he had
ever shown. As he stood by the table, the dim light throwing haggard
reflections on her face, he had a feeling that she was more than normal.
He saw her greater than he had ever imagined her. Something in him
revolted at a war between his own son and himself. Also, he wanted to
tell her of the danger in which Carnac was--how Luzanne had come, and
was hidden away in the outskirts of the city, waiting for the moment
when the man who rejected her should be sacrificed.

Now that Barouche was face to face with Alma Grier, however, he felt the
appalling nature of his task. In all the years he had taken no chance to
pay tribute to the woman who, in a real sense, had been his mistress of
body and mind for one short term of life, and who once, and once only,
had yielded to him. They were both advanced in years, and Life and Time
had taken toll. She was haggard, yet beautiful in a wan way. He did
not believe the vanished years had placed between them an impassable
barrier.

He put his chances to the test at last.

"Yes, I know--I understand. You remained silent because your nature
was too generous to injure anyone. Down at the bottom of his heart,
cantankerous, tyrannical as he was, John Grier loved you, and I loved
you also."

She made a protest of her hand. "Oh, no! You never knew what love
was--never! You had passion, you had hunger of the body, but of love you
did not know. I know you, Barode Barouche. You have no heart, you have
only sentiment and imagination. No--no, you could not be true. You could
never know how."

Suddenly a tempest of fire seemed to burn in his eyes, in his whole
being. His face flushed: his eyes gleamed; his hands were thrust out
with passion.

"Will you not understand that were I as foul as hell, a woman like you
would make me clean again? The wild sin of our youth has eaten into the
soul of my life. You think I have been indifferent to you and to our
boy. No, never-never! That I left you both to yourselves was the best
proof I was not neglectful. I was sorry, with all my soul, that you
should have suffered through me. In the first reaction, I felt that
nothing could put me right with you or with eternal justice. So I shrank
away from you. You thought it was lust satisfied. I tell you it was
honour shamed. Good God! You thought me just the brazen roue, who seized
what came his way, who ate the fruit within his grasp, who lived to
deceive for his own selfish joy.

"Did you think that?