hat!"
He opened and shut his hand with fierce, spasmodic strength. "And he let
me go--oh, let me go like a fox out of a trap! I've had enough for one
day--blood of St. Peter, enough, enough!"

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

"No, Carmen, you have not given me all. If you had, there would be no
farewell. 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 the
world says must part husband and wife? Caramba! Is that all? I have
given everything--I have had your arms around me--"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The child loves her father as she never loved me," she declared. "She
is twelve ye