der the thumb-screw for the
glory of the Lord, and to justify the Church; but the little Catholic
miller-magnate gave freely to St. Saviour's; he was popular; he had a
position; he was good to the poor; and every Christmas-time he sent a
half-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 mass
next Sunday."

Jean Jacques had chuckled over that episode, for he had conquered; he
had shown M. Savry that he was master in his own household and outside
it. That much his philosophy had done for him. No other man in the
parish would have dared to speak to the Cure like that. He had never
scolded Carmen when she had not gone to church. Besides, there was
Carmen's little daughter always at his side at mass; and Carmen always
insisted on Zoe going with him, and even seemed anxious for them to be
off at the first sound of the bells of St. Saviour's. Their souls were
busy, hers wanted rest; that was clear. He was glad he had worked it out
so cleverly to the Cure--and to his own mind. His philosophy surely had
vindicated itself.

But Jean Jacques was far from thinking of these things as he drove back
from Vilray and from his episode in Court to the Manor Cartier. He was
indeed just praising himself, his wife, his child, and everything that
belonged to him. He was planning, planning, as he talked, the new
things to do--the cheese-factory, the purchase of a steam-plough and
a steam-thresher which he could hire out to his neighbours. Only once
during the drive did he turn round to Carmen, and then it was to ask her
if 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 to
Beauharnais," he replied.

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

"Well, there is the new cheese-factory--not to manage, but to keep the
books! 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. Look
at the Latouche farm where your cousin makes his mess. My father is well
enough where he is."

"But you'd like to see him oftener--I was only thinking of that," said
Jean Jacques in a mollifying voice. It was the kind of thing in which
he showed at once the weakness and the kindness of his nature. He was in
fact no