me early, because he had been unable to sleep well,
and also he had much to do before keeping his tryst with Carmen Barbille
in the afternoon.

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

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

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

"Ah!"

It was a sound of dumbfounded amazement, a hoarse cry of horror which
was 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 noise
behind him. He turned and looked back. There stood Jean Jacques with his
hand on the lever. The noise he had heard was the fourteen-foot ladder
being dropped, after Jean Jacques had drawn it up softly out of the
flume.

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

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

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

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

He ran forward till he was about thirty feet from Jean Jacques standing
there above him, with the set face and the dark malicious, half-insane
eyes. Even in his fear and ghastly anxiety, the subconscious mind of
George Masson was saying, "He looks like the Baron