arry the cage to the
house. Then you will go in with the bird, and I'll wait outside and see
if the little rascal sings."

"This minute?" asked madame.

"For sure, this very minute. Why should the poor lady wait? It's a
lonely 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 of
Mme. Popincourt's lodgings, and people turned to look at the pair, one
carrying something covered with a white cloth, evidently a savoury dish
of some kind--the other with a cage in which a handsome canary hopped
about, 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 the
house waiting and looking up, for Mme. Glozel had said that behind the
front window on the third floor was where the sick woman lived. He had
not long to wait. The setting sun shining full on the window had roused
the bird, and he began to pour out a flood of delicious melody which
flowed on and on, causing the people in the street to stay their steps
and look up. Jean Jacques' face, as he listened, had something very like
a smile. There was that in the smile belonging to the old pride, which
in days gone by had made him say when he looked at his domains at the
Manor Cartier--his houses, his mills, his store, his buildings and his
lands--"It is all mine. It all belongs to Jean Jacques Barbille."

Suddenly, however, there came a sharp pause in the singing, and after
that a cry--a faint, startled cry. Then Mme. Glozel's head was thrust
out of the window three floors up, and she called to Jean Jacques to
come quickly. As she bade him come, some strange premonition flashed
to Jean Jacques, and with thumping heart he hastened up the staircase.
Outside a bedroom door, Mme. Glozel met him. She was so excited she
could only whisper.

"Be very quiet," she said. "There is something strange. When the bird
sang as it did--you heard it--she sat like one in a trance. Then her
face took on a look glad and frightened too, and she stared hard at the
cage. 'Bring that cage to me,' she said. I brought it. She looked sharp
at it, then she gave a cry and fell back. As I took the cage away I saw
what she had been looking at--a writing at the bottom of the cage. It
was the name Carmen."

With a stifled cry Jean Jacques pushed her aside and entered the
room. As he did so, the sick woman in the big a