvery well for an outsider--having come from Chalfonte beyond the BeauChevalshe added: "But if he was a Protestant and could get a divorce, and you did marry him, you'd make him have more sense than he's got;for you've a quiet sensible way, and you've worked hard since PalassPoucette died. "

"Where doesn't he show sense, that M'sieu' Jean Jacques?" the youngerwoman asked. 

"Where? Why, with his girl--with Ma'm'selle. " "Everybody I ever heardspeaks well of Ma'm'selle Zoe, " returned the other warmly, for she hada very generous mind and a truthful, sentimental heart. Mere Langloissniffed, and put her hands on her hips, for she had a daughter of herown; also she was a relation of Jean Jacques, and therefore resented inone way the difference in their social position, while yet she plumedherself on being kin. 

"Then you'll learn something now you never knew before, " she said. "She's been carrying on--there's no other word for it--with an actorfellow--"

"Yes, yes, I did hear about him--a Protestant and an Englishman. "

"Well, then, why do you pretend you don't know--only to hear me talk, isit? Take my word, I'd teach cousin Zoe a lesson with all her educationand her two years at the convent. Wasn't it enough that her mothershould spoil everything for Jean Jacques, and make the Manor Cartiera place to point the finger at, without her bringing disgrace on theparish too! What happened last night--didn't I hear this morning beforeI had my breakfast! Didn't I--"

She then proceeded to describe the scene in which Jean Jacques hadthrown the wrecked guitar of his vanished spouse into the fire. Beforeshe had finished, however, something occurred which swept them intoanother act of the famous history of Jean Jacques Barbille and hishouse. 

She had arrived at the point where Zoe had cried aloud in pain at herfather's incendiary act, when there was a great stir at the Court Housedoor which opened on the market-place, and vagrant cheers arose. These were presently followed by a more disciplined fusillade; whichpresently, in turn, was met by hisses and some raucous cries ofresentment. These increased as a man appeared on the steps of the CourtHouse, looked round for a moment in a dazed kind of way, then seeingsome friends below who were swarming towards him, gave a ribald cry, andscrambled down the steps towards them. 

He was the prisoner whose release had suddenly been secured by apiece of evidence which had come as a thunder-clap on judge and jury. Immediately after giving this remarkable evidence the witness--SebastianDolores--had left the court-room. He was now engaged in buying cordialsin the market-place--in buying and drinking them; for he had pulled thecork out of a bottle filled with a rich yellow liquid, and had drainedhalf the bottle at a gulp. Presently he offered the remainder to apassing carter, who made a gesture of contempt and passed on, for, tohim, white whisky was the only drink worth while. Besides, he dislikedSebastian Dolores. Then, with a flourish, the Spaniard tendered thebottle to Madame Langlois and Palass Poucette's widow, at whose cornerof merchandise he had now arrived. 

Surely there never was a more benign villain and perjurer in the worldthan Sebastian Dolores! His evidence, given a half-hour before, withevery sign of truthfulness, was false. The man--Rocque Valescure--forwhom he gave it was no friend of his; but he owned a tavern called "TheRed Eagle, " a few miles from the works where the Spaniard was employed;also Rocque Valescure's wife set a good table, and Sebastian Dolores wasa very liberal feeder; when he was not hungry he was always thirsty. Theappeasement of hunger and thirst was now become a problem to him, forhis employers at Beauharnais had given him a month's notice because ofcertain irregularities which had come to their knowledge. Like a wiseman Sebastian Dolores had said nothing about this abroad, but hadenlarged his credit in every direction, and had then planned this pieceof friendly perjury for Rocque Valescure, who was now descendingthe steps of the Court House to the arms of his friends and amid theexecrations of his foes. What the alleged crime was does not matter. It has no vital significance in the history of Jean Jacques Barbille, though it has its place as a swivel on which the future swung. 

Sebastian Dolores had saved Rocque Valescure from at least three yearsin jail, and possibly a very heavy fine as well; and this servicemust have its due reward. Something for nothing was not the motto ofSebastian Dolores; and he confidently looked forward to having a home at"The Red Eagle" and a banker in its landlord. He was no longer certainthat he could rely on help from Jean Jacques, to whom he already owed somuch. That was why he wanted to make Rocque Valescure his debtor. Itwas not his way to perjure his soul for nothing. He had done so inSpain--yet not for nothing either. He had saved his head, which was nowdoing useful work for himself and for a needy fellow-creature. No onecould doubt that he had helped a neighbour in great need, and had doneit at some expense to his own nerve and brain. None but an expert couldhave lied as he had done in the witness-box. Also he had upheld his lieswith a striking narrative of circumstantiality. He made things fitin "like mortised blocks" as the Clerk of the Court said to JudgeCarcasson, when they discussed the infamy afterwards with clearconviction that it was perjury of a shameless kind; for one who wouldperjure himself to save a man from jail, would also swear a man into thegallows-rope. But Judge Carcasson had not been able to charge thejury in that sense, for there was no effective evidence to rebut theuntruthful attestation of the Spaniard. It had to be taken for what itwas worth, since the prosecuting attorney could not shake it; and yet tothe Court itself it was manifestly false witness. 

Sebastian Dolores was too wise to throw himself into the arms of hisreleased tavern-keeper here immediately after the trial, or to allowRocque Valescure a like indiscretion and luxury; for there was a stronglaw against perjury, and right well Sebastian Dolores knew that oldJudge Carcasson would have little mercy on him, in spite of the factthat he was the grandfather of Zoe Barbille. The Judge would probablythink that safe custody for his wayward character would be the kindestthing he could do for Zoe. Therefore it was that Sebastian Dolorespaid no attention to the progress of the released landlord of "The RedEagle, " though, by a glance out of the corner of his eyes, he made surethat the footsteps of liberated guilt were marching at a tangent fromwhere he was--even to the nearest tavern. 

It was enough for Dolores that he should watch the result of his gooddeed from the isolated area where he now was, in the company of twovirtuous representatives of domesticity. His time with liberated guiltwould come! He chuckled to think how he had provided himself witha refuge against his hour of trouble. That very day he had left hisemployment, meaning to return no more, securing his full wages throughhaving suddenly become resentful and troublesome, neglectful--andimperative. To avoid further unpleasantness the firm had paid him allhis wages; and he had straightway come to Vilray to earn his bedand board by other means than through a pen, a ledger and a gift forfigures. It would not be a permanent security against the future, butit would suffice for the moment. It was a rest-place on the road. Ifthe worst came to the worst, there was his grand-daughter and his dearson-in-law whom he so seldom saw--blood was thicker than water, and hewould see to it that it was not thinned by neglect. 

Meanwhile he ogled Palass Poucette's widow with one eye, and talkedsoftly with his tongue to Mere Langlois, as he importuned Madame to "Sipthe good cordial in the name of charity to all and malice towards none. "

"You're a bad man--you, and I want none of your cordials, " was MereLanglois's response. "Malice towards none, indeed! If you and the devilstarted business in the same street, you'd make him close up shop in ayear. I've got your measure, for sure; I have you certain as an arm anda pair of stirrups. "

"I go about doing good--only good, " returned the old sinner with a leerat the young widow, whose fingers he managed to press unseen, as heswung the little bottle of cordial before the eyes of Mere Langlois. He was not wholly surprised when Palass Poucette's widow did not showabrupt displeasure at his bold familiarity. 

A wild thought flashed into his mind. Might there not be another refugehere--here in Palass Poucette's widow! He was sixty-three, it was true, and she was only thirty-two; but for her to be an old man's darling whohad no doubt been a young man's slave, that would surely have its weightwith her. Also she owned the farm where she lived; and she was pleasantpasturage--that was the phrase he used in his own mind, even as his eyeswept from Mere Langlois to hers in swift, hungry inquiry. 

He seemed in earnest when he spoke--but that was his way; it had donehim service often. "I do good whenever it comes my way to do it, " hecontinued. "I left my work this morning"--he lied of course--"and hireda buggy to bring me over here, all at my own cost, to save a fellow-man. There in the Court House he was sure of prison, with a wife and threesmall children weeping in 'The Red Eagle'; and there I come at greatexpense and trouble to tell the truth--before all to tell the truth--andsave him and set him free. Yonder he is in the tavern, the work of myhands, a gift to the world from an honest man with a good heart and asense of justice. But for me there would be a wife and three childrenin the bondage of shame, sorrow, poverty and misery"--his eyes againravished the brown eyes of Palass Poucette's widow--"and here again Idrink to my own health and to that of all good people--with charity toall and malice towards none!"

The little bottle of golden cordial was raised towards Mere Langlois. The fingers of one hand, however, were again seeking those of thecomely young widow who was half behind him, when he felt them caughtspasmodically away. Before he had time to turn round he heard a voice, saying: "I should have thought that 'With malice to all and charitytowards none, ' was your motto, Dolores. "

He knew that voice well enough. He had always had a lurking fear thathe would hear it say something devastating to him, from the great chairwhere its owner sat and dispensed what justice a jury would permithim to do. That devastating something would be agony to one who lovedliberty and freedom--had not that ever been his watchword, liberty andfreedom to do what he pleased in the world and with the world? Yes, hewell knew Judge Carcasson's voice. He would have recognized it in thedark--or under the black cap. "M'sieu' le juge!" he said, even beforehe turned round and saw the faces of the tiny Judge and his Clerk ofthe Court. There was a kind of quivering about his mouth, and a startledlook in his eyes as he faced the two. But there was the widow of PalassPoucette, and, if he was to pursue and frequent her, something must bedone to keep him decently figured in her eye and mind. 

"It cost me three dollars to come here and save a man from jail to-day, m'sieu' le juge, " he added firmly. The Judge pressed the point of hiscane against the stomach of the hypocrite and perjurer. "If theDevil and you meet, he will take off his hat to you, my escapedanarchist"--Dolores started almost violently now--"for you can teachhim much, and Ananias was the merest aboriginal to you. But we'll getyou--we'll get you, Dolores. You saved that guilty fellow by a carefuland remarkable perjury to-day. In a long experience I have never seen abetter performance--have you, monsieur?" he added to M. Fille. 

"But once, " was the pointed and deliberate reply. "Ah, when was that?"asked Judge Carcasson, interested. 

"The year monsieur le juge was ill, and Judge Blaquiere took your place. It was in Vilray at the Court House here. "

"Ah--ah, and who was the phenomenon--the perfect liar?" asked the Judgewith the eagerness of the expert. 

"His name was Sebastian Dolores, " meditatively replied M. Fille. "It waseven a finer performance than that of to-day. "

The Judge gave a little grunt of surprise. "Twice, eh?" he asked. "Yetthis was good enough to break any record, " he added. He fastened theyoung widow's eyes. "Madame, you are young, and you have an eye ofintelligence. Be sure of this: you can protect yourself against almostanyone except a liar--eh, madame?" he added to Mere Langlois. "I am sureyour experience of life and your good sense--"

"My good sense would make me think purgatory was hell if I saw him"--shenodded savagely at Dolores as she said it, for she had seen that lasteffort of his to take the fingers of Palass Poucette's widow--"if I sawhim there, m'sieu' le juge. "

"We'll have you yet--we'll have you yet, Dolores, " said the Judge, asthe Spaniard prepared to move on. But, as Dolores went, he again caughtthe eyes of the young widow. 

This made him suddenly bold. "'Thou shalt not bear false witness againstthy neighbour, '--that is the commandment, is it not, m'sieu' le juge?You are doing against me what I didn't do in Court to-day. I saved a manfrom your malice. "

The crook of the Judge's cane caught the Spaniard's arm, and held himgently. 

"You're possessed of a devil, Dolores, " he said, "and I hope I'll neverhave to administer justice in your case. I might be more man than judge. But you will come to no good end. You will certainly--"

He got no further, for the attention of all was suddenly arrested by awagon driving furiously round the corner of the Court House. It was ared wagon. In it was Jean Jacques Barbille. 

His face was white and set; his head was thrust forward, as thoughlooking at something far ahead of him; the pony stallions he was drivingwere white with sweat, and he had an air of tragic helplessness andpanic. 

Suddenly a child ran across the roadway in front of the ponies, and thewild cry of the mother roused Jean Jacques out of his agonized trance. He sprang to his feet, wrenching the horses backward and aside withdeftness and presence of mind. The margin of safety was not more than afoot, but the child was saved. 

The philosopher of the Manor Cartier seemed to come out of a dreamas men and women applauded, and cries arose of "Bravo, M'sieu' JeanJacques!"

At any other time this would have made Jean Jacques nod and smile, orwave a hand, or exclaim in good fellowship. Now, however, his eyes werefull of trouble, and the glassiness of the semi-trance leaving them, they shifted restlessly here and there. Suddenly they fastened on thelittle group of which Judge Carcasson was the centre. He had stopped hishorses almost beside them. 

"Ah!" he said, "ah!" as his eyes rested on the Judge. "Ah!" he againexclaimed, as the glance ran from the Judge to Sebastian Dolores. "Ah, mercy of God!" he added, in a voice which had both a low note and a highnote-deep misery and shrill protest in one. Then he seemed to choke, andwords would not come, but he kept looking, looking at Sebastian Dolores, as though fascinated and tortured by the sight of him. 

"What is it, Jean Jacques?" asked the little Clerk of the Court gently, coming forward and laying a hand on the steaming flank of a spent andtrembling pony. 

As though he could not withdraw his gaze from Sebastian Dolores, JeanJacques did not look at M. Fille; but he thrust out the long whiphe carried towards the father of his vanished Carmen and his Zoe'sgrandfather, and with the deliberation of one to whom speaking was likethe laceration of a nerve he said: "Zoe's run away--gone--gone!"

At that moment Louis Charron, his cousin, at whose house Gerard Fyneshad lodged, came down the street galloping his horse. Seeing the redwagon, he made for it, and drew rein. 

"It's no good, Jean Jacques, " he called. "They're married and gone toMontreal--married right under our noses by the Protestant minister atTerrebasse Junction. I've got the telegram here from the stationmasterat Terrebasse. .. . Ah, the villain to steal away like that--only achild--from her own father! Here it is--the telegram. But believe me, anactor, a Protestant and a foreigner--what a devil's mess!"

He waved the telegram towards Jean Jacques. 

"Did he owe you anything, Louis?" asked old Mere Langlois, whosepractical mind was alert to find the material status of things. 

"Not a sou. Well, but he was honest, I'll say that for the rogue andseducer. "

"Seducer--ah, God choke you with your own tongue!" cried Jean Jacques, turning on Louis Charron with a savage jerk of the whip he held. "She isas pure--"

"It is no marriage, of course!" squeaked a voice from the crowd. 

"It'll be all right among the English, won't it, monsieur le juge?"asked the gentle widow of Palass Poucette, whom the scene seemed torouse out of her natural shyness. 

"Most sure, madame, most sure, " answered the Judge. "It will be allright among the English, and it is all right among the French so faras the law is concerned. As for the Church, that is anothermatter. But--but see, " he added addressing Louis Charron, "does thestation-master say what place they took tickets for?"

"Montreal and Winnipeg, " was the reply. "Here it is in the telegram. Winnipeg--that's as English as London. "

"Winnipeg--a thousand miles!" moaned Jean Jacques. 

With the finality which the tickets for Winnipeg signified, the shrillpanic emotion seemed to pass from him. In its mumbling, deadening forceit was like a sentence on a prisoner. 

As many eyes were on Sebastian Dolores as on Jean Jacques. "It's the badblood that was in her, " said a farmer with a significant gesture towardsSebastian Dolores. 

"A little bad blood let out would be a good thing, " remarked a truculentriver-driver, who had given evidence directly contrary to that given bySebastian Dolores in the trial just concluded. There was a savage lookin his eye. 

Sebastian Dolores heard, and he was not the man to invite trouble. Hecould do no good where he was, and he turned to leave the market-place;but in doing so he sought the eye of Virginie Poucette, who, however, kept her face at an angle from him, as she saw Mere Langlois sharplywatching her. 

"Grandfather, mother and daughter, all of a piece!" said a spitefulwoman, as Sebastian Dolores passed her. The look he gave her was notthe same as that he had given to Palass Poucette's widow. If it hadbeen given by a Spanish inquisitor to a heretic, little hope would haveremained in the heretic's heart. Yet there was a sad patient look on hisface, as though he was a martyr. He had no wish to be a martyr; but hehad a feeling that for want of other means of expressing their sympathywith Jean Jacques, these rough people might tar and feather him atleast; though it was only his misfortune that those sprung from hisloins had such adventurous spirits!

Sebastian Dolores was not without a real instinct regarding things. Whatwas in his mind was also passing through that of the river-driver and afew of his friends, and they carefully watched the route he was taking. 

Jean Jacques prepared to depart. He had ever loved to be the centre of apicture, but here was a time when to be in the centre was torture. Eyesof morbid curiosity were looking at the open wounds of his heart-raggedwounds made by the shrapnel of tragedy and treachery, not the cleanwounds got in a fair fight, easily healed. For the moment at least thelittle egoist was a mere suffering soul--an epitome of shame, misery anddisappointment. He must straightway flee the place where he was tied tothe stake of public curiosity and scorn. He drew the reins tighter, andthe horses straightened to depart. Then it was that old Judge Carcassonlaid a hand on his knee. 

"Come, come, " he said to the dejected and broken little man, "where isyour philosophy?"

Jean Jacques looked at the Judge, as though with a new-born suspicionthat henceforth the world would laugh at him, and that Judge Carcassonwas setting the fashion; but seeing a pitying moisture in the other'seyes, he drew himself up, set his jaw, and calling on all the forces athis command, he said:

"Moi je suis philosophe!"

His voice frayed a little on the last word, but his head was up now. The Clerk of the Court would have asked to accompany him to the ManorCartier, but he was not sure that Jean Jacques would like it. He had afeeling that Jean Jacques would wish to have his dark hour alone. Sohe remained silent, and Jean Jacques touched his horses with the whip. After starting, however, and having been followed for a hundred yardsor so by the pitying murmurs and a few I-told-you-so's and revilings forhaving married as he did, Jean Jacques stopped the ponies. Standing upin the red wagon he looked round for someone whom, for a moment, he didnot see in the slowly shifting crowd. 

Philosophy was all very well, and he had courageously given hisallegiance to it, or a formula of it, a moment before; but there wassomething deeper and rarer still in the little man's soul. His hearthungered for the two women who had been the joy and pride of his life, even when he had been lost in the business of the material world. Theywere more to him than he had ever known; they were parts of himselfwhich had slowly developed, as the features and characteristics ofancestors gradually emerge and are emphasized in a descendant as hisyears increase. Carmen and Zoe were more a part of himself now than theyhad ever been. 

They were gone, the living spirits of his home. Anything that remindedhim of them, despite the pain of the reminder, was dear to him. Lovewas greater than the vengeful desire of injured human nature. His eyeswandered over the people, over the market. At last he saw what he waslooking for. He called. A man turned. Jean Jacques beckoned to him. Hecame eagerly, he hurried to the red wagon. 

"Come home with me, " said Jean Jacques. 

The words were addressed to Sebastian Dolores, who said to himself thatthis was a refuge surer than "The Red Eagle, " or the home of the widowPoucette. He climbed in beside Jean Jacques with a sigh of content. 

"Ah, but that--but that is the end of our philosopher, " said JudgeCarcasson sadly to the Clerk of the Court, as with amazement he saw thiscatastrophe. 

"Alas! if I had only asked to go with him, as I wished to do!" respondedM. Fille. "There, but a minute ago, it was in my mind, " he added with alook of pain. 

"You missed your chance, falterer, " said the Judge severely. "If youhave a good thought, act on it--that is the golden rule. You missed yourchance. It will never come again. He has taken the wrong turning, ourunhappy Jean Jacques. "

"Monsieur--oh, monsieur, do not shut the door in the face of Godlike that!" said the shocked little master of the law. "Those twotogether--it may be only for a moment. "

"Ah, no, my little owl, Jean Jacques will wind the boa-constrictor roundhis neck like a collar, all for love of those he has lost, " answered theJudge with emotion; and he caught M. Fille's arm in the companionship ofsorrow. 

In silence these two watched the red wagon till it was out of sight. 

CHAPTER XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY

Judge Carcasson was right. For a year after Zoe's flight Jean Jacqueswrapped Sebastian Dolores round his neck like a collar, and it chokedhim like a boaconstrictor. But not Sebastian Dolores alone did that. When things begin to go wrong in the life of a man whose hands haveheld too many things, the disorder flutters through all the radii of hisaffairs, and presently they rattle away from the hub of his control. 

So it was with Jean Jacques. To take his reprobate father-in-law to hislonely home would have brought him trouble in any case; but as thingswere, the Spaniard became only the last straw which broke his camel'sback. And what a burden his camel carried--flour-mill, saw-mill, ash-factory, farms, a general store, lime-kilns, agency forlightning-rods and insurance, cattle-dealing, the project for the newcheese-factory, and money-lending!

Money-lending? It seemed strange that Jean Jacques should be able tolend money, since he himself had to borrow, and mortgage also, from timeto time. When things began to go really wrong with him financially, hemortgaged his farms, his flour-mill, and saw-mill, and then lent moneyon other mortgages. This he did because he had always lent money, and itwas a habit so associated with his prestige, that he tied himself up inborrowing and lending and counter-mortgaging till, as the saying is, "a Philadelphia lawyer" could not have unravelled his affairs withouthaving been born again in the law. That he was able to manipulate histangled affairs, while keeping the confidence of those from whom heborrowed, and the admiration of those to whom he lent, was evidence ofhis capacity. "Genius of a kind" was what his biggest creditor called itlater. 

After a personal visit to St. Saviour's, this biggest creditor andfinancial potentate--M. Mornay--said that if Jean Jacques had beenstarted right and trained right, he would have been a "general in thefinancial field, winning big battles. "

M. Mornay chanced to be a friend of Judge Carcasson, and when he visitedVilray he remembered that the Judge had spoken often of his humble butlearned friend, the Clerk of the Court, and of his sister. So M. Mornay made his way from the office of the firm of avocats whom he hadinstructed in his affairs with Jean Jacques, to that of M. Fille. Herehe was soon engaged in comment on the master-miller and philosopher. 

"He has had much trouble, and no doubt his affairs have suffered, "remarked M. Fille cautiously, when the ice had been broken and the BigFinancier had referred casually to the difficulties among which JeanJacques was trying to maintain equilibrium; "but he is a man who can dothings too hard for other men. "

The Big Financier lighted another cigar and blew away several clouds ofsmoke before he said in reply, "Yes, I know he has had family troubleagain, but that is a year ago, and he has had a chance to get anothergrip of things. "

"He did not sit down and mope, " explained M. Fille. "He was at work thenext day after his daughter's flight just the same as before. He is aman of great courage. Misfortune does not paralyse him. "

M. Mornay's speech was of a kind which came in spurts, with pauses ofthought between, and the pause now was longer than usual. 

"Paralysis--certainly not, " he said at last. "Physical activity is oneof the manifestations of mental, moral, and even physical shock andinjury. I've seen a man with a bullet in him run a half-mile--anywhere;I've seen a man ripped up by a crosscut-saw hold himself together, andwalk--anywhere--till he dropped. Physical and nervous activity is one ofthe forms which shattered force takes. I expect that your 'M'sieu' JeanJacques' has been busier this last year than ever before in his life. He'd have to be; for a man who has as many irons in the fire as he has, must keep running from bellows to bellows when misfortune starts to damphim down. "

The Clerk of the Court sighed. He realized the significance of what hisvisitor was saying. Ever Since Zoe had gone, Jean Jacques had been forever on the move, for ever making hay on which the sun did not shine. Jean Jacques' face these days was lined and changeful. It lookedunstable and tired--as though disturbing forces were working up to thesurface out of control. The brown eyes, too, were far more restlessthan they had ever been since the Antoine was wrecked, and their ownerreturned with Carmen to the Manor Cartier. But the new restlessness ofthe eyes was different from the old. That was a mobility impelled byan active, inquisitive soul, trying to observe what was going on in theworld, and to make sure that its possessor was being seen by the world. This activity was that of a mind essentially concerned to find how manyways it could see for escape from a maze of things; while his vanitywas taking new forms. It was always anxious to discover if the world wastrying to know how he was taking the blows of fate and fortune. He hadbeen determined that, whatever came, it should not see him paralysed orbroken. 

As M. Fille only nodded his head in sorrowful assent, the Big Financierbecame more explicit. He was determined to lose nothing by Jean Jacques, and he was prepared to take instant action when it was required; buthe was also interested in the man who might have done really powerfulthings in the world, had he gone about them in the right way. 

"M. Barbille has had some lawsuits this year, is it not so?" he asked. 

"Two of importance, monsieur, and one is not yet decided, " answered M. Fille. 

"He lost those suits of importance?"

"That is so, monsieur. "

"And they cost him six thousand dollars--and over?" The Big Financierseemed to be pressing towards a point. 

"Something over that amount, monsieur. "

"And he may lose the suit now before the Courts?"

"Who can tell, monsieur!" vaguely commented the little learned official. 

M. Mornay was not to be evaded. "Yes, yes, but the case as it stands--toyou who are wise in experience of legal affairs, does it seem at all asure thing for him?"

"I wish I could say it was, monsieur, " sadly answered the other. 

The Big Financier nodded vigorously. "Exactly. Nothing is sounproductive as the law. It is expensive whether you win or lose, andit is murderously expensive when you do lose. You will observe, I know, that your Jean Jacques is a man who can only be killed once--eh?"

"Monsieur?" M. Fille really did not grasp this remark. 

M. Mornay's voice became precise. "I will explain. He has never created;he has only developed what has been created. He inherited much of whathe has or has had. His designs were always affected by the fact that hehad never built from the very bottom. When he goes to pieces--"

"Monsieur--to pieces!" exclaimed the Clerk of the Court painfully. 

"Well, put it another way. If he is broken financially, he will nevercome up again. Not because of his age--I lost a second fortune atfifty, and have a third ready to lose at sixty--but because the primaryinitiative won't be in him. He'll say he has lost, and that there's anend to it all. His philosophy will come into play--just at the last. Itwill help him in one way and harm him in another. "

"Ah, then you know about his philosophy, monsieur?" queried M. Fille. Was Jean Jacques' philosophy, after all, to be a real concrete asset ofhis life sooner or later?

The Big Financier smiled, and turned some coins over in his pocketrather loudly. Presently he said: "The first time I ever saw him hetreated me to a page of Descartes. It cost him one per cent. I alwayscharge a man for talking sentiment to me in business hours. I had tolisten to him, and he had to pay me for listening. I've no doubt hisgeneral yearly expenditure has been increased for the same reason--eh, Maitre Fille? He has done it with others--yes?" M. Fille waved a handin deprecation, and his voice had a little acidity as he replied: "Ah, monsieur, what can we poor provincials do--any of us--in dealing withmen like you, philosophy or no philosophy? You get us between theupper and the nether mill stones. You are cosmopolitan; M. Jean JacquesBarbille is a provincial; and you, because he has soul enough to forgetbusiness for a moment and to speak of things that matter more than moneyand business, you grind him into powder. "

M. Mornay shook his head and lighted his cigar again. "There you arewrong, Maitre Fille. It is bad policy to grind to powder, or grind atall, men out of whom you are making money. It is better to keep themfrom between the upper and nether mill-stones. 

"I have done so with your Barbille. I could give him such trouble aswould bring things crashing down upon him at once, if I wanted to bemerely vicious in getting my own; but that would make it impossible forme to meet at dinner my friend Judge Carcasson. So, as long as I can, Iwill not press him. But I tell you that the margin of safety on which heis moving now is too narrow--scarce a foot-hold. He has too much underconstruction in the business of his life, and if one stone slipsout, down may come the whole pile. He has stopped building thecheese-factory--that represents sheer loss. The ash-factory is to closenext week, the saw-mill is only paying its way, and the flour-mill andthe farms, which have to sustain the call of his many interests, can'tstand the drain. Also, he has several people heavily indebted to him, and if they go down--well, it depends on the soundness of the securityhe holds. If they listened to him talk philosophy, encouraged him todo it, and told him they liked it, when the bargain was being made, thechances are the security is inadequate. "

The Clerk of the Court bridled up. "Monsieur, you are very hard on a manwho for twenty-five years has been a figure and a power in this part ofthe province. You sneer at one who has been a benefactor to the placewhere he lives; who has given with the right hand and the left; whoseenterprise has been a source of profit to many; and who has got a savagereward for the acts of a blameless and generous life. You know histroubles, monsieur, and we who have seen him bear them with fortitudeand Christian philosophy, we resent--"

"You need resent nothing, Maitre Fille, " interrupted the Big Financier, not unkindly. "What I have said has been said to his friend and thefriend of my own great friend, Judge Carcasson; and I am only anxiousthat he should be warned by someone whose opinions count with him; whomhe can trust--"

"But, monsieur, alas!" broke in the Clerk of the Court, "that is thetrouble; he does not select those he can trust. He is too confiding. He believes those who flatter him, who impose on his good heart. It hasalways been so. "

"I judge it is so still in the case of Monsieur Dolores, his daughter'sgrandfather?" the Big Financier asked quizzically. 

"It is so, monsieur, " replied M. Fille. "The loss of his daughter shookhim even more than the flight of his wife; and it is as though he couldnot live without that scoundrel near him--a vicious man, who makestrouble wherever he goes. He was a cause of loss to M. Barbille yearsago when he managed the ash-factory; he is very dangerous to women--evennow he is a danger to the future of a young widow" (he meant the widowof Palass Poucette); "and he has caused a scandal by perjury as awitness, and by the consequences--but I need not speak of that here. Hewill do Jean Jacques great harm in the end, of that I am sure. The veryday Mademoiselle Zoe left the Manor Cartier to marry the English actor, Jean Jacques took that Spanish bad-lot to his home; and there he stays, and the old friends go--the old friends go; and he does not seem to missthem. "

There was something like a sob in M. Fille's voice. He had loved Zoe ina way that in a mother would have meant martyrdom, if necessary, andin a father would have meant sacrifice when needed; and indeed he hadsacrificed both time and money to find Zoe. He had even gone as far asWinnipeg on the chance of finding her, making that first big journey inthe world, which was as much to him in all ways as a journey to Bagdadwould mean to most people of M. Mornay's world. Also he had spent moneysince in corresponding with lawyers in the West whom he engaged tosearch for her; but Zoe had never been found. She had never writtenbut one letter to Jean Jacques since her flight. This letter said, in effect, that she would come back when her husband was no longer "abeggar" as her father had called him, and not till then. It was writtenen route to Winnipeg, at the dictation of Gerard Fynes, who had aromantic view of life and a mistaken pride, but some courage too--thecourage of love. 

"He thinks his daughter will come back--yes?" asked M. Mornay. "Oncehe said to me that he was sorry there was no lady to welcome me at theManor Cartier, but that he hoped his daughter would yet have the honour. His talk is quite spacious and lofty at times, as you know. "

"So--that is so, monsieur. .. Mademoiselle Zoe's room is always ready forher. At time of Noel he sent cards to all the families of the parish whohad been his friends, as from his daughter and himself; and when peoplecame to visit at the Manor on New Year's Day, he said to each and allthat his daughter regretted she could not arrive in time from theWest to receive them; but that next year she would certainly have thepleasure. "

"Like the light in the window for the unreturning sailor, " somewhatcynically remarked the Big Financier. "Did many come to the Manor onthat New Year's Day?"

"But yes, many, monsieur. Some came from kindness, and some because theywere curious--"

"And Monsieur Dolores?"

The lips of the Clerk of the Court curled, "He went about with a manneras soft as that of a young cure. Butter would not melt in his mouth. Some of the women were sorry for him, until they knew he had given oneof Jean Jacques' best bear-skin rugs to Madame Palass Poucette for a NewYear's gift. "

The Big Financier laughed cheerfully. "It's an old way topopularity--being generous with other people's money. That is why I amhere. The people that spend your Jean Jacques' money will be spendingmine too, if I don't take care. "

M. Fille noted the hard look which now settled in M. Mornay's face, andit disturbed him. He rose and leaned over the table towards his visitoranxiously. 

"Tell me, if you please, monsieur, is there any real and immediatedanger of the financial collapse of Jean Jacques?"

The other regarded M. Fille with a look of consideration. He liked thisClerk of the Court, but he liked Jean Jacques for the matter of that, and away now from the big financial arena where he usually worked, hisnatural instincts had play. He had come to St. Saviour's with a biggerthing in his mind than Jean Jacques and his affairs; he had come on thematter of a railway, and had taken Jean Jacques on the way, as it were. The scheme for the railway looked very promising to him, and he was ingood humour; so that all he said about Jean Jacques was free from thatgeneral irritation of spirit which has sacrificed many a small man ona big man's altar. He saw the agitation he had caused, and he almostrepented of what he had already said; yet he had acted with a view togetting M. Fille to warn Jean Jacques. 

"I repeat what I said, " he now replied. "Monsieur Jean Jacques' affairsare too nicely balanced. A little shove one way or another and over goesthe whole caboose. If anyone here has influence over him, it would be akindness to use it. That case before the Court of Appeal, for instance;he'd be better advised to settle it, if there is still time. One or twoof the mortgages he holds ought to be foreclosed, so that he may getout of them all the law will let him. He ought to pouch the money that'sowing him; he ought to shave away his insurance, his lightning-rod, andhis horsedealing business; and he ought to sell his farms and his store, and concentrate on the flour-mill and the saw-mill. He has had hiswarnings generally from my lawyers, but what he wants most is the gentlehand to lead him; and I should think that yours, M. Fille, is the handthe Almighty would choose if He was concerned with what happens at St. Saviour's and wanted an agent. "

The Clerk of the Court blushed greatly. This was a very big man indeedin the great commercial world, and flattery from him had unusualsignificance; but he threw out his hands with a gesture of helplessness, and said: "Monsieur, if I could be of use I would; but he has ceased tolisten to me; he--"

He got no further, for there was a sharp knock at the street door of theouter office, and M. Fille hastened to the other room. After a moment hecame back, a familiar voice following him. 

"It is Monsieur Barbille, monsieur, " M. Fille said quietly, but withapprehensive eyes. 

"Well--he wants to see me?" asked M. Mornay. "No, no, monsieur. It wouldbe better if he did not see you. He is in some agitation. "

"Fille! Maitre Fille--be quick now, " called Jean Jacques' voice from theother room. 

"What did I say, monsieur?" asked the Big Financier. "The mind that'sreceived a blow must be moving--moving; the man with the many irons mustbe flying from bellows to bellows!"

"Come, come, there's no time to lose, " came Jean Jacques' voice again, and the handle of the door of their room turned. 

M. Fille's hand caught the handle. "Excuse me, Monsieur Barbille, --aminute please, " he persisted almost querulously. "Be good enough to keepyour manners. .. Monsieur!" he added to the Financier, "if you do notwish to speak with him, there is a door"--he pointed--"which will letyou into the side-street. "

"What is his trouble?" asked M. Mornay. 

M. Fille hesitated, then said reflectively: "He has lost his case in theAppeal Court, monsieur; also, his cousin, Auguste Charron, who has beenworking the Latouche farm, has flitted, leaving--"

"Leaving Jean Jacques to pay unexpected debts?"

"So, monsieur. "

"Then I can be of no use, I fear, " remarked M. Mornay dryly. 

"Fille! Fille!" came the voice of Jean Jacques insistently from theroom. 

"And so I will say au revoir, Monsieur Fille, " continued the BigFinancier. 

A moment later the great man was gone, and M. Fille was alone with thephilosopher of the Manor Cartier. 

"Well, well, why do you keep me waiting! Who was it in there--anyonethat's concerned with my affairs?" asked Jean Jacques. 

In these days he was sensitive when there was no cause, and he wascredulous where he ought to be suspicious. The fact that the little manhad held the door against him made him sure that M. Fille had not wishedhim to see the departed visitor. 

"Come, out with it--who was it making fresh trouble for me?" persistedJean Jacques. 

"No one making trouble for you, my friend, " answered the Clerk of theCourt, "but someone who was trying to do you a good turn. "

"He must have been a stranger then, " returned Jean Jacques bitterly. "Who was it?"

M. Fille, after an instant's further hesitation, told him. 

"Oh, him--M. Momay!" exclaimed Jean Jacques, with a look of relief, hisface lighting. "That's a big man with a most capable and far-reachingmind. He takes a thing in as the ocean mouths a river. If I had hadmen like that to deal with all my life, what a different ledger I'd bebalancing now! Descartes, Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel--hehas an ear for them all. That is the intellectual side of him; and inbusiness"--he threw up a hand--"there he views the landscape from themountain-top. He has vision, strategy, executive. He is Napoleonand Anacreon in one. He is of the builders on the one hand, of theIlluminati and the Encyclopedistes on the other. "

Even the Clerk of the Court, with his circumscribed range of thought andexperience, in that moment saw Jean Jacques as he really was. Here wasa man whose house of life was beginning to sway from an earthquake;who had been smitten in several deadly ways, and was about to receivebuffetings beyond aught he had yet experienced, philosophizing on thetight-rope--Blondin and Plato in one. Yet sardonically piteous as itwas, the incident had shown Jean Jacques with the germ of something bigin him. He had recognized in M. Mornay, who could level him to the dusttomorrow financially, a master of the world's affairs, a prospector oflife's fields, who would march fearlessly beyond the farthest frontiersinto the unknown. Jean Jacques' admiration of the lion who could, andwould, slay him was the best tribute to his own character. 

M. Fille's eyes moistened as he realized it; and he knew that nothing hecould say or do would make this man accommodate his actions to the hardrules of the business of life; he must for ever be applying to themconceptions of a half-developed mind. 

"Quite so, quite so, Jean Jacques, " M. Fille responded gently, "but"--here came a firmer note to his voice, for he had taken to heartthe lesson M. Mornay had taught him, and he was determined to do hisduty now when the opportunity was in his hand--"but you have got to dealwith things as they are; not as they might have been. If you cannot havethe great men you have to deal with the little men like me. You have toprove yourself bigger than the rest of us by doing things better. A mandoesn't fail only because of others, but also because of himself. Youwere warned that the chances were all against you in the case that'sjust been decided, yet you would go on; you were warned that yourcousin, Auguste Charron, was in debt, and that his wife was mad to getaway from the farm and go West, yet you would take no notice. Now hehas gone, and you have to pay, and your case has gone against you in theAppellate Court besides. .. . I will tell you the truth, my friend, evenif it cuts me to the heart. You have not kept your judgment in hand; youhave gone ahead like a bull at a gate; and you pay the price. You listento those who flatter, and on those who would go through fire and waterfor you, you turn your back--on those who would help you in your hour oftrouble, in your dark day. "

Jean Jacques drew himself up with a gesture, impatient, masterful andforbidding. "I have fought my fight alone in the dark day; I havenot asked for any one's help, " he answered. "I have wept on no man'sshoulder. I have been mauled by the claws of injury and shame, and Ihave not flinched. I have healed my own wounds, and I wear my scarswithout--"

He stopped, for there came a sharp rat-tat-tat at the door which openedinto the street. Somehow the commonplace, trivial interruption producedon both a strange, even startling effect. It suddenly produced in theirminds a feeling of apprehension, as though there was whispered in theirears, "Something is going to happen--beware!"

Rat-tat-tat! The two men looked at each other. The same thought was inthe mind of both. Jean Jacques clutched at his beard nervously, thenwith an effort he controlled himself. He took off his hat as though hewas about to greet some important person, or to receive sentence ina court. Instinctively he felt the little book of philosophy which healways carried now in his breast-pocket, as a pietist would finger hisbeads in moments of fear or anxiety. The Clerk of the Court passed histhin hand over his hair, as he was wont to do in court when the Judgebegan his charge to the Jury, and then with an action more impulsivethan was usual with him, he held out his hand, and Jean Jacques graspedit. Something was bringing them together just when it seemed that, inthe storm of Jean Jacques' indignation, they were about to fall apart. M. Fille's eyes said as plainly as words could do, "Courage, my friend!"

Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! The knocking was sharp and imperative now. TheClerk of the Court went quickly forward and threw open the door. 

There stepped inside the widow of Palass Poucette. She had a letter inher hand. "M'sieu', pardon, if I intrude, " she said to M. Fille; "but Iheard that M'sieu' Jean Jacques was here. I have news for him. "

"News!" repeated Jean Jacques, and he looked like a man who was waitingfor what he feared to hear. "They told me at the post-office that youwere here. I got the letter only a quarter of an hour ago, and I thoughtI would go at once to the Manor Cartier and tell M'sieu' Jean Jacqueswhat the letter says. I wanted to go to the Manor Cartier for somethingelse as well, but I will speak of that by and by. It is the letter now. "

She pulled off first one glove and then the other, still holding theletter, as though she was about to perform some ceremony. "It was agood thing I found out that M'sieu' Jean Jacques was here. It saves afour-mile drive, " she remarked. 

"The news--ah, nom de Dieu, the slowness of the woman--like a rivergoing uphill!" exclaimed Jean Jacques, who was finding it hard to stillthe trembling of his limbs. 

The widow of Palass Poucette flushed, but she had some sense in herhead, and she realized that Jean Jacques was a little unbalanced at themoment. Indeed, Jean Jacques was not so old that she would have foundit difficult to take a well-defined and warm interest in him, werecircumstances propitious. She held out the letter to him at once. "It isfrom my sister in the West--at Shilah, " she explained. "There is nothingin it you can't read, and most of it concerns you. " Jean Jacques tookthe letter, but he could not bring himself to read it, for VirginiePoucette's manner was not suggestive of happy tidings. After aninstant's hesitation he handed the letter to M. Fille, who pressed hislips with an air of determination, and put on his glasses. 

Jean Jacques saw the face of the Clerk of the Court flush and then turnpale as he read the letter. "There, be quick!" he said before M. Fillehad turned the first page. 

Then the widow of Palass Poucette came to him and, in a simple harmlessway she had, free from coquetry or guile, stood beside him, took hishand and held it. He seemed almost unconscious of her act, but hisfingers convulsively tightened on hers; while she reflected that herewas one who needed help sorely; here was a good, warm-hearted man onwhom a woman could empty out affection like rain and get a good harvest. She really was as simple as a child, was Virginie Poucette, and even inher acquaintance with Sebastian Dolores, there had only been working inher the natural desire of a primitive woman to have a man saying thatwhich would keep alive in her the things that make her sing as shetoils; and certainly Virginie toiled late and early on her farm. Shereally was concerned for Jean Jacques. Both wife and daughter had takenflight, and he was alone and in trouble. At this moment she feltshe would like to be a sister to him--she was young enough to be hisdaughter almost. Her heart was kind. 

"Now!" said Jean Jacques at last, as the Clerk of the Court's eyesreached the end of the last page. "Now, speak! It is--it is my Zoe?"

"It is our Zoe, " answered M. Fille. 

"Figure de Christ, what do you wait for--she is not dead?" exclaimedJean Jacques with a courage which made him set his feet squarely. 

The Clerk of the Court shook his head and began. "She is alive. Madame Poucette's sister saw her by chance. Zoe was on her way up theSaskatchewan River to the Peace River country with her husband. Herhusband's health was bad. He had to leave the stage in the United Stateswhere he had gone after Winnipeg. The doctors said he must live theopen-air life. He and Zoe were going north, to take a farm somewhere. "

"Somewhere! Somewhere!" murmured Jean Jacques. "The farther away fromJean Jacques the better--that is what she thinks. "

"No, you are wrong, my friend, " rejoined M. Fille. "She said to MadamePoucette's sister"--he held up the letter--"that when they had provedthey could live without anybody's help they would come back to see you. Zoe thought that, having taken her life in her own hands, she ought tojustify herself before she asked your forgiveness and a place at yourtable. She felt that you could only love her and be glad of her, if herman was independent of you. It is a proud and sensitive soul--but thereit is!"

"It is romance, it is quixotism--ah, heart of God, what quixotism!"exclaimed Jean Jacques. 

"She gets her romance and quixotism from Jean Jacques Barbille, "retorted the Clerk of the Court. "She does more feeling thanthinking--like you. "

Jean Jacques' heart was bleeding, but he drew himself up proudly, andcaught his hand away from the warm palm of Poucette's widow. As hisaffairs crumbled his pride grew more insistent. M. Fille had challengedhis intellect--his intellect!

"My life has been a procession of practical things, " he declaredoracularly. "I have been a man of business who designs. I am no dreamer. I think. I act. I suffer. I have been the victim of romance, notits interpreter. Mercy of God, what has broken my life, what butromance--romance, first with one and then with another! More feelingthan thinking, Maitre Fille--you say that? Why the Barbilles have everin the past built up life on a basis of thought and action, and I haveadded philosophy--the science of thought and act. Jean Jacques Barbillehas been the man of design and the man of action also. Don Quixote was afool, a dreamer, but Jean Jacques is no Don Quixote. He is a man who hasdone things, but also he is a man who has been broken on the wheel oflife. He is a man whose heart-strings have been torn--"

He had worked himself up into a fit of eloquence and revolt. He wastouched by the rod of desperation, which makes the soul protest that itis right when it knows that it is wrong. 

Suddenly, breaking off his speech, he threw up his hands and made forthe door. 

"I will fight it out alone!" he declared with rough emotion, and at thedoor he turned towards them again. He looked at them both as though hewould dare them to contradict him. The restless fire of his eyes seemedto dart from one to the other. 

"That's the way it is, " said the widow of Palass Poucette coming quicklyforward to him. "It's always the way. We must fight our battles alone, but we don't have to bear the wounds alone. In the battle you arealone, but the hand to heal the wounds may be another's. You are aphilosopher--well, what I speak is true, isn't it?"

Virginie had said the one thing which could have stayed the tide of JeanJacques' pessimism and broken his cloud of gloom. She appealed to himin the tune of an old song. The years and the curses of years had notdispelled the illusion that he was a philosopher. He stopped with hishand on the door. 

"That's so, without doubt that's so, " he said. "You have stumbled on atruth of life, madame. "

Suddenly there came into his look something of the yearning and hungerwhich the lonely and forsaken feel when they are not on the full tideof doing. It was as though he must have companionship, in spite ofhis brave announcement that he must fight his fight alone. He had beenwounded in the battle, and here was one who held out the hand of healingto him. Never since his wife had left him the long lonely years agohad a woman meant anything to him except as one of a race; but in thismoment here a woman had held his hand, and he could feel still the warmpalm which had comforted his own agitated fingers. 

Virginie Poucette saw, and she understood what was passing in his mind. Yet she did not see and understand all by any means; and it is hard totell what further show of fire there might have been, but that the Clerkof the Court was there, saying harshly under his breath, "The huzzy! Thecrafty huzzy!"

The Clerk of the Court was wrong. Virginie was merely sentimental, notintriguing or deceitful; for Jean Jacques was not a widower--and she wasan honest woman and genuinely tender-hearted. 

"I'm coming to the Manor Cartier to-morrow, " Virginie continued. "I havea rug of yours. By mistake it was left at my house by M'sieu' Dolores. "

"You needn't do that. I will call at your place tomorrow for it, "replied Jean Jacques almost eagerly. "I told M'sieu' Dolores to-daynever to enter my house again. I didn't know it was your rug. It wasgiving away your property, not his own, " she hurriedly explained, andher face flushed. 

"That is the Spanish of it, " said Jean Jacques bitterly. His eyes werebeing opened in many directions to-day. 

M. Fille was in distress. Jean Jacques had had a warning about SebastianDolores, but here was another pit into which he might fall, the pitdigged by a widow, who, no doubt, would not hesitate to marry a divorcedCatholic philosopher, if he could get a divorce by hook or by crook. Jean Jacques had said that he was going to Virginie Poucette's placethe next day. That was as bad as it could be; yet there was this tothe good, that it was to-morrow and not to-day; and who could tell whatmight happen between to-day and to-morrow!

A moment later the three were standing outside the office in the street. As Jean Jacques climbed into his red wagon, Virginie Poucette's eyeswere attracted to the northern sky where a reddish glow appeared, andshe gave an exclamation of surprise. 

"That must be a fire, " she said, pointing. 

"A bit of pine-land probably, " said M. Fille--with anxiety, however, forthe red glow lay in the direction of St. Saviour's where were theManor Cartier and Jean Jacques' mills. Maitre Fille was possessed of asuperstition that all the things which threaten a man's life to wreckit, operate awhile in their many fields before they converge like anarmy in one field to deliver the last attack on their victim. It wouldnot have seemed strange to him, if out of the night a voice of theunseen had said that the glow in the sky came from the Manor Cartier. This very day three things had smitten Jean Jacques, and, if three, whynot four or five, or fifty!

With a strange fascination Jean Jacques' eyes were fastened on the glow. He clucked to his horses, and they started jerkily away. M. Fille andthe widow Poucette said good-bye to him, but he did not hear, or if heheard, he did not heed. His look was set upon the red reflection whichwidened in the sky and seemed to grow nearer and nearer. The horsesquickened their pace. He touched them with the whip, and they wentfaster. The glow increased as he left Vilray behind. He gave the horsesthe whip again sharply, and they broke into a gallop. Yet his eyesscarcely left the sky. The crimson glow drew him, held him, till hisbrain was afire also. Jean Jacques had a premonition and a convictionwhich was even deeper than the imagination of M. Fille. 

In Vilray, behind him, the telegraph clerk was in the street shouting tosomeone to summon the local fire-brigade to go to St. Saviour's. 

"What is it--what is it?" asked M. Fille of the telegraph clerk inmarked agitation. 

"It's M'sieu' Jean Jacques' flour-mill, " was the reply. 

Wagons and buggies and carts began to take the road to the ManorCartier; and Maitre Fille went also with the widow of Palass Poucette. 

CHAPTER XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET

Jean Jacques did not go to the house of the widow of Palass Poucette"next day" as he had proposed: and she did not expect him. She had seenhis flour-mill burned to the ground on the-evening when they met in theoffice of the Clerk of the evening Court, when Jean Jacques had learnedthat his Zoe had gone into farther and farther places away from him. Perhaps Virginie Poucette never had shed as many tears in any wholeyear of her life as she did that night, not excepting the year PalassPoucette died, and left her his farm and seven horses, more or lesssound, and a threshing-machine in good condition. The woman had a rareheart and there was that about Jean Jacques which made her want to helphim. She had no clear idea as to how that could be done, but she hadheld his hand at any rate, and he had seemed the better for it. Virginiehad only an objective view of things; and if she was not material, stillshe could best express herself through the medium of the senses. 

There were others besides her who shed tears also--those who saw JeanJacques' chief asset suddenly disappear in flame and smoke and all hisother assets become thereby liabilities of a kind; and there were manywho would be the poorer in the end because of it. If Jean Jacques wentdown, he probably would not go alone. Jean Jacques had done a goodfire-insurance business over a course of years, but somehow he had notinsured himself as heavily as he ought to have done; and in any casethe fire-policy for the mill was not in his own hands. It was in thesafe-keeping of M. Mornay at Montreal, who had warned M. Fille of thecrisis in the money-master's affairs on the very day that the crisiscame. 

No one ever knew how it was that the mill took fire, but there was oneman who had more than a shrewd suspicion, though there was no occasionfor mentioning it. This was Sebastian Dolores. He had not set the millafire. That would have been profitable from no standpoint, and he had nogrudge against Jean Jacques. Why should he have a grudge? Jean Jacques'good fortune, as things were, made his own good fortune; for he ateand drank and slept and was clothed at his son-in-law's expense. But heguessed accurately who had set the mill on fire, and that it was doneaccidentally. He remembered that a man who smoked bad tobacco whichhad to be lighted over and over again, threw a burning match downafter applying it to his pipe. He remembered that there was a heap offlour-bags near where the man stood when the match was thrown down; andthat some loose strings for tying were also in a pile beside the bags. So it was easy for the thing to have happened if the man did not turnround after he threw the match down, but went swaying on out of themill, and over to the Manor Cartier, and up staggering to bed; for hehad been drinking potato-brandy, and he had been brought up on the mildwines of Spain! In other words, the man who threw down the lighted matchwhich did the mischief was Sebastian Dolores himself. 

He regretted it quite as much as he had ever regretted anything; andon the night of the fire there were tears in his large brown eyes whichdeceived the New Cure and others; though they did not deceive the widowof Palass Poucette, who had found him out, and who now had no pleasureat all in his aged gallantries. But the regret Dolores experienced wouldnot prevent him from doing Jean Jacques still greater injury if, andwhen, the chance occurred, should it be to his own advantage. 

Jean Jacques shed no tears on the night that his beloved flour-millbecame a blackened ruin, and his saw-mill had a narrow escape. He waslike one in a dream, scarcely realizing that men were saying kind thingsto him; that the New Cure held his hand and spoke to him more likea brother than one whose profession it was to be good to those whosuffered. In his eyes was the same half-rapt, intense, distant lookwhich came into them when, at Vilray, he saw that red reflection in thesky over against St. Saviour's, and urged his horses onward. 

The world knew that the burning of the mill was a blow to Jean Jacques, but it did not know how great and heavy the blow was. First one andthen another of his friends said he was insured, and that in anothersix months the mill-wheel would be turning again. They said so to JeanJacques when he stood with his eyes fixed on the burning fabric, whichnothing could save; but he showed no desire to speak. He only noddedand kept on staring at the fire with that curious underglow in his eyes. Some chemistry of the soul had taken place in him in the hour when hedrove to the Manor Cartier from Vilray, and it produced a strange fire, which merged into the reflection of the sky above the burning mill. Later, came things which were strange and eventful in his life, butthat under-glow was for ever afterwards in his eyes. It was in singularcontrast to the snapping fire which had been theirs all the days of hislife till now--the snapping fire of action, will and design. It stillwas there when they said to him suddenly that the wind had changed, andthat the flame and sparks were now blowing toward the saw-mill. Evenwhen he gave orders, and set to work to defend the saw-mill, arranginga line of men with buckets on its roof, and so saving it, this lookremained. It was something spiritual and unmaterial, something, maybe, which had to do with the philosophy he had preached, thought andpractised over long years. It did not disappear when at last, aftermidnight, everyone had gone, and the smouldering ruins of his greatestasset lay mournful in the wan light of the moon. 

Kind and good friends like the Clerk of the Court and the New Cure hadseen him to his bedroom at midnight, leaving him there with a promisethat they would come on the morrow; and he had said goodnight evenly, and had shut the door upon them with a sort of smile. But long afterthey had gone, when Sebastian Dolores and Seraphe Corniche were asleep, he had got up again and left the house, to gaze at the spot where thebig white mill with the red roof had been-the mill which had been therein the days of the Baron of Beaugard, and to which time had only addedsize and adornment. The gold-cock weathervane of the mill, so long theadmiration of people living and dead, and indeed the symbol of himself, as he had been told, being so full of life and pride, courage andvigour-it lay among the ruins, a blackened relic of the Barbilles. 

He had said in M. Fille's office not many hours before, "I will fightit all out alone, " and here in the tragic quiet of the night he made hisresolve a reality. In appearance he was not now like the "Seigneur" whosang to the sailors on the Antoine when she was fighting for the shoreof Gaspe; nevertheless there was that in him which would keep him muchthe same man to the end. 

Indeed, as he got into bed that fateful night he said aloud: "They shallsee that I am not beaten. If they give me time up there in Montreal I'llkeep the place till Zoe comes back--till Zoe comes home. "

As he lay and tried to sleep, he kept saying over to himself, "Till Zoecomes home. "

He thought that if he could but have Zoe back, it all would not matterso much. She would keep looking at him and saying, "There's the man thatnever flinched when things went wrong; there's the man that was a friendto everyone. "

At last a thought came to him--the key to the situation as it seemed, the one thing necessary to meet the financial situation. He would sellthe biggest farm he owned, which had been to him in its importance likethe flour-mill itself. He had had an offer for it that very day, anda bigger offer still a week before. It was mortgaged to within eightthousand dollars of what it could be sold for but, if he could gaintime, that eight thousand dollars would build the mill again. M. Mornay, the Big Financier, would certainly see that this was his due--to gethis chance to pull things straight. Yes, he would certainly sell theBarbille farm to-morrow. With this thought in his mind he went to sleepat last, and he did not wake till the sun was high. 

It was a sun of the most wonderful brightness and warmth. Yesterday itwould have made the Manor Cartier and all around it look like Arcady. But as it shone upon the ruins of the mill, when Jean Jacques went outinto the working world again, it made so gaunt and hideous a picturethat, in spite of himself, a cry of misery came from his lips. 

Through all the misfortunes which had come to him the outward semblanceof things had remained, and when he went in and out of the plantationof the Manor Cartier, there was no physical change in the surroundings, which betrayed the troubles and disasters fallen upon its overlord. There it all was just as it had ever been, and seeming to deny thatanything had changed in the lives of those who made the place otherthan a dead or deserted world. When Carmen went, when Zoe fled, when hiscousin Auguste Charron took his flight, when defeats at law abashedhim, the house and mills, and stores and offices, and goodly trees, andwell-kept yards and barns and cattle-sheds all looked the same. Thusit was that he had been fortified. In one sense his miseries had seemedunreal, because all was the same in the outward scene. It was as thoughit all said to him: "It is a dream that those you love have vanished, that ill-fortune sits by your fireside. One night you will go to bedthinking that wife and child have gone, that your treasury is nearlyempty; and in the morning you will wake up and find your loved onessitting in their accustomed places, and your treasury will be full tooverflowing as of old. "

So it was while the picture of his home scene remained unbroken andserene; but the hideous mass of last night's holocaust was now beforehis eyes, with little streams of smoke rising from the cinderedpile, and a hundred things with which his eyes had been familiar laydistorted, excoriated and useless. He realized with sudden completenessthat a terrible change bad come in his life, that a cyclone had ruinedthe face of his created world. 

This picture did more to open up Jean Jacques' eyes to his real positionin life than anything he had experienced, than any sorrow he hadsuffered. He had been in torment in the past, but he had refused to seethat he was in Hades. Now it was as though he had been led through thestreets of Hell by some dark spirit, while in vain he looked round forhis old friends Kant and Hegel, Voltaire and Rousseau and Rochefoucauld, Plato and Aristotle. 

While gazing at the dismal scene, however, and unheeding the idlers whopoked about among the ruins, and watched him as one who was the centreof a drama, he suddenly caught sight of the gold Cock of Beaugard, whichhad stood on the top of the mill, in the very centre of the ruins. 

Yes, there it was, the crested golden cock which had typified his ownlife, as he went head high, body erect, spurs giving warning, and aclarion in his throat ready to blare forth at any moment. There was thegolden Cock of Beaugard in the cinders, the ashes and the dust. Hischin dropped on his breast, and a cloud like a fog on the coast ofGaspe settled round him. Yet even as his head drooped, something elsehappened--one of those trivial things which yet may be the pivot ofgreat things. A cock crowed--almost in his very ear, it seemed. Helifted his head quickly, and a superstitious look flashed into his face. His eyes fastened on the burnished head of the Cock among the ruins. To his excited imagination it was as though the ancient symbol ofthe Barbilles had spoken to him in its own language of good cheer anddefiance. Yes, there it was, half covered by the ruins, but its head waserect in the midst of fire and disaster. Brought low, it was still alertabove the wreckage. The child, the dreamer, the optimist, the egoist, and the man alive in Jean Jacques sprang into vigour again. It was asthough the Cock of Beaugard had really summoned him to action, and thecrowing had not been that of a barnyard bantam not a hundred feet awayfrom him. Jean Jacques' head went up too. 

"Me--I am what I always was, nothing can change me, " he exclaimeddefiantly. "I will sell the Barbille farm and build the mill again. "

So it was that by hook or by crook, and because the Big Financier hadmore heart than he even acknowledged to his own wife, Jean Jacquesdid sell the Barbille farm, and got in cash--in good hard cash-eightthousand dollars after the mortgage was paid. M. Mornay was even willingto take the inadequate indemnity of the insurance policy on the mill, and lose the rest, in order that Jean Jacques should have the eightthousand dollars to rebuild. This he did because Jean Jacques showedsuch amazing courage after the burning of the mill, and spread himselfout in a greater activity than his career had yet shown. He shavedthrough this financial crisis, in spite of the blow he had received bythe loss of his lawsuits, the flitting of his cousin, Auguste Charron, and the farm debts of this same cousin. It all meant a series ofmanipulations made possible by the apparent confidence reposed in him byM. Mornay. 

On the day he sold his farm he was by no means out of danger of absoluteinsolvency--he was in fact ruined; but he was not yet the victim ofthose processes which would make him legally insolvent. The vultureswere hovering, but they had not yet swooped, and there was the Manorsaw-mill going night and day; for by the strangest good luck JeanJacques received an order for M. Mornay's new railway (Judge Carcassonwas behind that) which would keep his saw-mill working twenty-four hoursin the day for six months. 

"I like his pluck, but still, ten to one, he loses, " remarked M. Mornayto Judge Carcasson. "He is an unlucky man, and I agree with Napoleonthat you oughtn't to be partner with an unlucky man. "

"Yet you have had to do with Monsieur Jean Jacques, " responded the agedJudge. 

M. Mornay nodded indulgently. 

"Yes, without risk, up to the burning of the mill. Now I take mychances, simply because I'm a fool too, in spite of all the wisdom I seein history and in life's experiences. I ought to have closed him up, butI've let him go on, you see. "

"You will not regret it, " remarked the Judge. "He really is worth it. "

"But I think I will regret it financially. I think that this is thelast flare of the ambition and energy of your Jean Jacques. That oftenhappens--a man summons up all his reserves for one last effort. It'spartly pride, partly the undefeated thing in him, partly the gamblingspirit which seizes men when nothing is left but one great spectacularsuccess or else be blotted out. That's the case with your philosopher;and I'm not sure that I won't lose twenty thousand dollars by him yet. "

"You've lost more with less justification, " retorted the Judge, who, inhis ninetieth year, was still as alive as his friend at sixty. 

M. Mornay waved a hand in acknowledgment, and rolled his cigar fromcorner to corner of his mouth. "Oh, I've lost a lot more in mytime, Judge, but with a squint in my eye! But I'm doing this with noastigmatism. I've got the focus. "

The aged Judge gave a conciliatory murmur-he had a fine persuasivevoice. "You would never be sorry for what you have done if you had knownhis daughter--his Zoe. It's the thought of her that keeps him going. Hewants the place to be just as she left it when she comes back. "

"Well, well, let's hope it will. I'm giving him a chance, " replied M. Mornay with his wineglass raised. "He's got eight thousand dollars incash to build his mill again; and I hope he'll keep a tight hand on ittill the mill is up. "

Keep a tight hand on it?

That is what Jean Jacques meant to do; but if a man wants to keep atight hand on money he should not carry it about in his pocket in cold, hard cash. It was a foolish whim of Jean Jacques that he must have theeight thousand dollars in cash--in hundred-dollar bills--and not in theform of a cheque; but there was something childlike in him. When, as hethought, he had saved himself from complete ruin, he wanted to keep andgloat over the trophy of victory, and his trophy was the eight thousanddollars got from the Barbille farm. He would have to pay out twothousand dollars in cash to the contractors for the rebuilding of themill at once, --they were more than usually cautious--but he would havesix thousand left, which he would put in the bank after he had letpeople see that he was well fortified with cash. 

The child in him liked the idea of pulling out of his pocket a fewthousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He had always carried a gooddeal of money loose in his pocket, and now that his resources were solimited he would still make a gallant show. After a week or two he woulddeposit six thousand dollars in the bank; but he was so eager to beginbuilding the mill, that he paid over the stipulated two thousand dollarsto the contractors on the very day he received the eight thousand. A fewdays later the remaining six thousand were housed in a cupboard with aniron door in the wall of his office at the Manor Cartier. 

"There, that will keep me in heart and promise, " said Jean Jacques as heturned the key in the lock. 

CHAPTER XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER

The day after Jean Jacques had got a new lease of life and become hisown banker, he treated himself to one of those interludes of pleasurefrom which he had emerged in the past like a hermit from his cave. Hesat on the hill above his lime-kilns, reading the little hand-book ofphilosophy which had played so big a part in his life. Whatever else haddisturbed his mind and diverted him from his course, nothing had weanedhim from this obsession. He still interlarded all his conversation withquotations from brilliant poseurs like Chateaubriand and Rochefoucauld, and from missionaries of thought like Hume and Hegel. 

His real joy, however, was in withdrawing for what might be calleda seance of meditation from the world's business. Some men makecelebration in wine, sport and adventure; but Jean Jacques made it inflooding his mind with streams of human thought which often tried to runuphill, which were frequently choked with weeds, but still were likethe pool of Siloam to his vain mind. They bathed that vain mind in theillusion that it could see into the secret springs of experience. 

So, on as bright a day as ever the New World offered, Jean Jacques satreciting to himself a spectacular bit of logic from one of his idols, wedged between a piece of Aristotle quartz and Plato marble. The soundof it was good in his ears. He mouthed it as greedily and happilyas though he was not sitting on the edge of a volcano instead of themoss-grown limestone on a hill above his own manor. 

"The course of events in the life of a man, whatever their gravity orlevity, are only to be valued and measured by the value and measure ofhis own soul. Thus, what in its own intrinsic origin and materialshould in all outer reason be a tragedy, does not of itself shake thefoundations or make a fissure in the superstructure. Again--"

Thus his oracle, but Jean Jacques' voice suddenly died down, for, ashe sat there, the face of a woman made a vivid call of recognition. Heslowly awakened from his self-hypnotism, to hear a woman speaking tohim; to see two dark eyes looking at him from under heavy black browswith bright, intent friendliness. 

"They said at the Manor you had come this way, so I thought I'd not havemy drive for nothing, and here I am. I wanted to say something to you, M'sieu' Jean Jacques. "

It was the widow of Palass Poucette. She looked very fresh and friendlyindeed, and she was the very acme of neatness. If she was not handsome, she certainly had a true and sweet comeliness of her own, due to thedeep rose-colour of her cheeks, the ivory whiteness round the lustrousbrown eyes, the regular shining teeth which showed so much when shesmiled, and the look half laughing, half sentimental which dominatedall. 

Before she had finished speaking Jean Jacques was on his feet withhis hat off. Somehow she seemed to be a part of that abstraction, that intoxication, in which he had just been drowning his accumulatedanxieties. Not that Virginie Poucette was logical or philosophical, ora child of thought, for she was wholly the opposite-practical, sensuous, emotional, a child of nature and of Eve. But neither was Jean Jacquesa real child of thought, though he made unconscious pretence of it. Healso was a child of nature--and Adam. He thought he had the courageof his convictions, but it was only the courage of his emotions. Hisphilosophy was but the bent or inclination of a mind with a capacityto feel things rather than to think them. He had feeling, the firstessential of the philosopher, but there he stayed, an undevelopedchrysalis. 

His look was abstracted still as he took the hand of the widow of PalassPoucette; but he spoke cheerfully. "It is a pleasure, madame, to welcomeyou among my friends, " he said. 

He made a little flourish with the book which had so long been his bosomfriend, and added: "But I hope you are in no trouble that you come tome--so many come to me in their troubles, " he continued with an air ofsatisfaction. 

"Come to you--why, you have enough troubles of your own!" she madeanswer. "It's because you have your own troubles that I'm here. "

"Why you are here, " he remarked vaguely. 

There was something very direct and childlike in Virginie Poucette. Shecould not pretend; she wore her heart on her sleeve. She travelled along distance in a little while. 

"I've got no trouble myself, " she responded. "But, yes, I have, " sheadded. "I've got one trouble--it's yours. It's that you've been havinghard times--the flour-mill, your cousin Auguste Charron, the lawsuits, and all the rest. They say at Vilray that you have all you can do tokeep out of the Bankruptcy Court, and that--"

Jean Jacques started, flushed, and seemed about to get angry; but sheput things right at once. 

"People talk more than they know, but there's always some fire wherethere's smoke, " she hastened to explain. "Besides, your father-in-lawbabbles more than is good for him or for you. I thought at first that M. Dolores was a first-class kind of man, that he had had hard times too, and I let him come and see me; but I found him out, and that was the endof it, you may be sure. If you like him, I don't want to say anythingmore, but I'm sure that he's no real friend to you-or to anybody. Ifthat man went to confession--but there, that's not what I've come for. I've come to say to you that I never felt so sorry for anyone in my lifeas I do for you. I cried all night after your beautiful mill was burneddown. You were coming to see me next day--you remember what you said inM. Fille's office--but of course you couldn't. Of course, there was noreason why you should come to see me really--I've 'only got two hundredacres and the house. It's a good house, though--Palass saw to that--andit's insured; but still I know you'd have come just the same if I'dhad only two acres. I know. There's hosts of people you've been goodto here, and they're sorry for you; and I'm sorrier than any, for I'malone, and you're alone, too, except for the old Dolores, and he's nogood to either of us--mark my words, no good to you! I'm sorry for you, M'sieu' Jean Jacques, and I've come to say that I'm ready to lend youtwo thousand dollars, if that's any help. I could make it more if I hadtime; but sometimes money on the spot is worth a lot more than what'sjust crawling to you--snailing along while you eat your heart out. Twothousand dollars is two thousand dollars--I know what it's worth to me, though it mayn't be much to you; but I didn't earn it. It belonged toa first-class man, and he worked for it, and he died and left it tome. It's not come easy, go easy with me. I like to feel I've got twothousand cash without having to mortgage for it. But it belonged toa number-one man, a man of brains--I've got no brains, only somesense--and I want another good man to use it and make the world easierfor himself. "

It was a long speech, and she delivered it in little gasps of oratorywhich were brightened by her wonderfully kind smile and the heart--notto say sentiment--which showed in her face. The sentiment, however, did not prejudice Jean Jacques against her, for he was a sentimentalisthimself. His feelings were very quick, and before she had spoken fiftywords the underglow of his eyes was flooded by something which mighthave been mistaken for tears. It was, however, only the moisture ofgratitude and the soul's good feeling. 

"Well there, well there, " he said when she had finished, "I've never hadanything like this in my life before. It's the biggest thing in theart of being a neighbour I've ever seen. You've only been in the parishthree years, and yet you've shown me a confidence immense, inspiring! Itis as the Greek philosopher said, 'To conceive the human mind aright isthe greatest gift from the gods. ' And to you, who never read a line ofphilosophy, without doubt, you have done the thing that is greatest. Itsays, 'I teach neighbourliness and life's exchange. ' Madame, your houseought to be called Neighbourhood House. It is the epitome of the spirit, it is the shrine of--"

He was working himself up to a point where he could forget all thethings that trouble humanity, in the inebriation of an idealistic soulwhich had a casing of passion, but the passion of the mind and not ofthe body; for Jean Jacques had not a sensual drift in his organism. Ifthere had been a sensual drift, probably Carmen would still have beenthe lady of his manor, and he would still have been a magnate and not apotential bankrupt; for in her way Carmen had been a kind of balance tohis judgment in the business of life, in spite of her own material and(at the very last) sensual strain. It was a godsend to Jean Jacques tohave such an inspiration as Virginie Poucette had given him. He couldnot in these days, somehow, get the fires of his soul lighted, as he waswont to do in the old times, and he loved talking--how he loved talkingof great things! He was really going hard, galloping strong, whenVirginie interrupted him, first by an exclamation, then, as insistentlyhe repeated the words, "It is the epitome of the spirit, the shrineof--"

She put out a hand, interrupting him, and said: "Yes, yes, M'sieu'Jean Jacques, that's as good as Moliere, I s'pose, or the Archbishop atQuebec, but are you going to take it, the two thousand dollars? I madea long speech, I know, but that was to tell you why I come with themoney"--she drew out a pocketbook--"with the order on my lawyer to handthe cash over to you. As a woman I had to explain to you, there beinglots of ideas about what a woman should do and what she shouldn't do;but there's nothing at all for you to explain, and Mere Langlois and alot of others would think I'm vain enough now without your compliments. I'm a neighbour if you like, and I offer you a loan. Will you takeit--that's all?"

He held out his hand in silence and took the paper from her. Putting hishead a little on one side, he read it. At first he seemed hardly to getthe formal language clear in his mind; however, or maybe his mind wasstill away in that abstraction into which he had whisked it when hebegan his reply to her fine offer; but he read it out aloud, firstquickly, then very slowly, and he looked at the signature with a deeplymeditative air. 

"Virginie Poucette--that's a good name, " he remarked; "and also good fortwo thousand dollars!" He paused to smile contentedly over his own joke. "And good for a great deal more than that too, " he added with a nod. 

"Yes, ten times as much as that, " she responded quickly, her eyes fixedon his face. She scarcely knew herself what she was thinking whenshe said it; but most people who read this history will think she washinting that her assets might be united with his, and so enable him towipe out his liabilities and do a good deal more besides. Yet, how couldthat be, since Carmen Dolores was still his wife if she was alive; andalso they both were Catholics, and Catholics did not recognize divorce!

Truth is, Virginie Poucette's mind did not define her feelings at allclearly, or express exactly what she wanted. Her actions said one thingcertainly; but if the question had been put to her, whether she wasdoing this thing because of a wish to take the place of Carmen Doloresin Jean Jacques' life she would have said no at once. She had not cometo that--yet. She was simply moved by a sentiment of pity for JeanJacques, and as she had no child, or husband, or sister, or brother, orfather, or mother, but only relatives who tried to impose upon her, sheneeded an objective for the emotions of her nature, for the overflow ofher unused affection and her unsatisfied maternal spirit. Here, then, was the most obvious opportunity--a man in trouble who had not deservedthe bitter bad luck which had come to him. Even old Mere Langlois in themarket-place at Vilray had admitted that, and had said the same later onin Virginie's home. 

For an instant Jean Jacques was fascinated by the sudden prospect whichopened out before him. If he asked her, this woman would probably loanhim five thousand dollars--and she had mentioned nothing about security!

"What security do you want?" he asked in a husky voice. 

"Security? I don't understand about that, " she replied. "I'd not offeryou the money if I didn't think you were an honest man, and an honestman would pay me back. A dishonest man wouldn't pay me back, security orno security. "

"He'd have to pay you back if the security was right to start with, "Jean Jacques insisted. "But you don't want security, because you thinkI'm an honest man! Well, for sure you're right. I am honest. I nevertook a cent that wasn't mine; but that's not everything. If you lendyou ought to have security. I've lost a good deal from not havingenough security at the start. You are willing to lend me money withoutsecurity--that's enough to make me feel thirty again, and I'm fifty--I'mfifty, " he added, as though with an attempt to show her that shecould not think of him in any emotional way; though the day when hisflour-mill was burned he had felt the touch of her fingers comfortingand thrilling. 

"You think Jean Jacques Barbille's word as good as his bond?" hecontinued. "So it is; but I'm going to pull this thing through alone. That's what I said to you and Maitre Fille at his office. I meant ittoo--help of God, it is the truth!"

He had forgotten that if M. Mornay had not made it easy for him, andhad not refrained from insisting on his pound of flesh, he would now beinsolvent and with no roof over him. Like many another man Jean Jacqueswas the occasional slave of formula, and also the victim of phases ofhis own temperament. In truth he had not realized how big a thing M. Mornay had done for him. He had accepted the chance given him as thetribute to his own courage and enterprise and integrity, and as thoughit was to the advantage of his greatest creditor to give him anotherstart; though in reality it had made no difference to the Big Financier, who knew his man and, with wide-open eyes, did what he had done. 

Virginie was not subtle. She did not understand, was never satisfiedwith allusions, and she had no gift for catching the drift of things. She could endure no peradventure in her conversation. She wanted plainspeaking and to be literally sure. 

"Are you going to take it?" she asked abruptly. 

He could not bear to be checked in his course. He waved a hand andsmiled at her. Then his eyes seemed to travel away into the distance, the look of the dreamer in them; but behind all was that strange, ruddyunderglow of revelation which kept emerging from shadows, retreating andemerging, yet always there now, in much or in little, since the burningof the mill. 

"I've lent a good deal of money without security in my time, " hereflected, "but the only people who ever paid me back were a deaf anddumb man and a flyaway--a woman that was tired of selling herself, andstarted straight and right with the money I lent her. She had beenthe wife of a man who studied with me at Laval. She paid me back everypenny, too, year by year for five years. The rest I lent money to neverpaid; but they paid, the dummy and the harlot that was, they paid! Butthey paid for the rest also! If I had refused these two because of theothers, I'd not be fit to visit at Neighbourhood House where VirginiePoucette lives. "

He looked closely at the order she had given him again, as though to letit sink in his mind and be registered for ever. "I'm going to do withoutany further use of your two thousand dollars, " he continued cheer fully. "It has done its work. You've lent it to me, I've used it"--he putthe hand holding it on his breast--"and I'm paying it back to you, butwithout interest. " He gave the order to her. 

"I don't see what you mean, " she said helplessly, and she looked at thepaper, as though it had undergone some change while it was in his hand. 

"That you would lend it me is worth ten times two thousand to me, Virginie Poucette, " he explained. "It gives me, not a kick frombehind--I've not had much else lately--but it holds a light in front ofme. It calls me. It says, 'March on, Jean Jacques--climb the mountain. 'It summons me to dispose my forces for the campaign which will restorethe Manor Cartier to what it has ever been since the days of the Baronof Beaugard. It quickens the blood at my heart. It restores--"

Virginie would not allow him to go on. "You won't let me help you?Suppose I do lose the money--I didn't earn it; it was earned by PalassPoucette, and he'd understand, if he knew. I can live without the money, if I have to, but you would pay it back, I know. You oughtn't to takeany extra risks. If your daughter should come back and not find youhere, if she returned to the Manor Cartier, and--"

He made an insistent gesture. "Hush! Be still, my friend--as good afriend as a man could have. If my Zoe came back I'd like to feel--I'dlike to feel that I had saved things alone; that no woman's money mademe safe. If Zoe or if--"

He was going to say, "If Carmen came back, " for his mind was moving inpast scenes; but he stopped short and looked around helplessly. Thenpresently, as though by an effort, he added with a bravura note in hisvoice:

"The world has been full of trouble for a long time, but there havealways been men to say to trouble, 'I am master, I have the mind to getabove it all. ' Well, I am one of them. "

There was no note of vanity or bombast in his voice as he said this, and in his eyes that new underglow deepened and shone. Perhaps in thisinstant he saw more of his future than he would speak of to anyone onearth. Perhaps prevision was given him, and it was as the Big Financierhad said to Maitre Fille, that his philosophy was now, at the last, tobe of use to him. When his wife had betrayed him, and his wife and childhad left him, he had said, "Moi je suis philosophe!" but he was a manof wealth in those days, and money soothes hurts of that kind in raredegree. Would he still say, whatever was yet to come, that he was aphilosopher?

"Well, I've done what I thought would help you, and I can't say morethan that, " Virginie remarked with a sigh, and there was despondencyin her eyes. Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; shelooked at him as she had done in Maitre Fille's office, and a waveof feeling passed over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, inresponse to her look, the thrill of his fingers in her palm. His facenow flushed also, and he had an impulse to ask her to sit down besidehim. He put it away from him, however, for the present, at any rate-whocould tell what to-morrow might bring forth!--and then he held out hishand to her. His voice shook a little when he spoke; but it cleared, andbegan to ring, before he had said a dozen words. 

"I'll never forget what you've said and done this morning, VirginiePoucette, " he declared; "and if I break the back of the trouble that'sin my way, and come out cock o' the walk again"--the gold Cock ofBeaugard in the ruins near and the clarion of the bantam of his barnyardwere in his mind and ears--"it'll be partly because of you. I hug thatthought to me. "

"I could do a good deal more than that, " she ventured, with a tremulousvoice, and then she took her warm hand from his nervous grasp, andturned sharply into the path which led back towards the Manor. She didnot turn around, and she walked quickly away. 

There was confusion in her eyes and in her mind. It would take some timeto make the confusion into order, and she was now hot, now cold, in allher frame, when at last she climbed into her wagon. 

This physical unrest imparted itself to all she did that day. First herhorses were driven almost at a gallop; then they were held down to aslow walk; then they were stopped altogether, and she sat in the shadeof the trees on the road to her home, pondering--whispering to herselfand pondering. 

As her horses were at a standstill she saw a wagon approaching. Instantly she touched her pair with the whip, and moved on. Beforethe approaching wagon came alongside, she knew from the grey and thedarkbrown horses who was driving them, and she made a strong effort forcomposure. She succeeded indifferently, but her friend, Mere Langlois, did not notice this fact as her wagon drew near. There was excitement inMere Langlois' face. 

"There's been a shindy at the 'Red Eagle' tavern, " she said. "Thatfather-in-law of M'sieu' Jean Jacques and Rocque Valescure, thelandlord, they got at each other's throats. Dolores hit Valescure on thehead with a bottle. "

"He didn't kill Valescure, did he?"

"Not that--no. But Valescure is hurt bad--as bad. It was six to one andhalf a dozen to the other--both no good at all. But of course they'llarrest the old man--your great friend! He'll not give you any morefur-robes, that's sure. He got away from the tavern, though, and he'shiding somewhere. M'sieu' Jean Jacques can't protect him now; he isn'twhat he once was in the parish. He's done for, and old Dolores will haveto go to trial. They'll make it hot for him when they catch him. Nomore fur-robes from your Spanish friend, Virginie! You'll have to looksomewhere else for your beaux, though to be sure there are enough that'dbe glad to get you with that farm of yours, and your thrifty ways, ifyou keep your character. "

Virginie was quite quiet now. The asperity and suggestiveness of theother's speech produced a cooling effect upon her. 

"Better hurry, Mere Langlois, or everybody won't hear your story beforesundown. If your throat gets tired, there's Brown's Bronchial Troches--"She pointed to an advertisement on the fence near by. "M. Fille's cooksays they cure a rasping throat. "

With that shot, Virginie Poucette whipped up her horses and drove on. She did not hear what Mere Langlois called after her, for Mere Langloishad been slow to recover from the unexpected violence dealt by one whomshe had always bullied. 

"Poor Jean Jacques!" said Virginie Poucette to herself as her horsesate up the ground. "That's another bit of bad luck. He'll not sleepto-night. Ah, the poor Jean Jacques--and all alone--not a hand to hold;no one to rumple that shaggy head of his or pat him on the back! Hiswife and Ma'm'selle Zoe, they didn't know a good thing when they had it. No, he'll not sleep to-night-ah, my dear Jean Jacques!"

CHAPTER XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP

But Jean Jacques did sleep well that night; though it would have beenbetter for him if he had not done so. The contractor's workmen hadarrived in the early afternoon, he had seen the first ton of debrisremoved from the ruins of the historic mill, and it was crowned by thegold Cock of Beaugard, all grimy with the fire, but jaunty as of yore. The cheerfulness of the workmen, who sang gaily an old chanson ofmill-life as they tugged at the timbers and stones, gave a fillip to thespirits of Jean Jacques, to whom had come a red-letter day. 

Like Mirza on the high hill of Bagdad he had had his philosophicmeditations; his good talk with Virginie Poucette had followed; and thewoman of her lingered in the feeling of his hand all day, as somethingkind and homelike and true. Also in the evening had come M. Fille, whobrought him a message from Judge Carcasson, that he must make the worldsing for himself again. 

Contrary to what Mere Langlois had thought, he had not been perturbed bythe parish noise about the savage incident at "The Red Eagle, " and thedesperate affair which would cause the arrest of his father-in-law. Hewas at last well inclined to be rid of Sebastian Dolores, who had ceasedto be a comfort to him, and who brought him hateful and not kindlymemories of his lost women, and the happy hours of the past theyrepresented. 

M. Fille had come to the Manor in much alarm, lest the news of themiserable episode at "The Red Eagle" should bring Jean Jacques downagain to the depths. He was infinitely relieved, however, to find thatthe lord of the Manor Cartier seemed only to be grateful that SebastianDolores did not return, and nodded emphatically when M. Fille remarkedthat perhaps it would be just as well if he never did return. 

As M. Fille sat with his host at the table in the sunset light, JeanJacques seemed quieter and steadier of body and mind than he had beenfor a long, long time. He even drank three glasses of the cordial whichMere Langlois had left for him, with the idea that it might comfort himwhen he got the bad news about Sebastian Dolores; and parting with M. Fille at the door, he waved a hand and said: "Well, good-night, masterof the laws. Safe journey! I'm off to bed, and I'll sleep withoutrocking, that's very sure and sweet. "

He stood and waved his hand several times to M. Fille--till he wasout of sight indeed; and the Clerk of the Court smiled to himself longafterwards, recalling Jean Jacques' cheerful face as he had seen it attheir parting in the gathering dusk. As for Jean Jacques, when he lockedup the house at ten o'clock, with Dolores still absent, he had the airof a man from whose shoulders great weights had fallen. 

"Now I've shut the door on him, it'll stay shut, " he said firmly. "Lethim go back to work. He's no good here to me, to himself, or to anyone. And that business of the fur-robe and Virginie Poucette--ah, that!"

He shook his head angrily, then seeing the bottle of cordial stilluncorked on the sideboard, he poured some out and drank it very slowly, till his eyes were on the ceiling above him and every drop had gonehome. Presently, with the bedroom lamp in his hand, he went upstairs, humming to himself the chanson the workmen had sung that afternoon asthey raised again the walls of the mill:

 "Distaff of flax flowing behind her Margatton goes to the mill On the old grey ass she goes, The flour of love it will blind her Ah, the grist the devil will grind her, When Margatton goes to the mill! On the old grey ass she goes, And the old grey ass, he knows!"

He liked the sound of his own voice this night of his ReconstructionPeriod--or such it seemed to him; and he thought that no one heardhis singing save himself. There, however, he was mistaken. Someone washidden in the house--in the big kitchen-bunk which served as a bed ora seat, as needed. This someone had stolen in while Jean Jacques and M. Fille were at supper. His name was Dolores, and he had a horse just overthe hill near by, to serve him when his work was done, and he could getaway. 

The constables of Vilray had twice visited the Manor to arrest him thatday, but they had been led in another direction by a clue which he hadprovided; and afterwards in the dusk he had doubled back and hid himselfunder Jean Jacques' roof. He had very important business at the ManorCartier. 

Jean Jacques' voice ceased one song, and then, after a silence, it tookup another, not so melodious. Sebastian Dolores had impatiently waitedfor this later "musicale" to begin--he had heard it often before; andwhen it was at last a regular succession of nasal explosions, he crawledout and began to do the business which had brought him to the ManorCartier. 

He did it all alone and with much skill; for when he was an anarchist inSpain, those long years ago, he had learned how to use tools with expertunderstanding. Of late, Spain had been much in his mind. He wanted to goback there. Nostalgia had possessed him ever since he had come again tothe Manor Cartier after Zoe had left. He thought much of Spain, and butlittle of his daughter. Memory of her was only poignant, in so far as itwas associated with the days preceding the wreck of the Antoine. Hehad had far more than enough of the respectable working life of the NewWorld; but there never was sufficient money to take him back to Europe, even were it safe to go. Of late, however, he felt sure that he mightventure, if he could only get cash for the journey. He wanted to driftback to the idleness and adventure and the "easy money" of the oldanarchist days in Cadiz and Madrid. He was sick for the patio and theplaza, for the bull-fight, for the siesta in the sun, for the lazyglamour of the gardens and the red wine of Valladolid, for the redolentcigarette of the roadside tavern. This cold iron land had spoiled him, and he would strive to get himself home again before it was too late. In Spain there would always be some woman whom he could cajole; somecomrade whom he could betray; some priest whom he could deceive, whose pocket he could empty by the recital of his troubles. But if, peradventure, he returned to Spain with money to spare in his pocket, how easy indeed it would all be, and how happy he would find himselfamid old surroundings and old friends!

The way had suddenly opened up to him when Jean Jacques had brought homein hard cash, and had locked away in the iron-doored cupboard inthe officewall, his last, his cherished, eight thousand dollars. Sixthousand of that eight were still left, and it was concern for this sixthousand which had brought Dolores to the Manor this night when JeanJacques snored so loudly. The events of the day at "The Red Eagle" hadbrought things to a crisis in the affairs of Carmen's father. It was afoolish business that at the tavern--so, at any rate, he thought, whenit was all over, and he was awake to the fact that he must fly or go tojail. From the time he had, with a bottle of gin, laid Valescure low, Spain was the word which went ringing through his head, and the way toSpain was by the Six Thousand Dollar Route, the New World terminal ofwhich was the cupboard in the wall at the Manor Cartier. 

Little cared Sebastian Dolores that the theft of the money would meanthe end of all things for Jean Jacques Barbille-for his own daughter'shusband. He was thinking of himself, as he had always done. 

He worked for two whole hours before he succeeded in quietly forcingopen the iron door in the wall; but it was done at last. Curiouslyenough, Jean Jacques' snoring stopped on the instant that SebastianDolores' fingers clutched the money; but it began cheerfully again whenthe door in the wall closed once more. 

Five minutes after Dolores had thrust the six thousand dollars into hispocket, his horse was galloping away over the hills towards the RiverSt. Lawrence. If he had luck, he would reach it by the morning. As ithappened, he had the luck. Behind him, in the Manor Cartier, the manwho had had no luck and much philosophy, snored on till morning inunconscious content. 

It was a whole day before Jean Jacques discovered his loss. When he hadfinished his lonely supper the next evening, he went to the cupboard inhis office to cheer himself with the sight of the six thousand dollars. He felt that he must revive his spirits. They had been drooping all day, he knew not why. 

When he saw the empty pigeon-hole in the cupboard, his sight swam. Itwas some time before it cleared, but, when it did, and he knew beyondperadventure the crushing, everlasting truth, not a sound escaped him. His heart stood still. His face filled with a panic confusion. He seemedlike one bereft of understanding. 

CHAPTER XX. "AU 'VOIR, M'SIEU' JEAN JACQUES"

It is seldom that Justice travels as swiftly as Crime, and it is alsoseldom that the luck is more with the law than with the criminal. Ittook the parish of St. Saviour's so long to make up its mind who stoleJean Jacques' six thousand dollars, that when the hounds got the scentat last the quarry had reached the water--in other words, SebastianDolores had achieved the St. Lawrence. The criminal had had near a day'sstart before a telegram was sent to the police at Montreal, Quebec, andother places to look out for the picaroon who had left his mark on theparish of St. Saviour's. The telegram would not even then have been senthad it not been for M. Fille, who, suspecting Sebastian Dolores, stillrefrained from instant action. This he did because he thought JeanJacques would not wish his beloved Zoe's grandfather sent to prison. Butwhen other people at last declared that it must have been Dolores, M. Fille insisted on telegrams being sent by the magistrate at Vilraywithout Jean Jacques' consent. He had even urged the magistrate to"rush" the wire, because it came home to him with stunning force that, if the money was not recovered, Jean Jacques would be a beggar. It wasbetter to jail the father-in-law, than for the little money-master totake to the road a pauper, or stay on at St. Saviour's as an underlingwhere he had been overlord. 

As for Jean Jacques, in his heart of hearts he knew who had robbed him. He realized that it was one of the radii of the comedy-tragedy whichbegan on the Antoine, so many years before; and it had settled in hismind at last that Sebastian Dolores was but part of the dark machineryof fate, and that what was now had to be. 

For one whole day after the robbery he was like a manparalysed--dispossessed of active being; but when his creditors beganto swarm, when M. Mornay sent his man of business down to foreclose hismortgages before others could take action, Jean Jacques waked from hisapathy. He began an imitation of his old restlessness, and made essayagain to pull the strings of his affairs. They were, however, soconfused that a pull at one string tangled them all. 

When the constables and others came to him, and said that they were onthe trail of the robber, and that the rogue would be caught, he noddedhis head encouragingly; but he was sure in his own mind that the flightof Dolores would be as successful as that of Carmen and Zoe. 

This is the way he put it: "That man--we will just miss finding him, asI missed Zoe at the railroad junction when she went away, as I missedcatching Carmen at St. Chrisanthine. When you are at the shore, he willbe on the river; when you are getting into the train, he will be gettingout. It is the custom of the family. At Bordeaux, the Spanish detectiveswere on the shore gnashing their teeth, when he was a hundred yards awayat sea on the Antoine. They missed him like that; and we'll miss himtoo. What is the good! It was not his fault--that was the way of hisbringing up beyond there at Cadiz, where they think more of a toreadorthan of John the Baptist. It was my fault. I ought to have banked themoney. I ought not to have kept it to look at like a gamin with hismarbles. There it was in the wall; and there was Dolores a long way fromhome and wanting to get back. He found the way by a gift of the tools;and I wish I had the same gift now; for I've got no other gift that'llearn anything for me. "

These were the last dark or pessimistic words spoken at St. Saviour'sby Jean Jacques; and they were said to the Clerk of the Court, whocould not deny the truth of them; but he wrung the hand of Jean Jacquesnevertheless, and would not leave him night or day. M. Fille was like alittle cruiser protecting a fort when gunboats swarm near, not daring toattack till their battleship heaves in sight. The battleship was theBig Financier, who saw that a wreck was now inevitable, and was onlyconcerned that there should be a fair distribution of the assets. Thatmeant, of course, that he should be served first, and then that thosebelow the salt should get a share. 

Revelation after revelation had been Jean Jacques' lot of late years, but the final revelation of his own impotence was overwhelming. When hebegan to stir about among his affairs, he was faced by the fact thatthe law stood in his way. He realized with inward horror his shatteredegotism and natural vanity; he saw that he might just as well be injail; that he had no freedom; that he could do nothing at all in regardto anything he owned; that he was, in effect, a prisoner of war where hehad been the general commanding an army. 

Yet the old pride intervened, and it was associated with some innatenobility; for from the hour in which it was known that Sebastian Doloreshad escaped in a steamer bound for France, and could not be overhauled, and the chances were that he would never have to yield up the sixthousand dollars, Jean Jacques bustled about cheerfully, and as thoughhe had still great affairs of business to order and regulate. It was amake-believe which few treated with scorn. Even the workmen at the millhumoured him, as he came several times every day to inspect the workof rebuilding; and they took his orders, though they did not carrythem out. No one really carried out any of his orders except SerapheCorniche, who, weeping from morning till night, protested that therenever was so good a man as M'sieu' Jean Jacques; and she cooked hisfavourite dishes, giving him no peace until he had eaten them. 

The days, the weeks went on, with Jean Jacques growing thinner andthinner, but going about with his head up like the gold Cock ofBeaugard, and even crowing now and then, as he had done of yore. Hefaced the inevitable with something of his old smiling volubility;treating nothing of his disaster as though it really existed; signingoff this asset and that; disposing of this thing and that; strippinghimself bare of all the properties on his life's stage, in such a manneras might have been his had he been receiving gifts and not yielding upall he owned. He chatted as his belongings were, figuratively speaking, being carried away--as though they were mechanical, formal things tobe done as he had done them every day of a fairly long life; as a clerkwould check off the boxes or parcels carried past him by the porters. M. Fille could hardly bear to see him in this mood, and the New Curehovered round him with a mournful and harmlessly deceptive kindness. Butthe end had to come, and practically all the parish was present when itcame. That was on the day when the contents of the Manor were sold atauction by order of the Court. One thing Jean Jacques refused absolutelyand irrevocably to do from the first--refused it at last in anger andeven with an oath: he would not go through the Bankruptcy Court. Nopersuasion had any effect. The very suggestion seemed to smirch hishonour. His lawyer pleaded with him, said he would be able to savesomething out of the wreck, and that his creditors would be willing thathe should take advantage of the privileges of that court; but he onlysaid in reply:

"Thank you, thank you altogether, monsieur, but it is impossible--'nonpossumus, non possumus, my son, ' as the Pope said to Bonaparte. I oweand I will pay what I can; and what I can't pay now I will try to payin the future, by the cent, by the dollar, till all is paid to the lastcopper. It is the way with the Barbilles. They have paid their way andtheir debts in honour, and it is in the bond with all the Barbilles ofthe past that I do as they do. If I can't do it, then that I have triedto do it will be endorsed on the foot of the bill. "

No one could move him, not even Judge Carcasson, who from his armchairin Montreal wrote a feeble-handed letter begging him to believe thatit was "well within his rights as a gentleman"--this he put in atthe request of M. Mornay--to take advantage of the privileges ofthe Bankruptcy Court. Even then Jean Jacques had only a few moments'hesitation. What the Judge said made a deep impression; but he haddetermined to drink the cup of his misfortune to the dregs. He was setupon complete renunciation; on going forth like a pilgrim from the placeof his troubles and sorrows, taking no gifts, no mercies save thosewhich heaven accorded him. 

When the day of the auction came everything went. Even his best suitof clothes was sold to a blacksmith, while his fur-coat was bought by ahorse-doctor for fifteen dollars. Things that had been part of his lifefor a generation found their way into hands where he would least havewished them to go--of those who had been envious of him, who had cheatedor deceived him, of people with whom he had had nothing in common. Thered wagon and the pair of little longtailed stallions, which he haddriven for six years, were bought by the owner of a rival flour-mill inthe parish of Vilray; but his best sleigh, with its coon-skin robes, was bought by the widow of Palass Poucette, who bought also the famousbearskin which Dolores had given her at Jean Jacques' expense, and hadbeen returned by her to its proper owner. The silver fruitdish, once (itwas said) the property of the Baron of Beaugard, which each generationof Barbilles had displayed with as much ceremony as though it was achalice given by the Pope, went to Virginie Poucette. Virginie alsobought the furniture from Zoe's bedroom as it stood, together with thelittle upright piano on which she used to play. The Cure bought JeanJacques' writing-desk, and M. Fille purchased his armchair, in which hadsat at least six Barbilles as owners of the Manor. The beaver-hat whichJean Jacques wore on state occasions, as his grandfather had done, together with the bonnet rouge of the habitant, donned by him in hisyounger days--they fell to the nod of Mere Langlois, who declared that, as she was a cousin, she would keep the things in the family. MereLanglois would have bought the fruit-dish also if she could haveafforded to bid against Virginie Poucette; but the latter would have hadthe dish if it had cost her two hundred dollars. The only time shehad broken bread in Jean Jacques' house, she had eaten cake fromthis fruit-dish; and to her, as to the parish generally, the dish sobeautifully shaped, with its graceful depth and its fine-chased handles, was symbol of the social caste of the Barbilles, as the gold Cock ofBeaugard was sign of their civic and commercial glory. 

Jean Jacques, who had moved about all day with an almost volubleaffability, seeming not to realize the tragedy going on, or, if herealized it, rising superior to it, was noticed to stand still suddenlywhen the auctioneer put up the fruit-dish for sale. Then the smile lefthis face, and the reddish glow in his eyes, which had been there sincethe burning of the mill, fled, and a touch of amazement and confusiontook its place. All in a moment he was like a fluttered dweller of thewilds to whom comes some tremor of danger. 

His mouth opened as though he would forbid the selling of the heirloom;but it closed again, because he knew he had no right to withhold it fromthe hammer; and he took on a look like that which comes to the eyes of achild when it faces humiliating denial. Quickly as it came, however, itvanished, for he remembered that he could buy the dish himself. He couldbuy it himself and keep it. .. . Yet what could he do with it? Even so, hecould keep it. It could still be his till better days came. 

The auctioneer's voice told off the value of the fruitdish--"As anheirloom, as an antique; as a piece of workmanship impossible ofduplication in these days of no handicraft; as good pure silver, bearingthe head of Louis Quinze--beautiful, marvellous, historic, honourable, "and Jean Jacques made ready to bid. Then he remembered he had nomoney--he who all his life had been able to take a roll of bills fromhis pocket as another man took a packet of letters. His glance fellin shame, and the words died on his lips, even as M. Manotel, theauctioneer, was about to add another five-dollar bid to the price, whichalready was standing at forty dollars. 

It was at this moment Jean Jacques heard a woman's voice bidding, thentwo women's voices. Looking up he saw that one of the women was MereLanglois and the other was Virginie Poucette, who had made the firstbid. For a moment they contended, and then Mere Langlois fell out ofthe contest, and Virginie continued it with an ambitious farmer from thenext county, who was about to become a Member of Parliament. Presentlythe owner of a river pleasure-steamer entered into the costly emulationalso, but he soon fell away; and Virginie Poucette stubbornly raisedthe bidding by five dollars each time, till the silver symbol of theBarbilles' pride had reached one hundred dollars. Then she raised theprice by ten dollars, and her rival, seeing that he was face to facewith a woman who would now bid till her last dollar was at stake, withdrew; and Virginie was left triumphant with the heirloom. 

At the moment when Virginie turned away with the handsome dish from M. Manotel, and the crowd cheered her gaily, she caught Jean-Jacques' eye, and she came straight towards him. She wanted to give the dish to himthen and there; but she knew that this would provide annoying gossip formany a day, and besides, she thought he would refuse. More than that, she had in her mind another alternative which might in the end securethe heirloom to him, in spite of all. As she passed him, she said:

"At least we keep it in the parish. If you don't have it, well, then. .. "

She paused, for she did not quite know what to say unless she spoke whatwas really in her mind, and she dared not do that. 

"But you ought to have an heirloom, " she added, leaving unsaid what washer real thought and hope. With sudden inspiration, for he saw she wastrying to make it easy for him, he drew the great silver-watch from hispocket, which the head of the Barbilles had worn for generations, andsaid:

"I have the only heirloom I could carry about with me. It will keep timefor me as long as I'll last. The Manor clock strikes the time for theworld, and this watch is set by the Manor clock. "

"Well said--well and truly said, M'sieu' Jean Jacques, " remarked thelean watchmaker and so-called jeweller of Vilray, who stood near. "It isa watch which couldn't miss the stroke of Judgment Day. "

It was at that moment, in the sunset hour, when the sale had drawn to aclose, and the people had begun to disperse, that the avocat of Vilraywho represented the Big Financier came to Jean Jacques and said:

"M'sieu', I have to say that there is due to you three hundred and fiftydollars from the settlement, excluding this sale, which will just dowhat was expected of it. I am instructed to give it to you from thecreditors. Here it is. "

He took out a roll of bills and offered it to Jean Jacques. 

"What creditors?" asked Jean Jacques. 

"All the creditors, " responded the other, and he produced a receipt forJean Jacques to sign. "A formal statement will be sent you, and if thereis any more due to you, it will be added then. But now--well, there itis, the creditors think there is no reason for you to wait. "

Jean Jacques did not yet take the roll of bills. "They come from M. Mornay?" he asked with an air of resistance, for he did not wish to beunder further obligations to the man who would lose most by him. 

The lawyer was prepared. M. Mornay had foreseen the timidityand sensitiveness of Jean Jacques, had anticipated his mistakenchivalry--for how could a man decline to take advantage of theBankruptcy Court unless he was another Don Quixote! He had thereforearranged with all the creditors for them to take responsibility with'himself, though he provided the cash which manipulated this settlement. 

"No, M'sieu' Jean Jacques, " the lawyer replied, "this comes from all thecreditors, as the sum due to you from all the transactions, so far ascan be seen as yet. Further adjustment may be necessary, but this is theinterim settlement. "

Jean Jacques was far from being ignorant of business, but so bemused washis judgment and his intelligence now, that he did not see there wasno balance which could possibly be his, since his liabilities vastlyexceeded his assets. Yet with a wave of the hand he accepted the roll ofbills, and signed the receipt with an air which said, "These forms mustbe observed, I suppose. "

What he would have done if the three hundred and fifty dollars had notbeen given him, it would be hard to say, for with gentle asperity hehad declined a loan from his friend M. Fille, and he had but one silverdollar in his pocket, or in the world. Indeed, Jean Jacques was livingin a dream in these dark days--a dream of renunciation and sacrifice, and in the spirit of one who gives up all to some great cause. He wasnot yet even face to face with the fulness of his disaster. Only atmoments had the real significance of it all come to him, and then he hadshivered as before some terror menacing his path. Also, as M. Mornay hadsaid, his philosophy was now in his bones and marrow rather than in hiswords. It had, after all, tinctured his blood and impregnated his mind. He had babbled and been the egotist, and played cock o' the walk; andnow at last his philosophy was giving some foundation for his feet. Yet at this auction-sale he looked a distracted, if smiling, whimsical, rather bustling figure of misfortune, with a tragic air of exile, ofisolation from all by which he was surrounded. A profound and waywornloneliness showed in his figure, in his face, in his eyes. 

The crowd thinned in time, and yet very many lingered to see the lastof this drama of lost fortunes. A few of the riff-raff, who invariablyattend these public scenes, were now rather the worse for drink, from the indifferent liquor provided by the auctioneer, and they wereinclined to horseplay and coarse chaff. More than one ribald referenceto Jean Jacques had been checked by his chivalrous fellow-citizens;indeed, M. Fille had almost laid himself open to a charge of assaultin his own court by raising his stick at a loafer, who made insultingreferences to Jean Jacques. But as the sale drew to a close, an air ofrollicking humour among the younger men would not be suppressed, and itlooked as though Jean Jacques' exit would be attended by the elements offarce and satire. 

In this world, however, things do not happen logically, and Jean Jacquesmade his exit in a wholly unexpected manner. He was going away by thetrain which left a new railway junction a few miles off, having gentlyyet firmly declined M. Fille's invitation, and also the invitations ofothers--including the Cure and Mere Langlois--to spend the night withthem and start off the next day. He elected to go on to Montreal thatvery night, and before the sale was quite finished he prepared to start. His carpet-bag containing a few clothes and necessaries had been sent onto the junction, and he meant to walk to the station in the cool of theevening. 

M. Manotel, the auctioneer, hoarse with his heavy day's work, wasannouncing that there were only a few more things to sell, and no doubtthey could be had at a bargain, when Jean Jacques began a tour ofthe Manor. There was something inexpressibly mournful in this lonelypilgrimage of the dismantled mansion. Yet there was no show of cheapemotion by Jean Jacques; and a wave of the hand prevented any one fromfollowing him in his dry-eyed progress to say farewell to these hauntsof childhood, manhood, family, and home. There was a strange numbnessin his mind and body, and he had a feeling that he moved immense andreflective among material things. Only tragedy can produce that feeling. Happiness makes the universe infinite and stupendous, despair makes itsmall and even trivial. 

It was when he had reached the little office where he had done thebusiness of his life--a kind of neutral place where he had ever isolatedhimself from the domestic scene--that the final sensation, save one, ofhis existence at the Manor came to him. Virginie Poucette had divinedhis purpose when he began the tour of the house, and going by aroundabout way, she had placed herself where she could speak with himalone before he left the place for ever--if that was to be. She was notsure that his exit was really inevitable--not yet. 

When Jean Jacques saw Virginie standing beside the table in his officewhere he lead worked over so many years, now marked Sold, and waiting tobe taken away by its new owner, he started and drew back, but she heldout her hand and said:

"But one word, M'sieu' Jean Jacques; only one word from a friend--indeeda friend. "

"A friend of friends, " he answered, still in abstraction, his eyeshaving that burnished light which belonged to the night of the fire; butyet realizing that she was a sympathetic soul who had offered to lendhim money without security. 

"Oh, indeed yes, as good a friend as you can ever have!" she added. 

Something had waked the bigger part of her, which had never been awakein the days of Palass Poucette. Jean Jacques was much older than she, but what she felt had nothing to do with age, or place or station. Ithad only to do with understanding, with the call of nature and of amotherhood crying for expression. Her heart ached for him. 

"Well, good-bye, my friend, " he said, and held out his hand. "I must begoing now. "

"Wait, " she said, and there was something insistent and yet pleading inher voice. "I've got something to say. You must hear it. .. . Why shouldyou go? There is my farm--it needs to be worked right. It has gotgood chances. It has water-power and wood and the best flax in theprovince--they want to start a flax-mill on it--I've had letters frombig men in Montreal. Well, why shouldn't you do it instead? There it is, the farm, and there am I a woman alone. I need help. I've got no head. I have to work at a sum of figures all night to get it straight. .. . Ah, m'sieu', it is a need both sides! You want someone to look after you;you want a chance again to do things; but you want someone to lookafter you, and it is all waiting there on the farm. Palass Poucetteleft behind him seven sound horses, and cows and sheep, and athreshing-machine and a fanning-mill, and no debts, and two thousanddollars in the bank. You will never do anything away from here. You muststay here, where--where I can look after you, Jean Jacques. "

The light in his eyes flamed up, died down, flamed up again, andpresently it covered all his face, as he grasped what she meant. 

"Wonder of God, do you forget?" he asked. "I am married--married still, Virginie Poucette. There is no divorce in the Catholic Church--no, noneat all. It is for ever and ever. "

"I said nothing about marriage, " she said bravely, though her facesuffused. 

"Hand of Heaven, what do you mean? You mean to say you would do that forme in spite of the Cure and--and everybody and everything?"

"You ought to be taken care of, " she protested. "You ought to have yourchance again. No one here is free to do it all but me. You are alone. Your wife that was--maybe she is dead. I am alone, and I'm not afraid ofwhat the good God will say. I will settle with Him myself. Well, then, do you think I'd care what--what Mere Langlois or the rest of the worldwould say?. .. I can't bear to think of you going away with nothing, withnobody, when here is something and somebody--somebody who would be goodto you. Everybody knows that you've been badly used--everybody. I'myoung enough to make things bright and warm in your life, and the placeis big enough for two, even if it isn't the Manor Cartier. "

"Figure de Christ, do you think I'd let you do it--me?" declared JeanJacques, with lips trembling now and his shoulders heaving. Misfortuneand pain and penalty he could stand, but sacrifice like this and--andwhatever else it was, were too much for him. They brought him back tothe dusty road and everyday life again; they subtracted him from hisbig dream, in which he had been detached from the details of hiscatastrophe. 

"No, no, no, " he added. "You go look another way, Virginie. Turn yourface to the young spring, not to the dead winter. To-morrow I'll be goneto find what I've got to find. I've finished here, but there's many agood man waiting for you--men who'll bring you something worth whilebesides themselves. Make no mistake, I've finished. I've done my termof life. I'm only out on ticket-of-leave now--but there, enough, I shallalways want to think of you. I wish I had something to give you--butyes, here is something. " He drew from his pocket a silver napkin-ring. "I've had that since I was five years old. My uncle Stefan gave it tome. I've always used it. I don't know why I put it in my pocket thismorning, but I did. Take it. It's more than money. It's got somethingof Jean Jacques about it. You've got the Barbille fruit-dish-that is athing I'll remember. I'm glad you've got it, and--"

"I meant we should both eat from it, " she said helplessly. 

"It would cost too much to eat from it with you, Virginie--"

He stopped short, choked, then his face cleared, and his eyes becamesteady. 

"Well then, good-bye, Virginie, " he said, holding out his hand. 

"You don't think I'd say to any other living man what I've said to you?"she asked. 

He nodded understandingly. "That's the best part of it. It was for meof all the world, " he answered. "When I look back, I'll see the lightin your window--the light you lit for the lost one--for Jean JacquesBarbille. "

Suddenly, with eyes that did not see and hands held out before him, heturned, felt for the door and left the room. 

She leaned helplessly against the table. "The poor Jean Jacques--thepoor Jean Jacques!" she murmured. "Cure or no Cure, I'd have done it, "she declared, with a ring to her voice. "Ah, but Jean Jacques, come withme!" she added with a hungry and compassionate gesture, speaking intospace. "I could make life worth while for us both. "

A moment later Virginie was outside, watching the last act in the careerof Jean Jacques in the parish of St. Saviour's. 

This was what she saw. 

The auctioneer was holding up a bird-cage containing a canary-Carmen'sbird-cage, and Zoe's canary which had remained to be a vocal memory ofher in her old home. 

"Here, " said the rhetorical, inflammable auctioneer, "here is thechoicest lot left to the last. I put it away in the bakery, meaning tosell it at noon, when everybody was eating-food for the soul and foodfor the body. I forgot it. But here it is, worth anything you like toanybody that loves the beautiful, the good, and the harmonious. What doI hear for this lovely saffron singer from the Elysian fields? What didthe immortal poet of France say of the bird in his garret, in 'L'Oiseaude Mon Crenier'? What did he say:

 'Sing me a song of the bygone hour, A song of the stream and the sun; Sing of my love in her bosky bower, When my heart it was twenty-one. '

"Come now, who will renew his age or regale her youth with the divinenotes of nature's minstrel? Who will make me an offer for this vestalvirgin of song--the joy of the morning and the benediction of theevening? What do I hear? The best of the wine to the last of the feast!What do I hear?--five dollars--seven dollars--nine dollars--going atnine dollars--ten dollars--Well, ladies and gentlemen, the bird cansing--ah, voila!"

He stopped short for a moment, for as the evening sun swept its veilof rainbow radiance over the scene, the bird began to sing. Its littlethroat swelled, it chirruped, it trilled, it called, it soared, it lostitself in a flood of ecstasy. In the applausive silence, the emotionalrecess of the sale, as it were, the man to whom the bird and the songmeant most, pushed his way up to the stand where M. Manotel stood. Whenthe people saw who it was, they fell back, for there was that in hisface which needed no interpretation. It filled them with a kind of awe. 

He reached up a brown, eager, affectionate hand--it had always beenthat--fat and small, but rather fine and certainly emotional, though notmaterial or sensual. 

"Go on with your bidding, " he said. 

He was going to buy the thing which had belonged to his daughter, wasbeloved by her--the living oracle of the morning, the muezzin of hismosque of home. It had been to the girl who had gone as another such abird had been to the mother of the girl, the voice that sang, "PraiseGod, " in the short summer of that bygone happiness of his. Even thiscage and its homebird were not his; they belonged to the creditors. 

"Go on. I buy--I bid, " Jean Jacques said in a voice that rang. It hadno blur of emotion. It had resonance. The hammer that struck the bell ofhis voice was the hammer of memory, and if it was plaintive it also wasclear, and it was also vibrant with the silver of lost hopes. 

M. Manotel humoured him, while the bird still sang. "Four dollars--fivedollars: do I hear no more than five dollars?--going once, going twice, going three times--gone!" he cried, for no one had made a further bid;and indeed M. Manotel would not have heard another voice than JeanJacques' if it had been as loud as the falls of the Saguenay. He was akind of poet in his way, was M. Manotel. He had been married four times, and he would be married again if he had the chance; also he wrote versesfor tombstones in the churchyard at St. Saviour's, and couplets forfetes and weddings. 

He handed the cage to Jean Jacques, who put it down on the ground at hisfeet, and in an instant had handed up five dollars for one of the idolsof his own altar. Anyone else than M. Manotel, or perhaps M. Fille orthe New Cure, would have hesitated to take the five dollars, or, if theyhad done so, would have handed it back; but they had souls tounderstand this Jean Jacques, and they would not deny him his insistentindependence. And so, in a moment, he was making his way out of thecrowd with the cage in his hand, the bird silent now. 

As he went, some one touched his arm and slipped a book into his hand. It was M. Fille, and the book was his little compendium of philosophywhich his friend had retrieved from his bedroom in the early morning. 

"You weren't going to forget it, Jean Jacques?" M. Fille saidreproachfully. "It is an old friend. It would not be happy with any oneelse. "

Jean Jacques looked M. Fille in the eyes. "Moi--je suis philosophe, " hesaid without any of the old insistence and pride and egotism, but as onewould make an affirmation or repeat a creed. 

"Yes, yes, to be sure, always, as of old, " answered M. Fille firmly;for, from that formula might come strength, when it was most needed, in a sense other and deeper far than it had been or was now. "You willremember that you will always know where to find us--eh?" added thelittle Clerk of the Court. 

The going of Jean Jacques was inevitable; all persuasion had failed toinduce him to stay--even that of Virginie; and M. Fille now treatedit as though it was the beginning of a new career for Jean Jacques, whatever that career might be. It might be he would come back some day, but not to things as they were, not ever again, nor as the same man. 

"You will move on with the world outside there, " continued M. Fille, "but we shall be turning on the same swivel here always; and wheneveryou come--there, you understand. With us it is semper fidelis, alwaysthe same. "

Jean Jacques looked at M. Fille again as though to ask him a question, but presently he shook his head in negation to his thought. 

"Well, good-bye, " he said cheerfully--"A la bonne heure!"

By that M. Fille knew that Jean Jacques did not wish for company as hewent--not even the company of his old friend who had loved the brightwhimsical emotional Zoe; who had hovered around his life like aprotecting spirit. 

"A bi'tot, " responded M. Fille, declining upon the homely patois. 

But as Jean Jacques walked away with his little book of philosophy inhis pocket, and the bird-cage in his hand, someone sobbed. M. Filleturned and saw. It was Virginie Poucette. Fortunately for Virginie otherwomen did the same, not for the same reason, but out of a sympathy whichwas part of the scene. 

It had been the intention of some friends of Jean Jacques to give hima cheer when he left, and even his sullen local creditors, now thatthe worst had come, were disposed to give him a good send-off; but theincident of the canary in its cage gave a turn to the feeling of thecrowd which could not be resisted. They were not a people who could cutand dry their sentiments; they were all impulse and simplicity, with anobvious cocksure shrewdness too, like that of Jean Jacques--of the oldJean Jacques. He had been the epitome of all their faults and all theirvirtues. 

No one cheered. Only one person called, "Au 'voir, M'sieu' JeanJacques!" and no one followed him--a curious, assertive, feebly-brisk, shock-headed figure in the brown velveteen jacket, which he had boughtin Paris on his Grand Tour. 

"What a ridiculous little man!" said a woman from Chalfonte over thewater, who had been buying freely all day for her new "Manor, " herhusband being a member of the provincial legislature. 

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than two women faced herthreateningly. 

"For two pins I'd slap your face, " said old Mere Langlois, her greatbreast heaving. "Popinjay--you, that ought to be in a cage like hiscanary. "

But Virginie Poucette also was there in front of the offender, and shealso had come from Chalfonte--was born in that parish; and she knew whatshe was facing. 

"Better carry a bird-cage and a book than carry swill to swine, " shesaid; and madame from Chalfonte turned white, for it had been said thather father was once a swine-herd, and that she had tried her best toforget it when, with her coarse beauty, she married the well-to-dofarmer who was now in the legislature. 

"Hold your tongues, all of you, and look at that, " said M. Manotel, whohad joined the agitated group. He was pointing towards the departingJean Jacques, who was now away upon his road. 

Jean Jacques had raised the cage on a level with his face, and wasevidently speaking to the bird in the way birds love--that soft kissingsound to which they reply with song. 

Presently there came a chirp or two, and then the bird thrust upits head, and out came the full blessedness of its song, exultant, home-like, intimate. 

Jean Jacques walked on, the bird singing by his side; and he did notlook back. 

CHAPTER XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME

Nothing stops when we stop for a time, or for all time, exceptourselves. Everything else goes on--not in the same way; but it does goon. Life did not stop at St. Saviour's after Jean Jacques made his exit. Slowly the ruined mill rose up again, and very slowly indeed the widowof Palass Poucette recovered her spirits, though she remained a widowin spite of all appeals; but M. Fille and his sister never were the sameafter they lost their friend. They had great comfort in the dogwhich Jean Jacques had given to them, and they roused themselves to amalicious pleasure when Bobon, as he had been called by Zoe, rushed outat the heels of an importunate local creditor who had greatly worriedJean Jacques at the last. They waited in vain for a letter from JeanJacques, but none came; nor did they hear anything from him, or of him, for a long, long time. 

Jean Jacques did not mean that they should. When he went away with hisbook of philosophy and his canary he had but one thing in his mind, andthat was to find Zoe and make her understand that he knew he had beenin the wrong. He had illusions about starting life again, in which heprobably did not believe; but the make-believe was good for him. Longbefore the crash came, in Zoe's name--not his own--he had bought fromthe Government three hundred and twenty acres of land out near theRockies and had spent five hundred dollars in improvements on it. 

There it was in the West, one remaining asset still his own--or ratherZoe's--but worth little if he or she did not develop it. As he left St. Saviour's, however, he kept fixing his mind on that "last domain, " as hecalled it to himself. If this was done intentionally, that he might besaved from distraction and despair, it was well done; if it was a realillusion--the old self-deception which had been his bane so often in thepast--it still could only do him good at the present. It prevented himfrom noticing the attention he attracted on the railway journey from St. Saviour's to Montreal, cherishing his canary and his book as he went. 

He was not so self-conscious now as in the days when he was surprisedthat Paris did not stop to say, "Bless us, here is that fine fellow, Jean Jacques Barbille of St. Saviour's!" He could concentrate himselfmore now on things that did not concern the impression he was making onthe world. At present he could only think of Zoe and of her future. 

When a patronizing and aggressive commercial traveller in the littlehotel on a side-street where he had taken a room in Montreal said tohim, "Bien, mon vieux" (which is to say, "Well, old cock"), "aren'tyou a long way from home?" something of a new dignity came into JeanJacques' bearing, very different from the assurance of the old days, andin reply he said:

"Not so far that I need be careless about my company. " This made thelandlady of the little hotel laugh quite hard, for she did not like thebraggart "drummer" who had treated her with great condescension for anumber of years. Also Madame Glozel liked Jean Jacques because of hiscanary. She thought there must be some sentimental reason for a man offifty or more carrying a bird about with him; and she did not restuntil she had drawn from Jean Jacques that he was taking the bird to hisdaughter in the West. There, however, madame was stayed in her searchfor information. Jean Jacques closed up, and did but smile when sheadroitly set traps for him, and at last asked him outright where hisdaughter was. 

Why he waited in Montreal it would be hard to say, save that it was akind of middle place between the old life and the new, and also becausehe must decide what was to be his plan of search. First the West--firstWinnipeg, but where after that? He had at last secured information ofwhere Zoe and Gerard Fynes had stayed while in Montreal; and now hefollowed clues which would bring him in touch with folk who knew them. He came to know one or two people who were with Zoe and Gerard in thelast days they spent in the metropolis, and he turned over and over inhis mind every word said about his girl, as a child turns a sweetmeat inits mouth. This made him eager to be off; but on the very day he decidedto start at once for the West, something strange happened. 

It was towards the late afternoon of a Saturday, when the streets werefull of people going to and from the shops in a marketing quarter, thatMadame Glozel came to him and said:

"M'sieu', I have an idea, and you will not think it strange, for youhave a kind heart. There is a woman--look you, it is a sad, sad storyhers. She is ill and dying in a room a little way down the street. Butyes, I am sure she is dying--of heart disease it is. She came here firstwhen the illness took her, but she could not afford to stay. She went tothose cheaper lodgings down the street. She used to be on the stage overin the States, and then she came back here, and there was a man--marriedto him or not I do not know, and I will not think. Well, the man--thebrute--he left her when she got ill--but yes, forsook her absolutely! Hewas a land-agent or something like that, and all very fine to your face, to promise and to pretend--just make-believe. When her sickness gotworse, off he went with 'Au revoir, my dear--I will be back to supper. 'Supper! If she'd waited for her supper till he came back, she'd havewaited as long as I've done for the fortune the gipsy promised me fortyyears ago. Away he went, the rogue, without a thought of her, and withanother woman. That's what hurt her most of all. Straight from her thatcould hardly drag herself about--ah, yes, and has been as handsome awoman as ever was!--straight from her he went to a slut. She was a slut, m'sieu'--did I not know her? Did Ma'm'selle Slut not wait at table inthis house and lead the men a dance here night and day-day and nighttill I found it out! Well, off he went with the slut, and left the ladybehind. .. . You men, you treat women so. "

Jean Jacques put out a hand as though to argue with her. "Sometimes itis the other way, " he retorted. "Most of us have seen it like that. "

"Well, for sure, you're right enough there, m'sieu', " was the response. "I've got nothing to say to that, except that it's a man that runs awaywith a woman, or that gets her to leave her husband when she does go. There's always a man that says, 'Come along, I'm the better chap foryou. '"

Jean Jacques wearily turned his head away towards the cage where hiscanary was beginning to pipe its evening lay. 

"It all comes to the same thing in the end, " he said pensively; and thenhe who had been so quiet since he came to the little hotel--Glozel's, itwas called--began to move about the room excitedly, running his fingersthrough his still bushy hair, which, to his credit, was always as cleanas could be, burnished and shiny even at his mid-century period. Hebegan murmuring to himself, and a frown settled on his fore head. Mme. Glozel saw that she had perturbed him, and that no doubt she had rousedsome memories which made sombre the sunny little room where the canarysang; where, to ravish the eyes of the pessimist, was a picture of LouisXVI. Going to heaven in the arms of St. Peter. 

When started, however, the good woman could no more "slow down" than herFrench pony would stop when its head was turned homewards from market. So she kept on with the history of the woman down the street. 

"Heart disease, " she said, nodding with assurance and finality; "and weknow what that is--a start, a shock, a fall, a strain, and pht! off thepoor thing goes. Yes, heart disease, and sometimes with such awful pain. But so; and yesterday she told me she had only a hundred dollars left. 'Enough to last me through, ' she said to me. Poor thing, she lifted upher eyes with a way she has, as if looking for something she couldn'tfind, and she says, as simple as though she was asking about the priceof a bed-tick, 'It won't cost more than fifty dollars to bury me, Is'pose?' Well, that made me squeamish, for the poor dear's plight camehome to me so clear, and she young enough yet to get plenty out of life, if she had the chance. So I asked her again about her people--whether Icouldn't send for someone belonging to her. 'There's none that belongsto me, ' she says, 'and there's no one I belong to. '

"I thought very likely she didn't want to tell me about herself; perhapsbecause she had done wrong, and her family had not been good to her. Yet it was right I should try and get her folks to come, if she had anyfolks. So I said to her, 'Where was your home?' And now, what do youthink she answered, m'sieu'?' 'Look there, ' she said to me, with herbig eyes standing out of her head almost--for that's what comes to hersometimes when she is in pain, and she looks more handsome then than atany other time--'Look there, ' she said to me, 'it was in heaven, that'swhere--my home was; but I didn't know it. I hadn't been taught to knowthe place when I saw it. '

"Well, I felt my skin go goosey, for I saw what was going on in hermind, and how she was remembering what had happened to her some time, somewhere; but there wasn't a tear in her eyes, and I never saw hercry-never once, m'sieu'--well, but as brave as brave. Her eyes arealways dry--burning. They're like two furnaces scorching up her face. SoI never found out her history, and she won't have the priest. I believethat's because she wants to die unknown, and doesn't want to confess. Inever saw a woman I was sorrier for, though I think she wasn't marriedto the man that left her. But whatever she was, there's good in her--Ihaven't known hundreds of women and had seven sisters for nothing. Well, there she is--not a friend near her at the last; for it's coming soon, the end--no one to speak to her, except the woman she pays to come inand look after her and nurse her a bit. Of course there's the landladytoo, Madame Popincourt, a kind enough little cricket of a woman, butwith no sense and no head for business. And so the poor sick thing hasnot a single pleasure in the world. She can't read, because it makes herhead ache, she says; and she never writes to any one. One day she triedto sing a little, but it seemed to hurt her, and she stopped before shehad begun almost. Yes, m'sieu', there she is without a single pleasurein the long hours when she doesn't sleep. "

"There's my canary--that would cheer her up, " eagerly said Jean Jacques, who, as the story of the chirruping landlady continued, became master ofhis agitation, and listened as though to the tale of some life for whichhe had concern. "Yes, take my canary to her, madame. It picked me upwhen I was down. It'll help her--such a bird it is! It's the best singerin the world. It's got in its throat the music of Malibran and JennyLind and Grisi, and all the stars in heaven that sang together. Also, to be sure, it doesn't charge anything, but just as long as there'sdaylight it sings and sings, as you know. "

"M'sieu'--oh, m'sieu', it was what I wanted to ask you, and I didn'tdare!" gushingly declared madame. "I never heard a bird sing likethat--just as if it knew how much good it was doing, and with all theairs of a grand seigneur. It's a prince of birds, that. If you mean it, m'sieu', you'll do as good a thing as you have ever done. "

"It would have to be much better, or it wouldn't be any use, " remarkedJean Jacques. 

The woman made a motion of friendliness with both hands. "I don'tbelieve that. You may be queer, but you've got a kind eye. It won't befor long she'll need the canary, and it will cheer her. There certainlywas never a bird so little tied to one note. Now this note, now that, and so amusing. At times it's as though he was laughing at you. "

"That's because, with me for his master, he has had good reason tolaugh, " remarked Jean Jacques, who had come at last to take a despondentview of himself. 

"That's bosh, " rejoined Mme. Glozel; "I've seen several people odderthan you. "

She went over to the cage eagerly, and was about to take it away. "Excuse me, " interposed Jean Jacques, "I will carry the cage to thehouse. Then you will go in with the bird, and I'll wait outside and seeif the little rascal sings. "

"This minute?" asked madame. 

"For sure, this very minute. Why should the poor lady wait? It's alonely time of day, this, the evening, when the long night's ahead. "

A moment later the two were walking along the street to the door ofMme. Popincourt's lodgings, and people turned to look at the pair, onecarrying something covered with a white cloth, evidently a savoury dishof some kind--the other with a cage in which a handsome canary hoppedabout, well pleased with the world. 

At Mme. Popincourt's door Mme. Glozel took the cage and went upstairs. Jean Jacques, left behind, paced backwards and forwards in front of thehouse waiting and looking up, for Mme. Glozel had said that behind thefront window on the third floor was where the sick woman lived. He hadnot long to wait. The setting sun shining full on the window had rousedthe bird, and he began to pour out a flood of delicious melody whichflowed on and on, causing the people in the street to stay their stepsand look up. Jean Jacques' face, as he listened, had something very likea smile. There was that in the smile belonging to the old pride, whichin days gone by had made him say when he looked at his domains at theManor Cartier--his houses, his mills, his store, his buildings and hislands--"It is all mine. It all belongs to Jean Jacques Barbille. "

Suddenly, however, there came a sharp pause in the singing, and afterthat a cry--a faint, startled cry. Then Mme. Glozel's head was thrustout of the window three floors up, and she called to Jean Jacques tocome quickly. As she bade him come, some strange premonition flashedto Jean Jacques, and with thumping heart he hastened up the staircase. Outside a bedroom door, Mme. Glozel met him. She was so excited shecould only whisper. 

"Be very quiet, " she said. "There is something strange. When the birdsang as it did--you heard it--she sat like one in a trance. Then herface took on a look glad and frightened too, and she stared hard at thecage. 'Bring that cage to me, ' she said. I brought it. She looked sharpat it, then she gave a cry and fell back. As I took the cage away I sawwhat she had been looking at--a writing at the bottom of the cage. Itwas the name Carmen. "

With a stifled cry Jean Jacques pushed her aside and entered theroom. As he did so, the sick woman in the big armchair, so pale yetso splendid in her death-beauty, raised herself up. With eyes thatFrancesca might have turned to the vision of her fate, she looked at theopening door, as though to learn if he who came was one she had wishedto see through long, relentless days. 

"Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!" she cried out presentlyin a voice like a wisp of sound, for she had little breath; and thenwith a smile she sank back, too late to hear, but not too late to know, what Jean Jacques said to her. 

CHAPTER XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY

However far Jean Jacques went, however long the day since leaving theManor Cartier, he could not escape the signals from his past. He heardmore than once the bells of memory ringing at the touch of the invisiblehand of Destiny which accepts no philosophy save its own. At Montreal, for one hallowed instant, he had regained his lost Carmen, but he hadturned from her grave--the only mourners being himself, Mme. Glozel andMme. Popincourt, together with a barber who had coiffed her wonderfulhair once a week--with a strange burning at his heart. That icebergwhich most mourners carry in their breasts was not his, as he walkeddown the mountainside from Carmen's grave. Behind him trotted Mme. Glozel and Mme. Popincourt, like little magpies, attendants onthis eagle of sorrow whose life-love had been laid to rest, herheart-troubles over. Passion or ennui would no more vex her. 

She had had a soul, had Carmen Dolores, though she had never known ittill her days closed in on her, and from the dusk she looked out of thecasements of life to such a glowing as Jean Jacques had seen when hisburning mill beatified the evening sky. She had known passion and vividlife in the days when she went hand-in-hand with Carvillho Gonzalesthrough the gardens of Granada; she had known the smotheringhome-sickness which does not alone mean being sick for a distant home, but a sickness of the home that is; and she had known what George Massongave her for one thrilling hour, and then--then the man who left her inher death-year, taking not only the last thread of hope which held herto life. This vulture had taken also little things dear to her dailylife, such as the ring Carvillho Gonzales had given her long ago inCadiz, also another ring, a gift of Jean Jacques, and things lessvaluable to her, such as money, for which she knew surely she would haveno long use. 

As she lay waiting for the day when she must go from the garish scene, she unconsciously took stock of life in her own way. There intruded onher sight the stages of the theatres where she had played and danced, and she heard again the music of the paloma and those other Spanish airswhich had made the world dance under her girl's feet long ago. Atfirst she kept seeing the faces of thousands looking up at her from thestalls, down at her from the gallery, over at her from the boxes; andthe hot breath of that excitement smote her face with a drunken odourthat sent her mad. Then, alas! somehow, as disease took hold of her, there were the colder lights, the colder breath from the few whoapplauded so little. And always the man who had left her in her day ofdirest need; who had had the last warm fires of her life, the last briefoutrush of her soul, eager as it was for a joy which would prove shehad not lost all when she fled from the Manor Cartier--a joy which wouldmake her forget!

What she really did feel in this last adventure of passion only made herremember the more when she was alone now, her life at the ManorCartier. She was wont to wake up suddenly in the morning--the very earlymorning--with the imagined sound of the gold Cock of Beaugard crowing inher ears. Memory, memory, memory--yet never a word, and never a hearsayof what had happened at the Manor Cartier since she had left it! Thenthere came a time when she longed intensely to see Jean Jacques beforeshe died, though she could not bring herself to send word to him. Shedreaded what the answer might be--not Jean Jacques' answer, but theanswer of Life. Jean Jacques and her child, her Zoe--more his than hersin years gone by--one or both might be dead! She dared not write, butshe cherished a desire long denied. Then one day she saw everything inher life more clearly than she had ever done. She found an old book ofFrench verse, once belonging to Mme. Popincourt's husband, who had beena professor. Some lines therein opened up a chamber of her being neverbefore unlocked. At first only the feeling of the thing came, thenslowly the spiritual meaning possessed her. She learnt it by heart andlet it sing to her as she lay half-sleeping and half-waking, half-livingand half-dying:

 "There is a World; men compass it through tears, Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o'er the foam; I found it down the track of sundering years, Beyond the long island where the sea steals home. 

 "A land that triumphs over shame and pain, Penitence and passion and the parting breath, Over the former and the latter rain, The birth-morn fire and the frost of death. 

 "From its safe shores the white boats ride away, Salving the wreckage of the portless ships The light desires of the amorous day, The wayward, wanton wastage of the lips. 

 "Star-mist and music and the pensive moon These when I harboured at that perfumed shore; And then, how soon! the radiance of noon, And faces of dear children at the door. 

 "Land of the Greater Love--men call it this; No light-o'-love sets here an ambuscade; No tender torture of the secret kiss Makes sick the spirit and the soul afraid. 

 "Bright bowers and the anthems of the free, The lovers absolute--ah, hear the call! Beyond the long island and the sheltering sea, That World I found which holds my world in thrall. 

 "There is a World; men compass it through tears, Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o'er the foam; I found it down the track of sundering years, Beyond the long island where the sea steals home. "

At last the inner thought of it got into her heart, and then it was inreply to Mme. Glozel, who asked her where her home was, she said: "InHeaven, but I did not know it!" And thus it was, too, that at thevery last, when Jean Jacques followed the singing bird into herdeath-chamber, she cried out, "Ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!"

And because Jean Jacques knew that, at the last, she had been his, souland body, he went down from the mountain-side, the two black magpiesfluttering mournfully and yet hopefully behind him, with more warmth athis heart than he had known for years. It never occurred to him that thetwo elderly magpies would jointly or severally have given the rest oftheir lives and their scant fortunes to have him with them either ashusband, or as one who honourably hires a home at so much a day. 

Though Jean Jacques did not know this last fact, when he fared forthagain he left behind his canary with Mme. Glozel; also all Carmen'sclothes, except the dress she died in, he gave to Mme. Popincourt, oncondition that she did not wear them till he had gone. The dress inwhich Carmen died he wrapped up carefully, with her few jewels and herwedding-ring, and gave the parcel to Mme. Glozel to care for till heshould send for it or come again. 

"The bird--take him on my birthday to sing at her grave, " he said toMme. Glozel just before he went West. "It is in summer, my birthday, andyou shall hear how he will sing there, " he added in a low voice at thevery door. Then he took out a ten-dollar bill, and would have given itto her to do this thing for him; but she would have none of his money. She only wiped her eyes and deplored his going, and said that if everhe wanted a home, and she was alive, he would know where to find it. It sounded and looked sentimental, yet Jean Jacques was never lesssentimental in a very sentimental life. This particular morning he wasvery quiet and grave, and not in the least agitated; he spoke like onefrom a friendly, sun-bright distance to Mme. Glozel, and also to Mme. Popincourt as he passed her at the door of her house. 

Jean Jacques had no elation as he took the Western trail; there was notmuch hope in his voice; but there was purpose and there was a littlestream of peace flowing through his being--and also, mark, a stream ofanger tumbling over rough places. He had read two letters addressed toCarmen by the man--Hugo Stolphe--who had left her to her fate; and therewas a grim devouring thing in him which would break loose, if ever theman crossed his path. He would not go hunting him, but if he passedhim or met him on the way--! Still he would go hunting--to find hisCarmencita, his little Carmen, his Zoe whom he had unwittingly, Godknew! driven forth into the far world of the millions of acres--a wide, wide hunting-ground in good sooth. 

So he left his beloved province where he no longer had a home, andthough no letters came to him from St. Saviour's, from Vilray or theManor Cartier, yet he heard the bells of memory when the Hand Invisiblearrested his footsteps. One day these bells rang so loud that he wouldhave heard them were he sunk in the world's deepest well of shame; but, as it was, he now marched on hills far higher than the passes throughthe mountains which his patchwork philosophy had ever provided. 

It was in the town of Shilah on the Watloon River that the bells boomedout--not because he had encountered one he had ever known far down bythe Beau Cheval, or in his glorious province, not because he hadfound his Zoe, but because a man, the man--not George Masson, but theother--met him in the way. 

Shilah was a place to which, almost unconsciously, he had deviated hiscourse, because once Virginie Poucette had read him a letter from there. That was in the office of the little Clerk of the Court at Vilray. Theletter was from Virginie's sister at Shilah, and told him that Zoe andher husband had gone away into farther fields of homelessness. Thus itwas that Shilah ever seemed to him, as he worked West, a goal in hisquest--not the last goal perhaps, but a goal. 

He had been far past it by another route, up, up and out into the morescattered settlements, and now at last he had come to it again, havingcompleted a kind of circle. As he entered it, the past crowded on to himwith a hundred pictures. Shilah--it was where Virginie Poucette's sisterlived; and Virginie had been a part of the great revelation of his lifeat St. Saviour's. 

As he was walking by the riverside at Shilah, a woman spoke to him, touching his arm as she did so. He was in a deep dream as she spoke, but there certainly was a look in her face that reminded him of someonebelonging to the old life. For an instant he could not remember. For amoment he did not even realize that he was at Shilah. His meditationhad almost been a trance, and it took him time to adjust himself tothe knowledge of the conscious mind. His subconsciousness was verypowerfully alive in these days. There was not the same ceaselesslyactive eye, nor the vibration of the impatient body which belonged tothe money-master and miller of the Manor Cartier. Yet the eye had moredepth and force, and the body was more powerful and vigorous than it hadever been. The long tramping, the everlasting trail on false scents, themental battling with troubles past and present, had given a fortitudeand vigour to the body beyond what it had ever known. In spite ofhis homelessness and pilgrim equipment he looked as though he had ahome--far off. The eyes did not smile; but the lips showed the goodnessof his heart--and its hardness too. Hardness had never been there inthe old days. It was, however, the hardness of resentment, and notof cruelty. It was not his wife's or his daughter's flight that heresented, nor yet the loss of all he had, nor the injury done him bySebastian Dolores. No, his resentment was against one he had never seen, but was now soon to see. As his mind came back from the far places whereit had been, and his eyes returned to the concrete world, he saw whatthe woman recalled to him. It was--yes, it was Virginie Poucette--thekind and beautiful Virginie--for her goodness had made him rememberher as beautiful, though indeed she was but comely, like this woman whostayed him as he walked by the river. 

"You are M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille?" she said questioningly. 

"How did you know?" he asked. .. . "Is Virginie Poucette here?"

"Ah, you knew me from her?" she asked. 

"There was something about her--and you have it also--and the look inthe eyes, and then the lips!" he replied. 

Certainly they were quite wonderful, luxurious lips, and so shapelytoo--like those of Virginie. 

"But how did you know I was Jean Jacques Barbille?" he repeated. 

"Well, then it is quite easy, " she replied with a laugh almost like agiggle, for she was quite as simple and primitive as her sister. "Thereis a photographer at Vilray, and Virginie got one of your picturesthere, and sent, it to me. 'He may come your way, ' said Virginie to me, 'and if he does, do not forget that he is my friend. '"

"That she is my friend, " corrected Jean Jacques. "And what afriend--merci, what a friend!" Suddenly he caught the woman's arm. "Youonce wrote to your sister about my Zoe, my daughter, that married andran away--"

"That ran away and got married, " she interrupted. 

"Is there any more news--tell me, do you know-?"

But Virginie's sister shook her head. "Only once since I wrote Virginiehave I heard, and then the two poor children--but how helpless theywere, clinging to each other so! Well, then, once I heard from Faragay, but that was much more than a year ago. Nothing since, and they weregoing on--on to Fort Providence to spend the winter--for his health--hislungs. "

"What to do--on what to live?" moaned Jean Jacques. 

"His grandmother sent him a thousand dollars, so your Madame Zoe wroteme. "

Jean Jacques raised a hand with a gesture of emotion. "Ah, the blessedwoman! May there be no purgatory for her, but Heaven at once andalways!"

"Come home with me--where are your things?" she asked. 

"I have only a knapsack, " he replied. "It is not far from here. But Icannot stay with you. I have no claim. No, I will not, for--"

"As to that, we keep a tavern, " she returned. "You can come the sameas the rest of the world. The company is mixed, but there it is. Youneedn't eat off the same plate, as they say in Quebec. "

Quebec! He looked at her with the face of one who saw a vision. How likeVirginie Poucette--the brave, generous Virginie--how like she was!

In silence now he went with her, and seeing his mood she did not talk tohim. People stared as they walked along, for his dress was curious andhis head was bare, and his hair like the coat of a young lion. Besides, this woman was, in her way, as brave and as generous as VirginiePoucette. In the very doorway of the tavern by the river a man jostledthem. He did not apologize. He only leered. It made his foreign-looking, coarsely handsome face detestable. 

"Pig!" exclaimed Virginie Poucette's sister. "That's a man--well, lookout! There's trouble brewing for him. If he only knew! If suspicioncomes out right and it's proved--well, there, he'll jostle the door-jambof a jail. "

Jean Jacques stared after the man, and somehow every nerve in hisbody became angry. He had all at once a sense of hatred. He shook theshoulder against which the man had collided. He remembered the leer onthe insolent, handsome face. 

"I'd like to see him thrown into the river, " said Virginie Poucette'ssister. "We have a nice girl here--come from Ireland--as good as can be. Well, last night--but there, she oughtn't to have let him speak to her. 'A kiss is nothing, ' he said. Well, if he kissed me I would kill him--ifI didn't vomit myself to death first. He's a mongrel--a South Americanmongrel with nigger blood. "

Jean Jacques kept looking after the man. "Why don't you turn him out?"he asked sharply. 

"He's going away to-morrow anyhow, " she replied. "Besides, the girl, she's so ashamed--and she doesn't want anyone to know. 'Who'd want tokiss me after him' she said, and so he stays till to-morrow. He's not inthe tavern itself, but in the little annex next door-there, where he'sgoing now. He's only had his meals here, though the annex belongs to usas well. He's alone there on his dung-hill. "

She brought Jean Jacques into a room that overlooked the river--which, indeed, hung on its very brink. From the steps at its river-door, alittle ferry-boat took people to the other side of the Watloon, and verynear--just a few hand-breadths away--was the annex where was the man whohad jostled Jean Jacques. 

CHAPTER XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO

A single lighted lamp, turned low, was suspended from the ceiling of theraftered room, and through the open doorway which gave on to a littlewooden piazza with a slight railing and small, shaky gate came the swishof the Watloon River. No moon was visible, but the stars were radiantand alive--trembling with life. There was something soothing, somethingendlessly soothing in the sound of the river. It suggested the ceaselessmovement of life to the final fulness thereof. 

So still was the room that it might have seemed to be without life, wereit not for a faint sound of breathing. The bed, however, was empty, and no chair was occupied; but on a settle in a corner beside an unusedfireplace sat a man, now with hands clasped between his knees, againwith arms folded across his breast; but with his head always in alistening attitude. The whole figure suggested suspense, vigilance andpreparedness. The man had taken off his boots and stockings, and hisbare feet seemed to grip the floor; also the sleeves of his jacket wererolled up a little. It was not a figure you would wish to see inyour room at midnight unasked. Once or twice he sighed heavily, as helistened to the river slishing past and looked out to the sparkle of theskies. It was as though the infinite had drawn near to the man, or elsethat the man had drawn near to the infinite. Now and again he broughthis fists down on his knees with a savage, though noiseless, force. Thepeace of the river and the night could not contend successfully againsta dark spirit working in him. When, during his vigil, he shook hisshaggy head and his lips opened on his set teeth, he seemed like one whowould take toll at a gateway of forbidden things. 

He started to his feet at last, hearing footsteps outside upon thestairs. Then he settled back again, drawing near to the chimney-wall, so that he should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently therewas the click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smokeinvaded the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspendedoil-lamp and twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, therewas a slight noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, theman under the lamp saw at the door the man who had been sitting inthe corner. The man had a key in his hand. Exit now could only be hadthrough the door opening on to the river. 

"Who are you? What the hell do you want here?" asked the fellow underthe lamp, his swarthy face drawn with fear and yet frowning with anger. 

"Me--I am Jean Jacques Barbille, " said the other in French, puttingthe key of the door in his pocket. The other replied in French, witha Spanish-English accent. "Barbille--Carmen's husband! Well, who wouldhave thought--!"

He ended with a laugh not pleasant to hear, for it was coarse withsardonic mirth; yet it had also an unreasonable apprehension; for whyshould he fear the husband of the woman who had done that husband suchan injury!

"She treated you pretty bad, didn't she--not much heart, had Carmen!" headded. 

"Sit down. I want to talk to you, " said Jean Jacques, motioning to twochairs by a table at the side of the room. This table was in the middleof the room when the man under the lamp-Hugo Stolphe was his name--hadleft it last. Why had the table been moved?

"Why should I sit down, and what are you doing here?--I want to knowthat, " Stolphe demanded. Jean Jacques' hands were opening and shutting. "Because I want to talk to you. If you don't sit down, I'll give you nochance at all. .. . Sit down!" Jean Jacques was smaller than Stolphe, but he was all whipcord and leather; the other was sleek and soft, butpowerful too; and he had one of those savage natures which go blind withhatred, and which fight like beasts. He glanced swiftly round the room. 

"There is no weapon here, " said Jean Jacques, nodding. "I have puteverything away--so you could not hurt me if you wanted. .. . Sit down!"

To gain time Stolphe sat down, for he had a fear that Jean Jacques wasarmed, and might be a madman armed--there were his feet bare on thebrown painted boards. They looked so strange, so uncanny. He surely mustbe a madman if he wanted to do harm to Hugo Stolphe; for Hugo Stolphehad only "kept" the woman who had left her husband, not because ofhimself, but because of another man altogether--one George Masson. Hadnot Carmen herself told him that before she and he lived together? Whatgrudge could Carmen's husband have against Hugo Stolphe?

Jean Jacques sat down also, and, leaning on the table said: "Once I wasa fool and let the other man escape-George Masson it was. Because ofwhat he did, my wife left me. "

His voice became husky, but he shook his throat, as it were, cleared it, and went on. "I won't let you go. I was going to kill George Masson--Ihad him like that!" He opened and shut his hand with a gesture offierce possession. "But I did not kill him. I let him go. He was soclever--cleverer than you will know how to be. She said to me--my wifesaid to me, when she thought I had killed him, 'Why did you notfight him? Any man would have fought him. ' That was her view. She wasright--not to kill without fighting. That is why I did not kill you atonce when I knew. "

"When you knew what?" Stolphe was staring at the madman. 

"When I knew you were you. First I saw that ring--that ring on yourhand. It was my wife's. I gave it to her the first New Year after wemarried. I saw it on your hand when you were drinking at the bar nextdoor. Then I asked them your name. I knew it. I had read your letters tomy wife--"

"Your wife once on a time!"

Jean Jacques' eyes swam red. "My wife always and always--and at the lastthere in my arms. " Stolphe temporized. "I never knew you. She did notleave you because of me. She came to me because--because I was therefor her to come to, and you weren't there. Why do you want to do me anyharm?" He still must be careful, for undoubtedly the man was mad--hiseyes were too bright. 

"You were the death of her, " answered Jean Jacques, leaning forward. "She was most ill-ah, who would not have been sorry for her! She waspoor. She had been to you--but to live with a woman day by day, but tobe by her side when the days are done, and then one morning to say, 'Aurevoir till supper' and then go and never come back, and to take moneyand rings that belonged to her!. .. That was her death--that was the endof Carmen Barbille; and it was your fault. "

"You would do me harm and not hurt her! Look how she treated you--andothers. "

Jean Jacques half rose from his seat in sudden rage, but he restrainedhimself, and sat down again. "She had one husband--only one. It was JeanJacques Barbille. She could only treat one as she treated me--me, herhusband. But you, what had you to do with that! You used her--so!"He made a motion as though to stamp out an insect with his foot. "Beautiful, a genius, sick and alone--no husband, no child, and you usedher so! That is why I shall kill you to-night. We will fight for it. "

Yes, but surely the man was mad, and the thing to do was to humourhim, to gain time. To humour a madman--that is what one always advised, therefore Stolphe would make the pourparler, as the French say. 

"Well, that's all right, " he rejoined, "but how is it going to be done?Have you got a pistol?" He thought he was very clever, and that he wouldnow see whether Jean Jacques Barbille was armed. If he was not armed, well, then, there would be the chances in his favour; it wasn't easy tokill with hands alone. 

Jean Jacques ignored the question, however. He waved a hand impatiently, as though to dismiss it. "She was beautiful and splendid; she had beena queen down there in Quebec. You lied to her, and she was blind atfirst--I can see it all. She believed so easily--but yes, always! Thereshe was what she was, and you were what you are, not a Frenchman, notCatholic, and an American--no, not an American--a South American. Butno, not quite a South American, for there was the Portuguese nigger inyou--Sit down!"

Jean Jacques was on his feet bending over the enraged mongrel. He hadspoken the truth, and Carmen's last lover had been stung as though aserpent's tooth was in his flesh. Of all things that could be said abouthim, that which Jean Jacques said was the worst--that he was not allwhite, that he had nigger blood! Yet it was true; and he realized thatJean Jacques must have got his information in Shilah itself where hehad been charged with it. Yet, raging as he was, and ready to take theJohnny Crapaud--that is the name by which he had always called Carmen'shusband--by the throat, he was not yet sure that Jean Jacques wasunarmed. He sat still under an anger greater than his own, for there wasin it that fanaticism which only the love or hate of a woman could breedin a man's mind. 

Suddenly Stolphe laughed outright, a crackling, mirthless, ironicallaugh; for it really was absurdity made sublime that this man, whohad been abandoned by his wife, should now want to kill one who hadabandoned her! This outdid Don Quixote over and over. 

"Well, what do you want?" he asked. 

"I want you to fight, " said Jean Jacques. "That is the way. That wasCarmen's view. You shall have your chance to live, but I shall throw youin the river, and you can then fight the river. The current is swift, the banks are steep and high as a house down below there. Now, I amready. .. !"

He had need to be, for Stolphe was quick, kicking the chair from beneathhim, and throwing himself heavily on Jean Jacques. He had had his day atthat in South America, and as Jean Jacques Barbille had said, the waterwas swift and deep, and the banks of the Watloon high and steep!

But Jean Jacques was unconscious of everything save a debt to becollected for a woman he had loved, a compensation which must be takenin flesh and blood. Perhaps at the moment, as Stolphe had said tohimself, he was a little mad, for all his past, all his plundered, squandered, spoiled life was crying out at him like a hundred ghosts, and he was fighting with beasts at Ephesus. An exaltation possessedhim. Not since the day when his hand was on the lever of the flume withGeorge Masson below; not since the day he had turned his back for everon the Manor Cartier had he been so young and so much his old self-anegotist, with all the blind confidence of his kind; a dreamer inflamedinto action with all a mad dreamer's wild power. He was not fifty-twoyears of age, but thirty-two at this moment, and all the knowledge gotof the wrestling river-drivers of his boyhood, when he had spent hoursby the river struggling with river-champions, came back to him. It wasa relief to his sick soul to wrench and strain, and propel and twistand force onward, step by step, to the door opening on the river, thiscreature who had left his Carmen to die alone. 

"No, you don't--not yet. The jail before the river!" called a cool, sharp, sour voice; and on the edge of the trembling platform overhangingthe river, Hugo Stolphe was dragged back from the plunge downward he wasabout to take, with Jean Jacques' hand at his throat. 

Stolphe had heard the door of the bedroom forced, but Jean Jacques hadnot heard it; he was only conscious of hands dragging him back just atthe moment of Stolphe's deadly peril. 

"What is it?" asked Jean Jacques, seeing Stolphe in the hands of twomen, and hearing the snap of steel. "Wanted for firing a house forinsurance--wanted for falsifying the accounts of a Land Company--wantedfor his own good, Mr. Hugo Stolphe, C. O. D. --collect on delivery!" saidthe officer of the law. "And collected just in time!"

"We didn't mean to take him till to-morrow, " the officer added, "but outon the river one of us saw this gladiator business here in the red-lightzone, and there wasn't any time to lose. .. . I don't know what yourbusiness with him was, " the long-moustached detective said to JeanJacques, "but whatever the grudge is, if you don't want to appear incourt in the morning, the walking's good out of town night or day--solong!"

He hustled his prisoner out. 

Jean Jacques did not want to appear in court, and as the walking wasofficially good at dawn, he said good-bye to Virginie Poucette's sisterthrough the crack of a door, and was gone before she could restrain him. 

"Well, things happen that way, " he said, as he turned back to look atShilah before it disappeared from view. 

"Ah, the poor, handsome vaurien!" the woman at the tavern kept saying toher husband all that day; and she could not rest till she had written toVirginie how Jean Jacques came to Shilah in the evening, and went withthe dawn. 

CHAPTER XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED

The Young Doctor of Askatoon had a good heart, and he was exercising ithonourably one winter's day near three years after Jean Jacques had leftSt. Saviour's. 

"There are many French Canadians working on the railway now, and agood many habitant farmers live hereabouts, and they have plenty ofchildren--why not stay here and teach school? You are a Catholic, ofcourse, monsieur?"

This is what the Young Doctor said to one who had been under his anxiouscare for a few, vivid days. The little brown-bearded man with thegrey-brown hair nodded in reply, but his gaze was on the billowing wasteof snow, which stretched as far as eye could see to the pine-hills inthe far distance. He nodded assent, but it was plain to be seen that theYoung Doctor's suggestion was not in tune with his thought. His nod onlyacknowledged the reasonableness of the proposal. In his eyes, however, was the wanderlust which had possessed him for three long years, inwhich he had been searching for what to him was more than Eldorado, forit was hope and home. Hope was all he had left of the assets which hadmade him so great a figure--as he once thought--in his native parish ofSt. Saviour's. It was his fixed idea--une idee fixe, as he himself said. Lands, mills, manor, lime-kilns, factories, store, all were gone, and his wife Carmen also was gone. He had buried her with simplemagnificence in Montreal--Mme. Glozel had said to her neighboursafterwards that the funeral cost over seventy-five dollars--and had setup a stone to her memory on which was carved, "Chez nous autrefois, etchez Dieu maintenant"--which was to say, "Our home once, and God's Homenow. "

That done, with a sorrow which still had the peace of finality in hismind, he had turned his face to the West. His long, long sojourning hadbrought him to Shilah where a new chapter of his life was closed, andat last to Askatoon, where another chapter still closed an epoch inhis life, and gave finality to all. There he had been taken down withcongestion of the lungs, and, fainting at the door of a drug-store, hadbeen taken possession of by the Young Doctor, who would not send him tothe hospital. He would not send him there because he found inside thewaistcoat of this cleanest tramp--if he was a tramp--that he had everseen, a book of philosophy, the daguerreotype photo of a beautifulforeign-looking woman, and some verses in a child's handwriting. Thebook of philosophy was underlined and interlined on every page, andevery margin had comment which showed a mind of the most singularsimplicity, searching wisdom, and hopeless confusion, all in one. 

The Young Doctor was a man of decision, and he had whisked the littlebrown-grey sufferer to his own home, and tended him there like a brothertill the danger disappeared; and behold he was rewarded for hishumanity by as quaint an experience as he had ever known. He had notsucceeded--though he tried hard--in getting at the history of hispatient's life; but he did succeed in reading the fascinating story of amind; for Jean Jacques, if not so voluble as of yore, had still momentswhen he seemed to hypnotize himself, and his thoughts were alive in anatmosphere of intellectual passion ill in accord with his condition. 

Presently the little brown man withdrew his eyes from the window of theYoung Doctor's office and the snowy waste beyond. They had a curious redunderglow which had first come to them an evening long ago, when theycaught from the sky the reflection of a burning mill. There was distanceand the far thing in that underglow of his eyes. It had to do with thehorizon, not with the place where his feet were. It said, "Out there, beyond, is what I go to seek, what I must find, what will be home tome. "

"Well, I must be getting on, " he said in a low voice to the YoungDoctor, ignoring the question which had been asked. 

"If you want work, there's work to be had here, as I said, " respondedthe Young Doctor. "You are a man of education--"

"How do you know that?" asked Jean Jacques. 

"I hear you speak, " answered the other, and then Jean Jacques drewhimself up and threw back his head. He had ever loved appreciation, notto say flattery, and he had had very little of it lately. 

"I was at Laval, " he remarked with a flash of pride. "No degree, but ayear there, and travel abroad--the Grand Tour, and in good style, withplenty to do it with. Oh, certainly, no thought for sous, hardly forfrancs! It was gold louis abroad and silver dollars at home--that wasthe standard. "

"The dollars are much scarcer now, eh?" asked the Young Doctorquizzically. 

"I should think I had just enough to pay you, " said the other, bridlingup suddenly; for it seemed to him the Young Doctor had become ironicaland mocking; and though he had been mocked much in his day, there weretimes when it was not easy to endure it. 

The truth is the Young Doctor was somewhat of an expert in human nature, and he deeply wanted to know the history of this wandering habitant, because he had a great compassionate liking for him. If he could get thelittle man excited, he might be able to find out what he wanted. Duringthe days in which the wanderer had been in his house, he had been farfrom silent, for he joked at his own suffering and kept the housekeeperlaughing at his whimsical remarks; while he won her heart by theextraordinary cleanliness of his threadbare clothes, and the perfectorder of his scantily-furnished knapsack. It had the exactness of onewho was set upon a far course and would carry it out on scientificcalculation. He had been full of mocking quips and sallies at himself, but from first to last he never talked. The things he said were nothingmore than surface sounds, as it were--the ejaculations of a mind, notits language or its meanings. 

"He's had some strange history, this queer little man, " said thehousekeeper to the Young Doctor; "and I'd like to know what it is. Why, we don't even know his name. "

"So would I, " rejoined the Young Doctor, "and I'll have a good try forit. "

He had had his try more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps alittle torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rathertactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look wasincredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to pay thefee. 

"When you searched me you forgot to look in the right place, " continuedJean Jacques; and he drew from the lining of the hat he held in his handa little bundle of ten-dollar bills. "Here--take your pay from them, " hesaid, and held out the roll of bills. "I suppose it won't be more thanfour dollars a day; and there's enough, I think. I can't pay you foryour kindness to me, and I don't want to. I'd like to owe you that; andit's a good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness. He remembersit when he gets older. It helps him to forgive himself more or less forwhat he's sorry for in life. I've enough in this bunch to pay for boardand professional attendance, or else the price has gone up since I had adoctor before. "

He laughed now, and the laugh was half-ironical, half-protesting. Itseemed to come from the well of a hidden past; and no past that ishidden has ever been a happy past. 

The Young Doctor took the bills, looked at them as though they werecurios, and then returned them with the remark that they were of a kindand denomination of no use to him. There was a twinkle in his eye as hesaid it. Then he added:

"I agree with you that it's a good thing for a man to lay up a littlecredit of kindness here and there for his old age. Well, anything I didfor you was meant for kindness and nothing else. You weren't a bit oftrouble, and it was simply your good constitution and a warm room and afew fly-blisters that pulled you through. It wasn't any skill of mine. Go and thank my housekeeper if you like. She did it all. "

"I did my best to thank her, " answered Jean Jacques. "I said shereminded me of Virginie Palass Poucette, and I could say nothing betterthan that, except one thing; and I'm not saying that to anybody. "

The Young Doctor had a thrill. Here was a very unusual man, with mysteryand tragedy, and yet something above both, in his eyes. 

"Who was Virginie Palass Poucette?" he asked. Jean Jacques threw out ahand as though to say, "Attend--here is a great thing, " and he began, "Virginie Poucette--ah, there. .. !"

Then he paused, for suddenly there spread out before him that past, nowso far away, in which he had lived--and died. Strange that when he hadmentioned Virginie's name to the housekeeper he had no such feeling aspossessed him now. It had been on the surface, and he had used her namewithout any deep stir of the waters far down in his soul. But the YoungDoctor was fingering the doors of his inner life--all at once thisconviction came to him--and the past rushed upon him with all itsdisarray and ignominy, its sorrow, joy, elation and loss. Not since hehad left the scene of his defeat, not since the farewell to his deadCarmen, that sweet summer day when he had put the lovely, ruined beingaway with her words, "Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques, "ringing in his ears, had he ever told anyone his story. He had had afeeling that, as Carmen had been restored to him without his crying out, or vexing others with his sad history, so would Zoe also come back tohim. Patience and silence was his motto. 

Yet how was it that here and now there came an overpowering feeling, that he must tell this healer of sick bodies the story of an invalidsoul? This man with the piercing dark-blue eyes before him, who lookedso resolute, who had the air of one who could say, "This is the way to go, " because he knew and was sure; he was not to bedenied. 

"Who was Virginie Poucette?" repeated the Young Doctor insistently, yetever so gently. "Was she such a prize among women? What did she do?"

A flood of feeling passed over Jean Jacques' face. He looked at his hatand his knapsack lying in a chair, with a desire to seize them and flyfrom the inquisitor; then a sense of fatalism came upon him. As thoughhe had received an order from within his soul, he said helplessly:

"Well, if it must be, it must. "

Then he swept the knapsack and his hat from the chair to the floor, andsat down. 

"I will begin at the beginning, " he said with his eyes fixed on thoseof the Young Doctor, yet looking beyond him to far-off things. "I willstart from the time when I used to watch the gold Cock of Beaugardturning on the mill, when I sat in the doorway of the Manor Cartierin my pinafore. I don't know why I tell you, but maybe it was meantI should. I obey conviction. While you are able to keep logic andconviction hand in hand then everything is all right. I have found thatout. Logic, philosophy are the props of life, but still you must obeythe impulse of the soul--oh, absolutely! You must--"

He stopped short. "But it will seem strange to you, " he added after amoment, in which the Young Doctor gestured to him to proceed, "to hearme talk like this--a wayfarer--a vagabond you may think. But in otherdays I was in places--"

The Young Doctor interjected with abrupt friendliness that there was noneed to say he had been in high places. It would still be apparent, ifhe were in rags. 

"Then, there, I will speak freely, " rejoined Jean Jacques, and he tookthe cherry-brandy which the other offered him, and drank it off withgusto. 

"Ah, that--that, " he said, "is like the cordials Mere Langlois used tosell at Vilray. She and Virginie Poucette had a place together on themarket--none better than Mere Langlois except Virginie Poucette, and shewas like a drink of water in the desert. .. . Well, there, I will begin. Now my father was--"

It was lucky there were no calls for the Young Doctor that particularearly morning, else the course of Jean Jacques' life might have beengreatly different from what it became. He was able to tell his storyfrom the very first to the last. Had it been interrupted or unfinishedone name might not have been mentioned. When Jean Jacques used it, theYoung Doctor sat up and leaned forward eagerly, while a light came intohis face-a light of surprise, of revelation and understanding. 

When Jean Jacques came to that portion of his life when manifesttragedy began--it began of course on the Antoine, but then it was notmanifest--when his Carmen left him after the terrible scene with GeorgeMasson, he paused and said: "I don't know why I tell you this, for itis not easy to tell; but you saved my life, and you have a right to knowwhat it is you have saved, no matter how hard it is to put it all beforeyou. "

It was at this point that he mentioned Zoe's name--he had hitherto onlyspoken of her as "my daughter"; and here it was the Young Doctor showedstartled interest, and repeated the name after Jean Jacques. "Zoe!Zoe!--ah!" he said, and became silent again. 

Jean Jacques had not noticed the Young Doctor's pregnant interruption, he was so busy with his own memories of the past; and he brought thetale to the day when he turned his face to the West to look for Zoe. Then he paused. 

"And then?" the Young Doctor asked. "There is more--there is the searchfor Zoe ever since. "

"What is there to say?" continued Jean Jacques. "I have searched tillnow, and have not found. "

"How have you lived?" asked the other. 

"Keeping books in shops and factories, collecting accounts forstorekeepers, when they saw they could trust me, working at threshingsand harvests, teaching school here and there. Once I made fifty dollarsat a railway camp telling French Canadian tales and singing chansonsCanadiennes. I have been insurance agent, sold lightning-rods, and beenforeman of a gang building a mill--but I could not bear that. Every timeI looked up I could see the Cock of Beaugard where the roof should be. And so on, so on, first one thing and then another till now--till I cameto Askatoon and fell down by the drug-store, and you played the goodSamaritan. So it goes, and I step on from here again, looking--looking. "

"Wait till spring, " said the Young Doctor. "What is the good of going onnow! You can only tramp to the next town, and--"

"And the next, " interposed Jean Jacques. "But so it is my orders. " Heput his hand on his heart, and gathered up his hat and knapsack. 

"But you haven't searched here at Askatoon. "

"Ah?. .. Ah-well, surely that is so, " answered Jean Jacques wistfully. "Ihad forgotten that. Perhaps you can tell me, you who know all. Have youany news about my Zoe for me? Do you know--was she ever here? MadameGerard Fynes would be her name. My name is Jean Jacques Barbille. "

"Madame Zoe was here, but she has gone, " quietly answered the YoungDoctor. 

Jean Jacques dropped the hat and the knapsack. His eyes had a glad, yetstaring and frightened look, for the Young Doctor's face was not thebearer of good tidings. 

"Zoe--my Zoe! You are sure?. .. When was she here?" he added huskily. 

"A month ago. "

"When did she go?" Jean Jacques' voice was almost a whisper. 

"A month ago. "

"Where did she go?" asked Jean Jacques, holding himself steady, for hehad a strange dreadful premonition. 

"Out of all care at last, " answered the Young Doctor, and took a steptowards the little man, who staggered, then recovered himself. 

"She--my Zoe is dead! How?" questioned Jean Jacques in a ghostly sort ofvoice, but there was a steadiness and control unlike what he had shownin other tragic moments. 

"It was a blizzard. She was bringing her husband's body in a sleigh tothe railway here. He had died of consumption. She and the driver of thesleigh went down in the blizzard. Her body covered the child and savedit. The driver was lost also. "

"Her child--Zoe's child?" quavered Jean Jacques. "A little girl--Zoe. The name was on her clothes. There were letters. One to her father--toyou. Your name is Jean Jacques Barbille, is it not? I have that letterto you. We buried her and her husband in the graveyard yonder. " Hepointed. "Everybody was there--even when they knew it was to be aCatholic funeral. "

"Ah! she was buried a Catholic?" Jean Jacques' voice was not quite soblurred now. 

"Yes. Her husband had become Catholic too. A priest who had met them inthe Peace River Country was here at the time. "

At that, with a moan, Jean Jacques collapsed. He shed no tears, but hesat with his hands between his knees, whispering his child's name. 

The Young Doctor laid a hand on his shoulder gently, but presentlywent out, shutting the door after him. As he left the room, however, heturned and said, "Courage, Monsieur Jean Jacques! Courage!"

When the Young Doctor came back a half-hour later he had in his hand theletters found in Zoe's pocket. "Monsieur Jean Jacques, " he said gentlyto the bowed figure still sitting as he left him. 

Jean Jacques got up slowly and looked at him as though scarceunderstanding where he was. 

"The child--the child--where is my Zoe's child? Where is Zoe's Zoe?" heasked in agitation. His whole body seemed to palpitate. His eyes wereall red fire. 

CHAPTER XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

The Young Doctor did not answer Jean Jacques at once. As he looked atthis wayworn fugitive he knew that another, and perhaps the final crisisof his life, was come to Jean Jacques Barbille, and the human pity inhim shrank from the possible end to it all. It was an old-world figurethis, with the face of a peasant troubadour and the carriage of anaboriginal--or an aristocrat. Indeed, the ruin, the lonely wanderingwhich had been Jean Jacques' portion, had given him that dignity whichoften comes to those who defy destiny and the blows of angry fate. Oncethere had been in his carriage something jaunty. This was merely lifeand energy and a little vain confidence; now there was the look ofcourage which awaits the worst the world can do. The life which, according to the world's logic, should have made Jean Jacques amiserable figure, an ill-nourished vagabond, had given him a physicalgrace never before possessed by him. The face, however, showed theravages which loss and sorrow had made. It was lined and shadowed withdark reflection, yet the forehead had a strange smoothness and serenitylittle in accord with the rest of the countenance. It was like thesnow-summit of a mountain below which are the ragged escarpments oftrees and rocks, making a look of storm and warfare. 

"Where is she--the child of my Zoe?" Jean Jacques repeated with analmost angry emphasis; as though the Young Doctor were hiding her fromhim. 

"She is with the wife of Nolan Doyle, my partner in horse-breeding, notvery far from here. Norah Doyle was married five years, and she had nochild. This was a grief to her, even more than to Nolan, who, like her, came of a stock that was prolific. It was Nolan who found your daughteron the prairie--the driver dead, but she just alive when found. To giveher ease of mind, Nolan said he would make the child his own. When hesaid that, she smiled and tried to speak, but it was too late, and shewas gone. "

In sudden agony Jean Jacques threw up his hands. "So young and so soonto be gone!" he exclaimed. "But a child she was and had scarce tastedthe world. The mercy of God--what is it!"

"You can't take time as the measure of life, " rejoined the YoungDoctor with a compassionate gesture. "Perhaps she had her share ofhappiness--as much as most of us get, maybe, in a longer course. "

"Share! She was worth a hundred years of happiness!" bitterly retortedJean Jacques. 

"Perhaps she knew her child would have it?" gently remarked the YoungDoctor. 

"Ah, that--that!. .. Do you think that possible, m'sieu'? Tell me, do youthink that was in her mind--to have loved, and been a mother, and givenher life for the child, and then the bosom of God. Answer that to me, m'sieu'?"

There was intense, poignant inquiry in Jean Jacques' face, and a lightseemed to play over it. The Young Doctor heeded the look and all thatwas in the face. It was his mission to heal, and he knew that to healthe mind was often more necessary than to heal the body. Here he wouldtry to heal the mind, if only in a little. 

"That might well have been in her thought, " he answered. "I saw herface. It had a wonderful look of peace, and a smile that would reconcileanyone she loved to her going. I thought of that when I looked at her. Irecall it now. It was the smile of understanding. "

He had said the only thing which could have comforted Jean Jacquesat that moment. Perhaps it was meant to be that Zoe's child shouldrepresent to him all that he had lost--home, fortune, place, Carmen andZoe. Perhaps she would be home again for him and all that home shouldmean--be the promise of a day when home would again include that fledfrom Carmen, and himself, and Carmen's child. Maybe it was sentiment inhim, maybe it was sentimentality--and maybe it was not. 

"Come, m'sieu', " Jean Jacques said impatiently: "let us go to the houseof that M'sieu' Doyle. But first, mark this: I have in the West heresome land--three hundred and twenty acres. It may yet be to me a home, where I shall begin once more with my Zoe's child--with my Zoe ofZoe--the home-life I lost down by the Beau Cheval. .. . Let us go atonce. "

"Yes, at once, " answered the Young Doctor. Yet his feet were laggard, for he was not so sure that there would be another home for Jean Jacqueswith his grandchild as its star. He was thinking of Norah, to whom awaif of the prairie had made home what home should be for herself andNolan Doyle. 

"Read these letters first, " he said, and he put the letters found on Zoein Jean Jacques' eager hands. 

A half-hour later, at the horse-breeding ranch, the Young Doctorintroduced Jean Jacques to Norah Doyle, and instantly left the house. Hehad no wish to hear the interview which must take place between the two. Nolan Doyle was not at home, but in the room where they were shown toNorah was a cradle. Norah was rocking it with one foot while, standingby the table, she busied herself with sewing. 

The introduction was of the briefest. "Monsieur Barbille wishes aword with you, Mrs. Doyle, " said the Young Doctor. "It's a matter thatdoesn't need me. Monsieur has been in my care, as you know. .. . Well, there, I hope Nolan is all right. Tell him I'd like to see him to-morrowabout the bay stallion and the roans. I've had an offer for them. Good-bye--good-bye, Mrs. Doyle"--he was at the door--"I hope youand Monsieur Barbille will decide what's best for the child withoutdifficulty. "

The door opened quickly and shut again, and Jean Jacques was alone withthe woman and the child. "What's best for the child!"

That was what the Young Doctor had said. Norah stopped rocking thecradle and stared at the closed door. What had this man before her, thistramp habitant of whom she had heard, of course, to do with littleZoe in the cradle--her little Zoe who had come just when she was mostneeded; who had brought her man and herself close together again afteran estrangement which neither had seemed able to prevent. 

"What's best for the child!" How did the child in the cradle concernthis man? Then suddenly his name almost shrieked in her brain. Barbille--that was the name on the letter found on the body of the womanwho died and left Zoe behind--M. Jean Jacques Barbille. 

Yes, that was the name. What was going to happen? Did the man intend totry and take Zoe from her?

"What is your name--all of it?" she asked sharply. She had a very fineset of teeth, as Jean Jacques saw mechanically; and subconsciouslyhe said to himself that they seemed cruel, they were so white andregular--and cruel. The cruelty was evident to him as she bit in twothe thread for the waistcoat she was mending, and then plied her needleagain. Also the needle in her fingers might have been intended to sewup his shroud, so angry did it appear at the moment. But her teeth hadsomething almost savage about them. If he had seen them when she wassmiling, he would have thought them merely beautiful and rare, atoningfor her plain face and flat breast--not so flat as it had been; forsince the child had come into her life, her figure, strangely enough, had rounded out, and lines never before seen in her contour appeared. 

He braced himself for the contest he knew was at hand, and replied toher. "My name is Jean Jacques Barbille. I was of the Manor Cartier, inSt. Saviour's parish, Quebec. The mother of the child Zoe, there, wasborn at the Manor Cartier. I was her father. I am the grandfather ofthis Zoe. " He motioned towards the cradle. 

Then, with an impulse he could not check and did not seek to check--whyshould he? was not the child his own by every right?--he went to thecradle and looked down at the tiny face on its white pillow. Therecould be no mistake about it; here was the face of his lost Zoe, withsomething, too, of Carmen, and also the forehead of the Barbilles. Asthough the child knew, it opened its eyes wide-big, brown eyes likethose of Carmen Dolores. 

"Ah, the beautiful, beloved thing!" he exclaimed in a low-voice, ereNorah stepped between and almost pushed him back. An outstretched arm infront of her prevented him from stooping to kiss the child. "Stand back. The child must not be waked, " she said. "It must sleep another hour. It has its milk at twelve o'clock. Stand aside. I won't have my childdisturbed. "

"Have my child disturbed"--that was what she had said, and Jean Jacquesrealized what he had to overbear. Here was the thing which must befought out at once. 

"The child is not yours, but mine, " he declared. "Here is proof--theletter found on my Zoe when she died--addressed to me. The doctor knew. There is no mistake. "

He held out the letter for her to see. "As you can read here, mydaughter was on her way back to the Manor Cartier, to her old home atSt. Saviour's. She was on her way back when she died. If she had livedI should have had them both; but one is left, according to the will ofGod. And so I will take her--this flower of the prairie--and begin lifeagain. "

The face Norah turned on him had that look which is in the face ofan animal, when its young is being forced from it--fierce, hungering, furtive, vicious. 

"The child is mine, " she exclaimed--"mine and no other's. The prairiegave it to me. It came to me out of the storm. 'Tis mine-mine only. Iwas barren and wantin', and my man was slippin' from me, because therewas only two of us in our home. I was older than him, and yonder was agirl with hair like a sheaf of wheat in the sun, and she kept lookin' athim, and he kept goin' to her. 'Twas a man she wanted, 'twas a childhe wanted, and there they were wantin', and me atin' my heart out withpassion and pride and shame and sorrow. There was he wantin' a child, and the girl wantin' a man, and I only wantin' what God should grant allwomen that give themselves to a man's arms after the priest has blessedthem. And whin all was at the worst, and it looked as if he was awaywith her--the girl yonder--then two things happened. A man--he was meown brother and a millionaire if I do say it--he took her and marriedher; and then, too, Heaven's will sent this child's mother to her lastend and the child itself to my Nolan's arms. To my husband's arms firstit came, you understand; and he give the child to me, as it should be, and said he, 'We'll make believe it is our own. ' But I said to him, 'There's no make-believe. 'Tis mine. 'Tis mine. It came to me out of thestorm from the hand of God. ' And so it was and is; and all's well herein the home, praise be to God. And listen to me: you'll not come hereto take the child away from me. It can't be done. I'll not have it. Yes, you can let that sink down into you--I'll not have it. "

During her passionate and defiant appeal Jean Jacques was restless withthe old unrest of years ago, and his face twitched with emotion; butbefore she had finished he had himself in some sort of control. 

"You--madame, you are only thinking of yourself in this. You are onlythinking what you want, what you and your man need. But it's not to belooked at that way only, and--"

"Well, then it isn't to be looked at that way only, " she interrupted. "As you say, it isn't Nolan and me alone to be considered. There's--"

"There's me, " he interrupted sharply. "The child is bone of my bone. Itis bone of all the Barbilles back to the time of Louis XI. "--he had saidthat long ago to Zoe first, and it was now becoming a fact in his mind. "It is linked up in the chain of the history of the Barbilles. It is onewith the generations of noblesse and honour and virtue. It is--"

"It's one with Abel the son of Adam, if it comes to that, and so am I, "Norah bitingly interjected, while her eyes flashed fire, and she rockedthe cradle more swiftly than was good for the child's sleep. 

Jean Jacques flared up. "There were sons and daughters of the family ofAdam that had names, but there were plenty others you whistled to as youwould to a four-footer, and they'd come. The Barbilles had names--alwaysnames of their own back to Adam. The child is a Barbille--Don't rock thecradle so fast, " he suddenly added with an irritable gesture, breakingoff from his argument. "Don't you know better than that when a child'sasleep? Do you want it to wake up and cry?"

She flushed to the roots of her hair, for he had said something forwhich she had no reply. She had undoubtedly disturbed the child. Itstirred in its sleep, then opened its eyes, and at once began to cry. 

"There, " said Jean Jacques, "what did I tell you? Any one that had everhad children would know better than that. "

Norah paid no attention to his mocking words, to the undoubted-truthof his complaint. Stooping over, she gently lifted the child up. Withhungry tenderness she laid it against her breast and pressed its cheekto her own, murmuring and crooning to it. 

"Acushla! Acushla! Ah, the pretty bird--mother's sweet--mother's angel!"she said softly. 

She rocked backwards and forwards. Her eyes, though looking at JeanJacques as she crooned and coaxed and made lullaby, apparently did notsee him. She was as concentrated as though it were a matter of life anddeath. She was like some ancient nurse of a sovereign-child, plainlydressed, while the dainty white clothes of the babe in her arms--ah, hadn't she raided the hoard she had begun when first married, in thehope of a child of her own, to provide this orphan with clothes goodenough for a royal princess!

The flow of the long, white dress of the waif on the dark blue ofNorah's gown, which so matched the deep sapphire of her eyes, caughtJean Jacques' glance, allured his mind. It was the symbol of youth andinnocence and home. Suddenly he had a vision of the day when his own Zoehad been given to the cradle for the first time, and he had done exactlywhat Norah had done--rocked too fast and too hard, and waked his littleone; and Carmen had taken her up in her long white draperies, and hadrocked to and fro, just like this, singing a lullaby. That lullabyhe had himself sung often afterwards; and now, with his grandchild inNorah's arms there before him--with this other Zoe--the refrain of itkept lilting in his brain. In the pause ensuing, when Norah stoopedto put the pacified child again in its nest, he also stooped over thecradle and began to hum the words of the lullaby:

 "Sing, little bird, of the whispering leaves, Sing a song of the harvest sheaves; Sing a song to my Fanchonette, Sing a song to my Fanchonette! Over her eyes, over her eyes, over her eyes of violet, See the web that the weaver weaves, The web of sleep that the weaver weaves-- Weaves, weaves, weaves! Over those eyes of violet, Over those eyes of my Fanchonette, Weaves, weaves, weaves-- See the web that the weaver weaves!"

For quite two minutes Jean Jacques and Norah Doyle stooped overthe cradle, looking at Zoe's rosy, healthy, pretty face, as thoughunconscious of each other, and only conscious of the child. When JeanJacques had finished the long first verse of the chanson, and would havebegun another, Norah made a protesting gesture. 

"She's asleep, and there's no more need, " she said. "Wasn't it a goodlullaby, madame?" Jean Jacques asked. 

"So, so, " she replied, on her defence again. 

"It was good enough for her mother, " he replied, pointing to the cradle. 

"It's French and fanciful, " she retorted--"both music and words. "

"The child's French--what would you have?" asked Jean Jacquesindignantly. 

"The child's father was English, and she's goin' to be English, thedarlin', from now on and on and on. That's settled. There's manny anEnglish and Irish lullaby that'll be sung to her hence and onward; andthere's manny an English song she'll sing when she's got her voice, andis big enough. Well, I think she'll sing like a canary. "

"Do the birds sing in English?" exclaimed Jean Jacques, with anger inhis face now. Was there ever any vanity like the vanity of these peoplewho had made the conquest of Quebec, when sixteen Barbilles lost theirlives, one of them being aide-de-camp to M. Vaudreuil, the governor!

"All the canaries I ever heard sung in English, " she returnedstubbornly. 

"How do Frenchmen understand their singing, then?" irritably questionedJean Jacques. 

"Well, in translation only, " she retorted, and with her sharp whiteteeth she again bit the black thread of her needle, tied the end into alittle knot, and began to mend the waistcoat which she had laid down inthe first moments of the interview. 

"I want the child, " Jean Jacques insisted abruptly. "I'll wait till shewakes, and then I'll wrap her up and take her away. "

"Didn't you hear me say she was to be brought up English?" asked Norah, with a slowness which clothed her fiercest impulses. 

"Name of God, do you think I'll let you have her!" returned Jean Jacqueswith asperity and decision. "You say you are alone, you and your M'sieu'Nolan. Well, I am alone--all alone in the world, and I need her--Motherof God, I need her more than I ever needed anything in my life! You haveeach other, but I have only myself, and it is not good company. Besides, the child is mine, a Barbille of Barbilles, une legitime--a rightfulchild of marriage. But if it was a love-child only it would still bemine, being my daughter's child. Look you, it is no such thing. It is ofthose who can claim inheritance back to Louis XI. She will be to me thegift of God in return for the robbery of death. "

He leaned over the cradle, and his look was like that of one who hadfound a treasure in the earth. 

Now she struck hard. Yet very subtly too did she attack him. "You--youare thinking of yourself, m'sieu', only of yourself. Aren't you going tothink of the child at all? It isn't yourself that counts so much. You'vehad your day, or the part of it that matters most. But her time isnot yet even begun. It's all--all--before her. You say you'll take heraway--well, to what? To what will you take her? What have you got togive her? What--"

"I have the three hundred and twenty acres out there"--he pointedwestward--"and I will make a home and begin again with her. "

"Three hundred and twenty acres--'out there'!" she exclaimed in scorn. "Any one can have a farm here for the askin'. What is that? Is it ahome? What have you got to start a home with? Do you deny you are nobetter than a tramp? Have you got a hundred dollars in the world? Haveyou got a roof over your head? Have you got a trade? You'll take herwhere--to what? Even if you had a home, what then? You would have to getsomeone to look after her--some old crone, a wench maybe, who'd be asfit to bring up a child as I would be to--" she paused and looked roundin helpless quest for a simile, when, in despair, she caught sight ofJean Jacques' watch-chain--"as I would be to make a watch!" she added. 

Instinctively Jean Jacques drew out the ancient timepiece he had wornon the Grand Tour; which had gone down with the Antoine and come up withhimself. It gave him courage to make the fight for his own. 

"The good God would see that--" he began. 

"The good God doesn't interfere in bringing up babies, " she retorted. "That's the work for the fathers and mothers, or godfathers andgodmothers. "

"You are neither, " exclaimed Jean Jacques. "You have no rights at all. "

"I have no rights--eh? I have no rights! Look at the child. Look at theway she's clothed. Look at the cradle in which it lies. It cost fifteendollars; and the clothes--what they cost would keep a family half ayear. I have no rights, is it?--I who stepped in and took the childwithout question, without bein' asked, and made it my own, and treatedit as if it was me own. No, by the love of God, I treated it far, farbetter than if it had been me own. Because a child was denied me, thehunger of the years made me love the child as a mother would on a desertisland with one child at her knees. "

"You can get another-one not your own, as this isn't, " argued JeanJacques fiercely. 

She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly. She chose herown course to convince. "Nolan loves this child as if it was his, " shedeclared, her eyes all afire, "but he mightn't love another--men arequeer creatures. Then where would I be? and what would the home be butwhat it was before--as cold, as cold and bitter! It was the hand of Godbrought the child to the door of two people who had no child and whoprayed for one. Do you deny it was the hand of God that brought yourdaughter here away, that put the child in my arms? Not its mother, amI not? But I love her better than twenty mothers could. It's thehunger--the hunger--the hunger in me. She's made a woman of me. She hasa home where everything is hers--everything. To see Nolan play with her, tossin' her up and down in his arms as if he'd done it all his life--asnatural as natural! To take her away from that--all the comfort herewhere she can have anything she wants! With my old mother to care forher, if so be I was away to market or whereabouts--one that brought upsix children, a millionaire among them, praise be to God as my motherdid--to take this delicate little thing away from here, what a sin andcrime 'twould be! She herself 'd never forgive you for it, if ever shegrew up--though that's not likely, things bein' as they are with you, and you bein' what you are. Ah, there--there she is awake and smilin', and kickin' up her pretty toes this minute! There she is, the lovelylittle Zoe, with eyes like black pearls. .. . See now--see now whichshe'll come to--to you or me, m'sieu'. There, put out your arms toher, and I'll put out mine, and see which she'll take. I'll stand bythat--I'll stand by that. Let the child decide. Hold out your arms, andso will I. "

With an impassioned word Jean Jacques reached down his arms to thechild, which lay laughing up at them and kicking its pink toes into theair, and Norah Doyle did the same, murmuring an Irish love-name for achild. Jean Jacques was silent, but in his face was the longing of asoul sick for home, of one who desires the end of a toilsome road. 

The laughing child crooned and spluttered and shook its head, as thoughit was playing some happy game. It looked first at Norah, then atJean Jacques, then at Norah again, and then, with a little gurgle ofpleasure, stretched out its arms to her and half-raised itself fromthe pillow. With a glad cry Norah gathered it to her bosom, and triumphshone in her face. 

"Ah, there, you see!" she said, as she lifted her face from the blossomat her breast. 

"There it is, " said Jean Jacques with shaking voice. 

"You have nothing to give her--I have everything, " she urged. "My rightsare that I would die for the child--oh, fifty times!. .. What are yougoing to do, m'sieu'?"

Jean Jacques slowly turned and picked up his hat. He moved with thedignity of a hero who marches towards a wall to meet the bullets of afiring-squad. 

"You are going?" Norah whispered, and in her eyes was a great relief andthe light of victory. The golden link binding Nolan and herself was inher arms, over her heart. 

Jean Jacques did not speak a word in reply, though his lips moved. Sheheld out the little one to him for a good-bye, but he shook his head. If he did that--if he once held her in his arms--he would not be able togive her up. Gravely and solemnly, however, he stooped over and kissedthe lips of the child lying against Norah's breast. As he did so, with aquick, mothering instinct Norah impulsively kissed his shaggy head, andher eyes filled with tears. She smiled too, and Jean Jacques saw howbeautiful her teeth were--cruel no longer. 

He moved away slowly. At the door he turned, and looked back at thetwo--a long, lingering look he gave. Then he faced away from them again. 

"Moi je suis philosophe, " he said gently, and opened the door andstepped out and away into the frozen world. 

EPILOGUE. 

Change might lay its hand on the parish of St. Saviour's, and it didso on the beautiful sentient living thing, as on the thing material andman-made; but there was no change in the sheltering friendship of MontViolet or the flow of the illustrious Beau Cheval. The autumns alsochanged not at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scenewhich Jean Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom. 

One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but arainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring, a traveller came back to St. Saviour's after a long journey. He came byboat to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train tothe railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles toVilray. At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of thedays of Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which coveredthe hands but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meekcrinoline. 

"Ah, Fille--ah, dear Fille!" said the little fragment of an antique day, as the Clerk of the Court--rather, he that had been for so many yearsClerk of the Court--stepped from the boat. "I can scarce believe thatyou are here once more. Have you good news?"

"It was to come back with good news that I went, " her brother answeredsmiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation. 

"Dear, dear Fille!" She always called him that now, and not by hisChristian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since theGovernment had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honouredhim with the degree of doctor of laws. 

She was leading him to the pony-carriage in which she had come to meethim, when he said:

"Do you think you could walk the distance, my dear?. .. It would be likeold times, " he added gently. 

"I could walk twice as far to-day, " she answered, and at once gavedirections for the young coachman to put "His Honour's" bag into thecarriage. In spite of Fille's reproofs she insisted in calling him thatto the servants. They had two servants now, thanks to the legacy leftthem by the late Judge Carcasson. Presently M. Fille took her by thehand. "Before we start--one look yonder, " he murmured, pointing towardsthe mill which had once belonged to Jean Jacques, now rebuilt andlooking almost as of old. "I promised Jean Jacques that I would come andsalute it in his name, before I did aught else, and so now I do saluteit. "

He waved a hand and made a bow to the gold Cock of Beaugard, the prideof all the vanished Barbilles. "Jean Jacques Barbille says that hishead is up like yours, M. Le Coq, and he wishes you many, many winds tocome, " he recited quite seriously, and as though it was not out of tunewith the modern world. 

The gold Cock of Beaugard seemed to understand, for it swung to theleft, and now a little to the right, and then stood still, as if lookingat the little pair of exiles from an ancient world--of which the onlyvestiges remaining may be found in old Quebec. 

This ceremony over, they walked towards Mont Violet, averting theirheads as they passed the Manor Cartier, in a kind of tribute to itsdeparted master--as a Stuart Legitimist might pass the big palace atthe end of the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister'shand. 

"I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear, " he said. "Therethey are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie--that best of best women. "

"To think--married to Virginie Poucette--to think of that!" His sister'svoice fluttered as she spoke. "But entirely. There was nothing in theway--and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame her, forat bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him 'That dearfool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all, ' and our Judgewas always right--but yes, nearly always right. "

After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. "Well, when Virginiesold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah inthe West, she said, 'If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the landwhich was Zoe's, which he bought for her. If he is alive--then!' Soit was, and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women likeVirginie, who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, theymet on that three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius ofJean Jacques to have done that one right thing which would save him inthe end--a thing which came out of his love for his child--the emotionof an hour. Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was hissalvation after he learned of Zoe's death, and the other little Zoe, hisgrandchild, was denied to him--to close his heart against what seemedthat last hope, was it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward ofhis own soul--a home at last once more. "

"With Virginie Poucette--Fille, Fille, how things come round!" exclaimedthe little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings. 

"More than Virginie came round, " he replied almost oracularly. "Who, think you, brought him the news that coal was found on his acres--whobut the husband of Virginie's sister! Then came Virginie. On the dayJean Jacques saw her again, he said to her, 'What you would have givenme at such cost, now let me pay for with the rest of my life. It is thegreat thought which was in your heart that I will pay for with the daysleft to me. '"

A flickering smile brightened the sensitive ascetic face, and humour wasin the eyes. "What do you think Virginie said to that? Her sister toldme. Virginie said to that, 'You will have more days left, Jean Jacques, if you have a better cook. What do you like best for supper?' And JeanJacques laughed much at that. Years ago he would have made a speech atit!"

"Then he is no more a philosopher?"

"Oh always, always, but in his heart, and not with his tongue. I cried, and so did he, when we met and when we parted. I think I am getting old, for indeed I could not help it: yet there was peace in his eyes--peace. "

"His eyes used to rustle so. "

"Rustle--that is the word. Now, that is what, he has learned inlife--the way to peace. When I left him, it was with Virginie closebeside him, and when I said to him, 'Will you come back to us one day, Jean Jacques?' he said, 'But no, Fille, my friend; it is too far. I seeit--it is a million miles away--too great a journey to go with the feet, but with the soul I will visit it. The soul is a great traveller. I seeit always--the clouds and the burnings and the pitfalls gone--outof sight--in memory as it was when I was a child. Well, there it is, everything has changed, except the child-memory. I have had, and I havehad not; and there it is. I am not the same man--but yes, in my lovejust the same, with all the rest--' He did not go on, so I said, 'If notthe same, then what are you, Jean Jacques?'"

"Ah, Fille, in the old days he would have said that he was aphilosopher"--said his sister interrupting. "Yes, yes, one knows--hesaid it often enough and had need enough to say it. Well, said he to me, 'Me, I am a'--then he stopped, shook his head, and so I could scarcelyhear him, murmured, 'Me--I am a man who has been a long journey with apack on his back, and has got home again. ' Then he took Virginie's handin his. "

The old man's fingers touched the corner of his eye as though to findsomething there; then continued. "'Ah, a pedlar!' said I to him, to hearwhat he would answer. 'Follies to sell for sous of wisdom, ' he answered. Then he put his arm around Virginie, and she gave him his pipe. "

"I wish M. Carcasson knew, " the little grey lady remarked. 

"But of course he knows, " said the Clerk of the Court, with his faceturned to the sunset. 

 ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

 Air of certainty and universal comprehension Always calling to something, for something outside ourselves Being generous with other people's money Came of a race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit often Courage which awaits the worst the world can do Enjoy his own generosity Good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness Grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter Grow more intense, more convinced, more thorough, as they talk Had the slight flavour of the superior and the paternal He had only made of his wife an incident in his life He was in fact not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist He was not always sorry when his teasing hurt He admired, yet he wished to be admired He hated irony in anyone else I had to listen to him, and he had to pay me for listening I can't pay you for your kindness to me, and I don't want to I said I was not falling in love--I am in love If you have a good thought, act on it Inclined to resent his own insignificance Lacks a balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough Law. It is expensive whether you win or lose Lyrical in his enthusiasms Man who tells the story in a new way, that is genius Missed being a genius by an inch No past that is hidden has ever been a happy past No man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced Not content to do even the smallest thing ill Of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with self-creation Philosophers are often stupid in human affairs Protest that it is right when it knows that it is wrong She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly Spurting out little geysers of other people's cheap wisdom That iceberg which most mourners carry in their breasts The beginning of the end of things was come for him The soul is a great traveller Untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life You can't take time as the measure of life You went north towards heaven and south towards hell