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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6280-0.txt b/6280-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ec5a5d --- /dev/null +++ b/6280-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9748 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Money Master, Complete, by Gilbert Parker + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Money Master, Complete + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6280] +Last Updated: August 27, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE MONEY MASTER, Complete + +By Gilbert Parker + + + + +CONTENTS + + EPOCH THE FIRST + I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE + II. THE REST OF THE STORY “TO-MORROW” + III. “TO-MORROW” + + EPOCH THE SECOND + IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A STORY + V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY + VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY + VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP + VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL + IX. “MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE” + X. “QUIEN SABE”--WHO KNOWS! + XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE + XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM + + EPOCH THE THIRD + XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE + XIV. “I DO NOT WANT TO GO” + XV. BON MARCHE + + EPOCH THE FOURTH + XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY + XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET + XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER + XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP + XX. “AU ‘VOIR, M’SIEU’ JEAN JACQUES” + XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME + + EPOCH THE FIFTH + XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY + XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO + XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED. + XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE + EPILOGUE + + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +This book is in a place by itself among the novels I have written. Many +critics said that it was a welcome return to Canada, where I had made my +first success in the field of fiction. This statement was only meagrely +accurate, because since ‘The Right of Way’ was published in 1901 I had +written, and given to the public, ‘Northern Lights’, a book of short +stories, ‘You Never Know Your Luck’, a short novel, and ‘The World for +Sale’, though all of these dealt with life in Western Canada, and not +with the life of the French Canadians, in which field I had made my +first firm impression upon the public. In any case, The Money Master was +favourably received by the press and public both in England and America, +and my friends were justified in thinking, and in saying, that I was at +home in French Canada and gave the impression of mastery of my material. +If mastery of material means a knowledge of the life, and a sympathy +with it, then my friends are justified; for I have always had an intense +sympathy with, and admiration for, French Canadian life. I think the +French Canadian one of the most individual, original, and distinctive +beings of the modern world. He has kept his place, with his own +customs, his own Gallic views of life, and his religious habits, with an +assiduity and firmness none too common. He is essentially a man of +the home, of the soil, and of the stream; he has by nature instinctive +philosophy and temperamental logic. As a lover of the soil of Canada he +is not surpassed by any of the other citizens of the country, English or +otherwise. + +It would almost seem as though the pageantry of past French Canadian +history, and the beauty and vigour of the topographical surroundings +of French Canadian life, had produced an hereditary pride and +exaltation--perhaps an excessive pride and a strenuous exaltation, but, +in any case, there it was, and is. The French Canadian lives a more +secluded life on the whole than any other citizen of Canada, though the +native, adventurous spirit has sent him to the Eastern States of +the American Union for work in the mills and factories, or up to the +farthest reaches of the St. Lawrence, Ottawa, and their tributaries in +the wood and timber trade. + +Domestically he is perhaps the most productive son of the North American +continent. Families of twenty, or even twenty-five, are not unknown, +and, when a man has had more than one wife, it has even exceeded that. +Life itself is full of camaraderie and good spirit, marked by religious +traits and sacerdotal influence. + +The French Canadian is on the whole sober and industrious; but when he +breaks away from sobriety and industry he becomes a vicious element +in the general organism. Yet his vices are of the surface, and do not +destroy the foundations of his social and domestic scheme. A French +Canadian pony used to be considered the most virile and lasting stock +on the continent, and it is fair to say that the French Canadians +themselves are genuinely hardy, long-lived, virile, and enduring. + +It was among such people that the hero of The Money Master, Jean Jacques +Barbille, lived. He was the symbol or pattern of their virtues and +of their weaknesses. By nature a poet, a philosopher, a farmer and an +adventurer, his life was a sacrifice to prepossession and race instinct; +to temperament more powerful than logic or common sense, though he was +almost professionally the exponent of both. + +There is no man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced as +the French Canadian. He is at once modest and vain; he is even lyrical +in his enthusiasms; he is a child in the intrigues and inventions +of life; but he has imagination, he has a heart, he has a love of +tradition, and is the slave of legend. To him domestic life is the +summum bonum of being. His four walls are the best thing which the world +has to offer, except the cheerful and sacred communion of the Mass, and +his dismissal from life itself under the blessing of his priest and with +the promise of a good immortality. + +Jean Jacques Barbille had the French Canadian life of pageant, pomp, and +place extraordinarily developed. His love of history and tradition +was abnormal. A genius, he was, within an inch, a tragedy to the last +button. Probably the adventurous spirit of his forefathers played +a greater part in his development and in the story of his days than +anything else. He was wide-eyed, and he had a big soul. He trained +himself to believe in himself and to follow his own judgment; therefore, +he invited loss upon loss, he made mistake upon mistake, he heaped +financial adventure upon financial adventure, he ran great risks; and +it is possible that his vast belief in himself kept him going when other +men would have dropped by the wayside. He loved his wife and daughter, +and he lost them both. He loved his farms, his mills and his manor, and +they disappeared from his control. + +It must be remembered that the story of The Money Master really runs for +a generation, and it says something for Jean Jacques Barbille that he +could travel through scenes, many of them depressing, for long years, +and still, in the end, provoke no disparagement, by marrying the +woman who had once out of the goodness of her heart offered him +everything--herself, her home, her honour; and it was to Jean Jacques’s +credit that he took neither until the death of his wife made him free; +but the tremendous gift offered him produced a powerful impression upon +his mind and heart. + +One of the most distinguished men of the world to-day wrote me in praise +and protest concerning The Money Master. He declared that the first half +of the book was as good as anything that had been done by anybody, +and then he bemoaned the fact, which he believed, that the author had +sacrificed his two heroines without real cause and because he was tired +of them. There he was wrong. In the author’s mind the story was planned +exactly as it worked out. He was never tired; he was resolute. He was +intent to produce, if possible, a figure which would breed and develop +its own disasters, which would suffer profoundly for its own mistakes; +but which, in the end, would triumph over the disasters of life and +time. It was all deliberate in the main intention and plan. Any failures +that exist in the book are due to the faults of the author, and to +nothing else. + +Some critics have been good enough to call ‘The Money Master’ a +beautiful book, and there are many who said that it was real, true, and +faithful. Personally I think it is real and true, and as time goes on, +and we get older, that is what seems to matter to those who love life +and wish to see it well harvested. + +I do not know what the future of the book may be; what the future of +any work of mine will be; but I can say this, that no one has had the +pleasure in reading my books which I have had in making them. They have +been ground out of the raw material of the soul. I have a hope that they +will outlast my brief day, but, in any case, it will not matter. They +have given me a chance of showing to the world life as I have seen it, +and indirectly, and perhaps indistinctly, my own ideas of that life. +‘The Money Master’ is a vivid and somewhat emotional part of it. + + + + +EPOCH THE FIRST + + + + +CHAPTER I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE + +“Peace and plenty, peace and plenty”--that was the phrase M. Jean +Jacques Barbille, miller and moneymaster, applied to his home-scene, +when he was at the height of his career. Both winter and summer the +place had a look of content and comfort, even a kind of opulence. There +is nothing like a grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter +and an air of coolness in summer, so does the slightest breeze make the +pine-needles swish like the freshening sea. But to this scene, where +pines made a friendly background, there were added oak, ash, and hickory +trees, though in less quantity on the side of the river where were +Jean Jacques Barbille’s house and mills. They flourished chiefly on the +opposite side of the Beau Cheval, whose waters flowed so waywardly--now +with a rush, now silently away through long reaches of country. Here +the land was rugged and bold, while farther on it became gentle and +spacious, and was flecked or striped with farms on which low, white +houses with dormer-windows and big stoops flashed to the passer-by the +message of the pioneer, “It is mine. I triumph.” + +At the Manor Cartier, not far from the town of Vilray, where Jean +Jacques was master, and above it and below it, there had been battles +and the ravages of war. At the time of the Conquest the stubborn +habitants, refusing to accept the yielding of Quebec as the end of +French power in their proud province, had remained in arms and active, +and had only yielded when the musket and the torch had done their work, +and smoking ruins marked the places where homes had been. They took +their fortune with something of the heroic calm of men to whom an +idea was more than aught else. Jean Jacques’ father, grandfather, and +great-great-grandfather had lived here, no one of them rising far, but +none worthless or unnoticeable. They all had had “a way of their own,” + as their neighbours said, and had been provident on the whole. Thus it +was that when Jean Jacques’ father died, and he came into his own, he +found himself at thirty a man of substance, unmarried, who “could +have had the pick of the province.” This was what the Old Cure said in +despair, when Jean Jacques did the incomprehensible thing, and married +l’Espagnole, or “the Spanische,” as the lady was always called in the +English of the habitant. + +When she came it was spring-time, and all the world was budding, exuding +joy and hope, with the sun dancing over all. It was the time between +the sowing and the hay-time, and there was a feeling of alertness in +everything that had life, while even the rocks and solid earth seemed to +stir. The air was filled with the long happy drone of the mill-stones as +they ground the grain; and from farther away came the soft, stinging +cry of a saw-mill. Its keen buzzing complaint was harmonious with the +grumble of the mill-stones, as though a supreme maker of music had tuned +it. So said a master-musician and his friend, a philosopher from Nantes, +who came to St. Saviour’s in the summer just before the marriage, and +lodged with Jean Jacques. Jean Jacques, having spent a year at Laval +University at Quebec, had almost a gift of thought, or thinking; and he +never ceased to ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questions +which he proceeded to answer himself before they could do so; his +quaint, sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening while +they amused his guests. They saddened the musician more than the other +because he knew life, while the philosopher only thought it and saw it. + +But even the musician would probably have smiled in hope that day +when the young “Spanische” came driving up the river-road from the +steamboat-landing miles away. She arrived just when the clock struck +noon in the big living-room of the Manor. As she reached the open +doorway and the wide windows of the house which gaped with shady +coolness, she heard the bell summoning the workers in the mills and on +the farm--yes, M. Barbille was a farmer, too--for the welcome home to +“M’sieu’ Jean Jacques,” as he was called by everyone. + +That the wedding had taken place far down in Gaspe and not in St. +Saviour’s was a reproach and almost a scandal; and certainly it was +unpatriotic. It was bad enough to marry the Spanische, but to marry +outside one’s own parish, and so deprive that parish and its young +people of the week’s gaiety, which a wedding and the consequent +procession and tour through the parish brings, was little less than +treason. But there it was; and Jean Jacques was a man who had power to +hurt, to hinder, or to help; for the miller and the baker are nearer to +the hearthstone of every man than any other, and credit is a good thing +when the oven is empty and hard times are abroad. The wedding in Gaspe +had not been attended by the usual functions, for it had all been +hurriedly arranged, as the romantic circumstances of the wooing +required. Romance indeed it was; so remarkable that the master-musician +might easily have found a theme for a comedy--or tragedy--and the +philosopher would have shaken his head at the defiance it offered to the +logic of things. + +Now this is the true narrative, though in the parish of St. Saviour’s it +is more highly decorated and has many legends hanging to it like tassels +to a curtain. Even the Cure of to-day, who ought to know all the truth, +finds it hard to present it in its bare elements; for the history +of Jean Jacques Barbille affected the history of many a man in St. +Saviour’s; and all that befel him, whether of good or evil, ran through +the parish in a thousand invisible threads. + + ....................... + +What had happened was this. After the visit of the musician and the +philosopher, Jean Jacques, to sustain his reputation and to increase it, +had decided to visit that Normandy from which his people had come at the +time of Frontenac. He set forth with much ‘eclat’ and a little innocent +posturing and ritual, in which a cornet and a violin figured, together +with a farewell oration by the Cure. + +In Paris Jean Jacques had found himself bewildered and engulfed. He had +no idea that life could be so overbearing, and he was inclined to resent +his own insignificance. However, in Normandy, when he read the names on +the tombstones and saw the records in the baptismal register of other +Jean Jacques Barbilles, who had come and gone generations before, his +self-respect was somewhat restored. This pleasure was dashed, however, +by the quizzical attitude of the natives of his ancestral parish, +who walked round about inspecting him as though he were a zoological +specimen, and who criticized his accent--he who had been at Laval for +one whole term; who had had special instruction before that time from +the Old Cure and a Jesuit brother; and who had been the friend of +musicians and philosophers! + +His cheerful, kindly self-assurance stood the test with difficulty, but +it became a kind of ceremonial with him, whenever he was discomfited, to +read some pages of a little dun-coloured book of philosophy, picked up +on the quay at Quebec just before he sailed, and called, “Meditations in +Philosophy.” He had been warned by the bookseller that the Church had no +love for philosophy; but while at Laval he had met the independent minds +that, at eighteen to twenty-two, frequent academic groves; and he +was not to be put off by the pious bookseller--had he not also had a +philosopher in his house the year before, and was he not going to Nantes +to see this same savant before returning to his beloved St. Saviour’s +parish. + +But Paris and Nantes and Rouen and Havre abashed and discomfited him, +played havoc with his self-esteem, confused his brain, and vexed him +by formality, and, more than all, by their indifference to himself. He +admired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished all +people and things to be humble with him. When he halted he wanted the +world to halt; when he entered a cathedral--Notre Dame or any other; or +a great building--the Law Courts at Rouen or any other; he simply +wanted people to say, wanted the cathedral, or at least the cloister, to +whisper to itself, “Here comes Jean Jacques Barbille.” + +That was all he wanted, and that would have sufficed. He would not have +had them whisper about his philosophy and his intellect, or the mills +and the ash-factory which he meant to build, the lime-kilns he had +started even before he left, and the general store he intended to open +when he returned to St. Saviour’s. Not even his modesty was recognized; +and, in his grand tour, no one was impressed by all that he was, except +once. An ancestor, a grandmother of his, had come from the Basque +country; and so down to St. Jean Pied de Port he went; for he came of a +race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers. At St. Jean Pied +de Port he was more at home. He was, in a sense, a foreigner among +foreigners there, and the people were not quizzical, since he was +an outsider in any case and not a native returned, as he had been in +Normandy. He learned to play pelota, the Basque game taken from the +Spaniards, and he even allowed himself a little of that oratory which, +as they say, has its habitat chiefly in Gascony. And because he had +found an audience at last, he became a liberal host, and spent freely +of his dollars, as he had never done either in Normandy, Paris, or +elsewhere. So freely did he spend, that when he again embarked at +Bordeaux for Quebec, he had only enough cash left to see him through the +remainder of his journey in the great world. Yet he left France with +his self-respect restored, and he even waved her a fond adieu, as the +creaking Antoine broke heavily into the waters of the Bay of Biscay, +while he cried: + + “My little ship, + It bears me far + From lights of home + To alien star. + O vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, dear land, + Provence, adieu.” + +Then a further wave of sentiment swept over him, and he was vaguely +conscious of a desire to share the pains of parting which he saw in +labour around him--children from parents, lovers from loved. He could +not imagine the parting from a parent, for both of his were in the bosom +of heaven, having followed his five brothers, all of whom had died in +infancy, to his good fortune, for otherwise his estate would now be only +one-sixth of what it was. But he could imagine a parting with some sweet +daughter of France, and he added another verse to the thrilling of the +heart of Casimir Delavigne: + + “Beloved Isaure, + Her hand makes sign-- + No more, no more, + To rest in mine. + O vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, dear land, + Isaure, adieu!” + +As he murmured with limpid eye the last words, he saw in the forecastle +not far from him a girl looking at him. There was unmistakable sadness +in her glance of interest. In truth she was thinking of just such a man +as Jean Jacques, whom she could never see any more, for he had paid with +his life the penalty of the conspiracy in which her father, standing now +behind her on the leaky Antoine, had been a tool, and an evil tool. Here +in Jean Jacques was the same ruddy brown face, black restless eye, +and young, silken, brown beard. Also there was an air of certainty and +universal comprehension, and though assertion and vanity were apparent, +there was no self-consciousness. The girl’s dead and gone conspirator +had not the same honesty of face, the same curve of the ideal in the +broad forehead, the same poetry of rich wavy brown hair, the same +goodness of mind and body so characteristic of Jean Jacques--he was but +Jean Jacques gone wrong at the start; but the girl was of a nature +that could see little difference between things which were alike +superficially, and in the young provincial she only saw one who looked +like the man she had loved. True, his moustaches did not curl upwards at +the ends as did those of Carvillho Gonzales, and he did not look out of +the corner of his eyes and smoke black cigarettes; but there he was, her +Carvillho with a difference--only such a difference that made him to her +Carvillho II., and not the ghost of Carvillho I. + +She was a maiden who might have been as good as need be for all life, +so far as appearances went. She had a wonderful skin, a smooth, velvety +cheek, where faint red roses came and went, as it might seem at will; +with a deep brown eye; and eh, but she was grandly tall--so Jean Jacques +thought, while he drew himself up to his full five feet, six and a half +with a determined air. Even at his best, however, Jean Jacques could not +reach within three inches of her height. + +Yet he did not regard her as at all overdone because of that. He thought +her hair very fine, as it waved away from her low forehead in a grace +which reminded him of the pictures of the Empress Eugenie, and of the +sister of that monsieur le duc who had come fishing to St. Saviour’s +a few years before. He thought that if her hair was let down it would +probably reach to her waist, and maybe to her ankles. She had none of +the plump, mellow softness of the beauties he had seen in the Basque +country. She was a slim and long limbed Diana, with fine lines and a +bosom of extreme youth, though she must have been twenty-one her last +birthday. The gown she wore was a dark green well-worn velvet, which +seemed of too good a make and quality for her class; and there was no +decoration about her anywhere, save at the ears, where two drops of gold +hung on little links an inch and a half long. + +Jean Jacques Barbille’s eyes took it all in with that observation of +which he was so proud and confident, and rested finally on the drops of +gold at her ears. Instinctively he fingered the heavy gold watch-chain +he had bought in Paris to replace the silver chain with a little +crucifix dangling, which his father and even his great-grandfather had +worn before him. He had kept the watch, however--the great fat-bellied +thing which had never run down in a hundred years. It was his mascot. +To lose that watch would be like losing his share in the promises of the +Church. So his fingers ran along the new gold-fourteen-carat-chain, to +the watch at the end of it; and he took it out a little ostentatiously, +since he saw that the eyes of the girl were on him. Involuntarily he +wished to impress her. + +He might have saved himself the trouble. She was impressed. It was quite +another matter however, whether he would have been pleased to know that +the impression was due to his resemblance to a Spanish conspirator, +whose object was to destroy the Monarchy and the Church, as had been the +object of the middle-aged conspirator--the girl’s father--who had the +good fortune to escape from justice. It is probable that if Jean Jacques +had known these facts, his story would never have been written, and he +would have died in course of time with twenty children and a seat in the +legislature; for, in spite of his ardent devotion to philosophy and its +accompanying rationalism, he was a devout monarchist and a child of the +Church. + +Sad enough it was that, as he shifted his glance from the watch, which +ticked loud enough to wake a farmhand in the middle of the day, he found +those Spanish eyes which had been so lost in studying him. In the glow +and glisten of the evening sun setting on the shores of Bordeaux, and +flashing reflected golden light to the girl’s face, he saw that they +were shining with tears, and though looking at him, appeared not to +see him. In that moment the scrutiny of the little man’s mind was +volatilized, and the Spanische, as she was ultimately called, began her +career in the life of the money-master of St. Saviour’s. + +It began by his immediately resenting the fact that she should be +travelling in the forecastle. His mind imagined misfortune and a lost +home through political troubles, for he quickly came to know that the +girl and her father were Spanish; and to him, Spain was a place of +martyrs and criminals. Criminals these could not be--one had but to look +at the girl’s face; while the face of her worthless father might have +been that of a friend of Philip IV. in the Escorial, so quiet and +oppressed it seemed. Nobility was written on the placid, apathetic +countenance, except when it was not under observation, and then the look +of Cain took its place. Jean Jacques, however, was not likely to see +that look; since Sebastian Dolores--that was his name--had observed from +the first how the master-miller was impressed by his daughter, and he +was set to turn it to account. + +Not that the father entered into an understanding with the girl. He knew +her too well for that. He had a wholesome respect, not to say fear, +of her; for when all else had failed, it was she who had arranged his +escape from Spain, and who almost saved Carvillho Gonzales from being +shot. She could have saved Gonzales, might have saved him, would +have saved him, had she not been obliged to save her father. In the +circumstances she could not save both. + +Before the week was out Jean Jacques was possessed of as fine a tale +of political persecution as mind could conceive, and, told as it was by +Sebastian Dolores, his daughter did not seek to alter it, for she had +her own purposes, and they were mixed. These refugees needed a friend, +for they would land in Canada with only a few dollars, and Carmen +Dolores loved her father well enough not to wish to see him again in +such distress as he had endured in Cadiz. Also, Jean Jacques, the +young, verdant, impressionable French Catholic, was like her Carvillho +Gonzales, and she had loved her Carvillho in her own way very +passionately, and--this much to her credit--quite chastely. So that she +had no compunction in drawing the young money-master to her side, and +keeping him there by such arts as such a woman possesses. These are +remarkable after their kind. They are combined of a frankness as to the +emotions, and such outer concessions to physical sensations, as make a +painful combination against a mere man’s caution; even when that caution +has a Norman origin. + +More than once Jean Jacques was moved to tears, as the Ananias of Cadiz +told his stories of persecution. + +So that one day, in sudden generosity, he paid the captain the necessary +sum to transfer the refugees from the forecastle to his own select +portion of the steamer, where he was so conspicuous a figure among a +handful of lower-level merchant folk and others of little mark who were +going to Quebec. To these latter Jean Jacques was a gift of heaven, for +he knew so much, and seemed to know so much more, and could give them +the information they desired. His importance lured him to pose as a +seigneur, though he had no claim to the title. He did not call himself +Seigneur in so many words, but when others referred to him as the +Seigneur, and it came to his ears, he did not correct it; and when he +was addressed as such he did not reprove. + +Thus, when he brought the two refugees from the forecastle and assured +his fellow-passengers that they were Spanish folk of good family exiled +by persecution, his generosity was acclaimed, even while all saw he was +enamoured of Carmen. Once among the first-class passengers, father and +daughter maintained reserve, and though there were a few who saw that +they were not very far removed above peasants, still the dress of +the girl, which was good--she had been a maid in a great nobleman’s +family--was evidence in favour of the father’s story. Sebastian Dolores +explained his own workman’s dress as having been necessary for his +escape. + +Only one person gave Jean Jacques any warning. This was the captain +of the Antoine. He was a Basque, he knew the Spanish people well--the +types, the character, the idiosyncrasies; and he was sure that Sebastian +Dolores and his daughter belonged to the lower clerical or higher +working class, and he greatly inclined towards the former. In that he +was right, because Dolores, and his father before him, had been employed +in the office of a great commercial firm in Cadiz, and had repaid much +consideration by stirring up strife and disloyalty in the establishment. +But before the anarchist subtracted himself from his occupation, he had +appropriated certain sums of money, and these had helped to carry him +on, when he attached himself to the revolutionaries. It was on his +daughter’s savings that he was now travelling, with the only thing he +had saved from the downfall, which was his head. It was of sufficient +personal value to make him quite cheerful as the Antoine plunged and +shivered on her way to the country where he could have no steady work as +a revolutionist. + +With reserve and caution the Basque captain felt it his duty to tell +Jean Jacques of his suspicions, warning him that the Spaniards were the +choicest liars in the world, and were not ashamed of it; but had +the same pride in it as had their greatest rivals, the Arabs and the +Egyptians. + +His discreet confidences, however, were of no avail; he was not discreet +enough. If he had challenged the bona fides of Sebastian Dolores only, +he might have been convincing, but he used the word “they” constantly, +and that roused the chivalry of Jean Jacques. That the comely, careful +Carmen should be party to an imposture was intolerable. Everything about +her gave it the lie. Her body was so perfect and complete, so finely +contrived and balanced, so cunningly curved with every line filled in; +her eye was so full of lustre and half-melancholy too; her voice had +such a melodious monotone; her mouth was so ripe and yet so distant in +its luxury, that imposture was out of the question. + +Ah, but Jean Jacques was a champion worth while! He did nothing +by halves. He was of the breed of men who grow more intense, more +convinced, more thorough, as they talk. One adjective begets another, +one warm allusion gives birth to a warmer, one flashing impulse evokes a +brighter confidence, till the atmosphere is flaming with conviction. If +Jean Jacques started with faint doubt regarding anything, and allowed +himself betimes the flush of a declaration of belief, there could be but +one end. He gathered fire as he moved, impulse expanded into momentum, +and momentum became an Ariel fleeing before the dark. He would start +by offering a finger to be pricked, and would end by presenting his own +head on a charger. He was of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow +with self-creation, who flower and bloom without pollen. + +His rejection of the captain’s confidence even had a dignity. He +took out his watch which represented so many laborious hours of other +Barbilles, and with a decision in which the strong pulse of chivalry was +beating hard, he said: + +“I can never speak well till I have ate. That is my hobby. Well, so +it is. And I like good company. So that is why I sit beside Senor and +Senorita Dolores at table--the one on the right, the other on the left, +myself between, like this, like that. It is dinner-time now here, and +my friends--my dear friends of Cadiz--they wait me. Have you heard +the Senorita sing the song of Spain, m’sieu’? What it must be with the +guitar, I know not; but with voice alone it is ravishing. I have learned +it also. The Senorita has taught me. It is a song of Aragon. It is sung +in high places. It belongs to the nobility. Ah, then, you have not heard +it--but it is not too late! The Senorita, the unhappy ma’m’selle, driven +from her ancestral home by persecution, she will sing it to you as she +has sung it to me. It is your due. You are the master of the ship. But, +yes, she shall of her kindness and of her grace sing it to you. You do +not know how it runs? Well, it is like this--listen and tell me if it +does not speak of things that belong to the old regime, the ancient +noblesse--listen, m’sieu’ le captainne, how it runs: + + “Have you not heard of mad Murcie? + Granada gay and And’lousie? + There’s where you’ll see the joyous rout, + When patios pour their beauties out; + Come, children, come, the night gains fast, + And Time’s a jade too fair to last. + My flower of Spain, my Juanetta, + Away, away to gay Jota! + Come forth, my sweet, away, my queen, + Though daybreak scorns, the night’s between. + The Fete’s afoot--ah! ah! ah! ah! + De la Jota Ar’gonesa. + Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! + De la Jota Ar’gonesa.” + +Before he had finished, the captain was more than ready to go, for he +had no patience with such credulity, simplicity and sentimentalism. He +was Basque, and to be Basque is to lack sentiment and feel none, to play +ever for the safe thing, to get without giving, and to mind your own +business. It had only been an excessive sense of duty which had made the +captain move in this, for he liked Jean Jacques as everyone aboard his +Antoine did; and he was convinced that the Spaniards would play the +“Seigneur” to the brink of disaster at least, though it would have been +hard to detect any element of intrigue or coquetry in Carmen Dolores. + +That was due partly to the fact that she was still in grief for her +Gonzales, whose heart had been perforated by almost as many bullets +as the arrows of Cupid had perforated it in his short, gay life of +adventure and anarchy; also partly because there was no coquetry needed +to interest Jean Jacques. If he was interested it was not necessary to +interest anyone else, nor was it expedient to do so, for the biggest +fish in the net on the Antoine was the money-master of St. Saviour’s. + +Carmen had made up her mind from the first to marry Jean Jacques, and +she deported herself accordingly--with modesty, circumspection and +skill. It would be the easiest way out of all their difficulties. Since +her heart, such as it was, fluttered, a mournful ghost, over the Place +d’Armes, where her Gonzales was shot, it might better go to Jean Jacques +than anyone else; for he was a man of parts, of money, and of looks, and +she loved these all; and to her credit she loved his looks better +than all the rest. She had no real cupidity, and she was not greatly +enamoured of brains. She had some real philosophy of life learned in a +hard school; and it was infinitely better founded than the smattering of +conventional philosophy got by Jean Jacques from his compendium picked +up on the quay at Quebec. + +Yet Jean Jacques’ cruiser of life was not wholly unarmed. From his +Norman forebears he had, beneath all, a shrewdness and an elementary +alertness not submerged by his vain, kind nature. He was quite a good +business man, and had proved himself so before his father died--very +quick to see a chance, and even quicker to see where the distant, sharp +corners in the road were; though not so quick to see the pitfalls, for +his head was ever in the air. And here on the Antoine, there crossed his +mind often the vision of Carmen Dolores and himself in the parish of St. +Saviour’s, with the daily life of the Beau Cheval revolving about him. +Flashes of danger warned him now and then, just at the beginning of the +journey, as it were; just before he had found it necessary to become +her champion against the captain and his calumnies; but they were of the +instant only. But champion as he became, and worshipping as his manner +seemed, it all might easily have been put down to a warm, chivalrous, +and spontaneous nature, which had not been bitted or bridled, and he +might have landed at Quebec without committing himself, were it not for +the fact that he was not to land at Quebec. + +That was the fact which controlled his destiny. He had spent many, many +hours with the Dona Dolores, talking, talking, as he loved to talk, and +only saving himself from the betise of boring her by the fact that his +enthusiasm had in it so fresh a quality, and because he was so like +her Gonzales that she could always endure him. Besides, quick of +intelligence as she was, she was by nature more material than she +looked, and there was certainly something physically attractive in +him--some curious magnetism. She had a well of sensuousness which might +one day become sensuality; she had a richness of feeling and a contour +in harmony with it, which might expand into voluptuousness, if given +too much sun, or if untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married +life. There was an earthquake zone in her being which might shake down +the whole structure of her existence. She was unsafe, not because she +was deceiving Jean Jacques now as to her origin and as to her feelings +for him; she was unsafe because of the natural strain of the light of +love in her, joined to a passion for comfort and warmth and to a natural +self-indulgence. She was determined to make Jean Jacques offer himself +before they landed at Quebec. + +But they did not land at Quebec. + + + + +CHAPTER II. “THE REST OF THE STORY TO-MORROW” + +The journey wore on to the coast of Canada. Gaspe was not far off when, +still held back by the constitutional tendency of the Norman not to +close a bargain till compelled to do so, Jean Jacques sat with Carmen +far forward on the deck, where the groaning Antoine broke the waters +into sullen foam. There they silently watched the sunset, golden, purple +and splendid--and ominous, as the captain knew. + +“Look, the end of life--like that!” said Jean Jacques oratorically with +a wave of the hand towards the prismatic radiance. + +“All the way round, the whole circle--no, it would be too much,” Carmen +replied sadly. “Better to go at noon--or soon after. Then the only +memory of life would be of the gallop. No crawling into the night for +me, if I can help it. Mother of Heaven, no! Let me go at the top of the +flight.” + +“It is all the same to me,” responded Jean Jacques, “I want to know it +all--to gallop, to trot, to walk, to crawl. Me, I’m a philosopher. I +wait.” + +“But I thought you were a Catholic,” she replied, with a kindly, lurking +smile, which might easily have hardened into scoffing. + +“First and last,” he answered firmly. + +“A Catholic and a philosopher--together in one?” She shrugged a shoulder +to incite him to argument, for he was interesting when excited; +when spurting out little geysers of other people’s cheap wisdom and +philosophy, poured through the kind distortion of his own intelligence. + +He gave a toss of his head. “Ah, that is my hobby--I reconcile, I unite, +I adapt! It is all the nature of the mind, the far-look, the all-round +sight of the man. I have it all. I see.” + +He gazed eloquently into the sunset, he swept the horizon with his hand. +“I have the all-round look. I say the Man of Calvary, He is before all, +the sun; but I say Socrates, Plato, Jean Jacques--that is my name, and +it is not for nothing, that--Jean Jacques Rousseau, Descartes, Locke, +they are stars that go round the sun. It is the same light, but not the +same sound. I reconcile. In me all comes together like the spokes to +the hub of a wheel. Me--I am a Christian, I am philosophe, also. In St. +Saviour’s, my home in Quebec, if the crops are good, what do men say? +‘C’est le bon Dieu--it is the good God,’ that is what they say. If the +crops are bad, what do they say? ‘It is the good God’--that is what they +say. It is the good God that makes crops good or bad, and it is the +good God that makes men say, ‘C’est le bon Dieu.’ The good God makes the +philosophy. It is all one.” + +She appeared to grow agitated, and her voice shook as she spoke. “Tsh, +it is only a fool that says the good God does it, when the thing that is +done breaks you or that which you love all to pieces. No, no, no, it is +not religion, it is not philosophy that makes one raise the head when +the heart is bowed down, when everything is snatched away that was all +in all. That the good God does it is a lie. Santa Maria, what a lie!” + +“Why ‘Santa Maria,’ then, if it is a lie?” he asked triumphantly. He did +not observe how her breast was heaving, how her hands were clenched; for +she was really busy with thoughts of her dead Carvillho Gonzales; but +for the moment he could only see the point of an argument. + +She made a gesture of despair. “So--that’s it. Habit in us is so strong. +It comes through the veins of our mothers to us. We say that God is +a lie one minute, and then the next minute we say, ‘God guard you!’ +Always--always calling to something, for something outside ourselves. +That is why I said Santa Maria, why I ask her to pray for the soul of +my friend, to pray to the God that breaks me and mine, and sends us over +the seas, beggars without a home.” + +Now she had him back out of the vanities of his philosophy. He was up, +inflamed, looking at her with an excitement on which she depended for +her future. She knew the caution of his nature, she realized how he +would take one step forward and another step back, and maybe get nowhere +in the end, and she wanted him--for a home, for her father’s sake, for +what he could do for them both. She had no compunctions. She thought +herself too good for him, in a way, for in her day men of place and mark +had taken notice of her; and if it had not been for her Gonzales she +would no doubt have listened to one of them sometime or another. She +knew she had ability, even though she was indolent, and she thought she +could do as much for him as any other girl. If she gave him a handsome +wife and handsome children, and made men envious of him, and filled him +with good things, for she could cook more than tortillas-she felt he +would have no right to complain. She meant him to marry her--and Quebec +was very near! + +“A beggar in a strange land, without a home, without a friend--oh, my +broken life!” she whispered wistfully to the sunset. + +It was not all acting, for the past reached out and swept over her, +throwing waves of its troubles upon the future. She was that saddest of +human beings, a victim of dual forces which so fought for mastery +with each other that, while the struggle went on, the soul had no firm +foothold anywhere. That, indeed, was why her Carvillho Gonzales, who +also had been dual in nature, said to himself so often, “I am a devil,” + and nearly as often, “I have the heart of an angel.” + +“Tell me all about your life, my friend,” Jean Jacques said eagerly. +Now his eyes no longer hurried here and there, but fastened on hers and +stayed thereabouts--ah, her face surely was like pictures he had seen in +the Louvre that day when he had ambled through the aisles of great men’s +glories with the feeling that he could not see too much for nothing in +an hour. + +“My life? Ah, m’sieu’, has not my father told you of it?” she asked. + +He waved a hand in explanation, he cocked his head quizzically. +“Scraps--like the buttons on a coat here and there--that’s all,” + he answered. “Born in Andalusia, lived in Cadiz, plenty of money, +a beautiful home,”--Carmen’s eyes drooped, and her face flushed +slightly--“no brothers or sisters--visits to Madrid on political +business--you at school--then the going of your mother, and you at home +at the head of the house. So much on the young shoulders, the kitchen, +the parlour, the market, the shop, society--and so on. That is the way +it was, so he said, except in the last sad times, when your father, for +the sake of Don Carlos and his rights, near lost his life--ah, I can +understand that: to stand by the thing you have sworn to! France is a +republic, but I would give my life to put a Napoleon or a Bourbon on the +throne. It is my hobby to stand by the old ship, not sign on to a new +captain every port.” + +She raised her head and looked at him calmly now. The flush had gone +from her face, and a light of determination was in her eyes. To that was +added suddenly a certain tinge of recklessness and abandon in carriage +and manner, as one flings the body loose from the restraints of clothes, +and it expands in a free, careless, defiant joy. + +Jean Jacques’ recital of her father’s tale had confused her for a +moment, it was so true yet so untrue, so full of lies and yet so +solid in fact. “The head of the house--visits to Madrid on political +business--the parlour, the market, society--all that!” It suggested the +picture of the life of a child of a great house; it made her a lady, +and not a superior servant as she had been; it adorned her with a credit +which was not hers; and for a moment she was ashamed. Yet from the first +she had lent herself to the general imposture that they had fled from +Spain for political reasons, having lost all and suffered greatly; and +it was true while yet it was a lie. She had suffered, both her father +and herself had suffered; she had been in danger, in agony, in sorrow, +in despair--it was only untrue that they were of good birth and blood, +and had had position and comfort and much money. Well, what harm did +that do anybody? What harm did it do this little brown seigneur from +Quebec? Perhaps he too had made himself out to be more than he was. +Perhaps he was no seigneur at all, she thought. When one is in distant +seas and in danger of his life, one will hoist any flag, sail to any +port, pay homage to any king. So would she. Anyhow, she was as good as +this provincial, with his ancient silver watch, his plump little hands, +and his book of philosophy. + +What did it matter, so all came right in the end! She would justify +herself, if she had the chance. She was sick of conspiracy, and danger, +and chicanery--and blood. She wanted her chance. She had been badly +shaken in the last days in Spain, and she shrank from more worry and +misery. She wanted to have a home and not to wander. And here was a +chance--how good a chance she was not sure; but it was a chance. She +would not hesitate to make it hers. After all, self-preservation was the +thing which mattered. She wanted a bright fire, a good table, a horse, +a cow, and all such simple things. She wanted a roof over her and a warm +bed at night. She wanted a warm bed at night--but a warm bed at night +alone. It was the price she would have to pay for her imposture, that if +she had all these things, she could not be alone in the sleep-time. She +had not thought of this in the days when she looked forward to a home +with her Gonzales. To be near him was everything; but that was all +dead and done for; and now--it was at this point that, shrinking, she +suddenly threw off all restraining thoughts. With abandon of the +mind came a recklessness of body, which gave her, all at once, a +voluptuousness more in keeping with the typical maid of Andalusia. It +got into the eyes and senses of Jean Jacques, in a way which had nothing +to do with the philosophy of Descartes, or Kant, or Aristotle, or Hegel. + +“It was beautiful in much--my childhood,” she said in a low voice, +dropping her eyes before his ardent gaze, “as my father said. My mother +was lovely to see, but not bigger than I was at twelve--so petite, and +yet so perfect in form--like a lark or a canary. Yes, and she could +sing--anything. Not like me with a voice which has the note of a drum or +an organ--” + +“Of a flute, bright Senorita,” interposed Jean Jacques. + +“But high, and with the trills in the skies, and all like a laugh with a +tear in it. When she went to the river to wash--” + +She was going to say “wash the clothes,” but she stopped in time and +said instead, “wash her spaniel and her pony”--her face was flushed +again with shame, for to lie about one’s mother is a sickening thing, +and her mother never had a spaniel or a pony--“the women on the shore +wringing their clothes, used to beg her to sing. To the hum of the river +she would make the music which they loved--” + +“La Manola and such?” interjected Jean Jacques eagerly. “That’s a fine +song as you sing it.” + +“Not La Manola, but others of a different sort--The Love of Isabella, +The Flight of Bobadil, Saragosse, My Little Banderillero, and so on, and +all so sweet that the women used to cry. Always, always she was singing +till the time when my father became a rebel. Then she used to cry too; +and she would sing no more; and when my father was put against a wall to +be shot, and fell in the dust when the rifles rang out, she came at the +moment, and seeing him lying there, she threw up her hands, and fell +down beside him dead--” + +“The poor little senora, dead too--” + +“Not dead too--that was the pity of it. You see my father was not dead. +The officer”--she did not say sergeant--“who commanded the firing squad, +he was what is called a compadre of my father--” + +“Yes, I understand--a made-brother, sealed with an oath, which binds +closer than a blood-brother. It is that, is it not?” + +“So--like that. Well, the compadre had put blank cartridges in their +rifles, and my father pretended to fall dead; and the soldiers were +marched away; and my father, with my mother, was carried to his home, +still pretending to be dead. It had been all arranged except the awful +thing, my mother’s death. Who could foresee that? She ought to have been +told; but who could guess that she would hear of it all, and come at the +moment like that? So, that was the way she went, and I was left alone +with my father.” She had told the truth in all, except in conveying that +her mother was not of the lower orders, and that she went to the river +to wash her spaniel and her pony instead of her clothes. + +“Your father--did they not arrest him again? Did they not know?” + +She shrugged her shoulders. “That is not the way in Spain. He was shot, +as the orders were, with his back to the wall by a squad of soldiers +with regulation bullets. If he chose to come to life again, that was +his own affair. The Government would take no notice of him after he was +dead. He could bury himself, or he could come alive--it was all the same +to them. So he came alive again.” + +“That is a story which would make a man’s name if he wrote it down,” + said Jean Jacques eloquently. “And the poor little senora, but my heart +bleeds for her! To go like that in such pain, and not to know--If she +had been my wife I think I would have gone after her to tell her it was +all right, and to be with her--” + +He paused confused, for that seemed like a reflection on her father’s +chivalry, and for a man who had risked his life for his banished +king--what would he have thought if he had been told that Sebastian +Dolores was an anarchist who loathed kings!--it was an insult to suggest +that he did not know the right thing to do, or, knowing, had not done +it. + +She saw the weakness of his case at once. “There was his duty to the +living,” she said indignantly. + +“Ah, forgive me--what a fool I am!” Jean Jacques said repentantly at +once. “There was his little girl, his beloved child, his Carmen Dolores, +so beautiful, with the voice like a flute, and--” + +He drew nearer to her, his hand was outstretched to take hers; his eyes +were full of the passion of the moment; pity was drowning all caution, +all the Norman shrewdness in him, when the Antoine suddenly stopped +almost dead with a sudden jolt and shock, then plunged sideways, jerked, +and trembled. + +“We’ve struck a sunk iceberg--the rest of the story to-morrow, +Senorita,” he cried, as they both sprang to their feet. + +“The rest of the story to-morrow,” she repeated, angry at the stroke +of fate which had so interrupted the course of her fortune. She said it +with a voice also charged with fear; for she was by nature a landfarer, +not a sea-farer, though on the rivers of Spain she had lived almost as +much as on land, and she was a good swimmer. + +“The rest to-morrow,” she repeated, controlling herself. + + + + +CHAPTER III. “TO-MORROW” + +The rest came to-morrow. When the Antoine struck the sunken iceberg she +was not more than one hundred and twenty miles from the coast of Gaspe. +She had not struck it full on, or she would have crumpled up, but had +struck and glanced, mounting the berg, and sliding away with a small +gaping wound in her side, broken internally where she had been weakest. +Her condition was one of extreme danger, and the captain was by no means +sure that he could make the land. If a storm or a heavy sea came on, +they were doomed. + +As it was, with all hands at the pumps the water gained on her, and she +moaned and creaked and ached her way into the night with no surety that +she would show a funnel to the light of another day. Passengers and crew +alike worked, and the few boats were got ready to lower away when +the worst should come to the worst. Below, with the crew, the little +moneymaster of St. Saviour’s worked with an energy which had behind it +some generations of hardy qualities; and all the time he refused to be +downcast. There was something in his nature or in his philosophy after +all. He had not much of a voice, but it was lusty and full of good +feeling; and when cursing began, when a sailor even dared to curse his +baptism--the crime of crimes to a Catholic mind--Jean Jacques began to +sing a cheery song with which the habitants make vocal their labours or +their playtimes: + + “A Saint-Malo, beau port de mer, + Trois gros navir’s sont arrives, + Trois gros navir’s sont arrives + Charges d’avoin’, charges de ble. + Charges d’avoin’, charges de ble: + Trois dam’s s’en vont les marchander.” + +And so on through many verses, with a heartiness that was a good +antidote to melancholy, even though it was no specific for a shipwreck. +It played its part, however; and when Jean Jacques finished it, he +plunged into that other outburst of the habitant’s gay spirits, ‘Bal +chez Boule’: + + “Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule, + The vespers o’er, we’ll away to that; + With our hearts so light, and our feet so gay, + We’ll dance to the tune of ‘The Cardinal’s Hat’ + The better the deed, the better the day + Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule!” + +And while Jean Jacques worked “like a little French pony,” as they say +in Canada of every man with the courage to do hard things in him, he +did not stop to think that the scanty life-belts had all been taken, +and that he was a very poor swimmer indeed: for, as a child, he had been +subject to cramp, and so had made the Beau Cheval River less his friend +than would have been useful now. + +He realized it, however, soon after daybreak, when, within a few hundred +yards of the shores of Gaspe, to which the good Basque captain had been +slowly driving the Antoine all night, there came the cry, “All hands +on deck!” and “Lower the boats!” for the Antoine’s time had come, and +within a hand-reach of shore almost she found the end of her rickety +life. Not more than three-fourths of the passengers and crew were got +into the boats. Jean Jacques was not one of these; but he saw Carmen +Dolores and her father safely bestowed, though in different boats. To +the girl’s appeal to him to come he gave a nod of assent, and said he +would get in at the last moment; but this he did not do, pushing into +the boat instead a crying lad of fifteen, who said he was afraid to die. + +So it was that Jean Jacques took to the water side by side with the +Basque captain, when the Antoine groaned and shook, and then grew still, +and presently, with some dignity, dipped her nose into the shallow sea +and went down. + +“The rest of the story to-morrow,” Jean Jacques had said when the vessel +struck the iceberg the night before; and so it was. + +The boat in which Carmen had been placed was swamped not far from shore, +but she managed to lay hold of a piece of drifting wreckage, and began +to fight steadily and easily landward. Presently she was aware, however, +of a man struggling hard some little distance away to the left of her, +and from the tousled hair shaking in the water she was sure that it was +Jean Jacques. + +So it proved to be; and thus it was that, at his last gasp almost, when +he felt he could keep up no longer, the wooden seat to which Carmen +clung came to his hand, and a word of cheer from her drew his head up +with what was almost a laugh. + +“To think of this!” he said presently when he was safe, with her +swimming beside him without support, for the wooden seat would not +sustain the weight of two. “To think that it is you who saves me!” he +again declared eloquently, as they made the shore in comparative ease, +for she was a fine swimmer. + +“It is the rest of the story,” he said with great cheerfulness and +aplomb as they stood on the shore in the morning sun, shoeless, +coatless, but safe: and she understood. + +There was nothing else for him to do. The usual process of romance had +been reversed. He had not saved her life, she had saved his. The least +that he could do was to give her shelter at the Manor Cartier yonder +at St. Saviour’s, her and, if need be, her father. Human gratitude +must have play. It was so strong in this case that it alone could have +overcome the Norman caution of Jean Jacques, and all his worldly wisdom +(so much in his own eyes). Added thereto was the thing which had been +greatly stirred in him at the instant the Antoine struck; and now he +kept picturing Carmen in the big living-room and the big bedroom of the +house by the mill, where was the comfortable four-poster which had come +from the mansion of the last Baron of Beaugard down by St. Laurent. + +Three days after the shipwreck of the Antoine, and as soon as sufficient +finery could be got in Quebec, it was accomplished, the fate of Jean +Jacques. How proud he was to open his cheque-book before the young +Spanish maid, and write in cramped, characteristic hand a cheque for +a hundred dollars or so at a time! A moiety of this money was given +to Sebastian Dolores, who could scarcely believe his good fortune. A +situation was got for him by the help of a good abbe at Quebec, who +was touched by the tale of the wreck of the Antoine, and by the no less +wonderful tale of the refugees of Spain, who naturally belonged to the +true faith which “feared God and honoured the King.” Sebastian Dolores +was grateful for the post offered him, though he would rather have gone +to St. Saviour’s with his daughter, for he had lost the gift of work, +and he desired peace after war. In other words, he had that fatal trait +of those who strive to make the world better by talk and violence, the +vice of indolence. + +But when Jean Jacques and his handsome bride started for St. Saviour’s, +the new father-in-law did not despair of following soon. He would +greatly have enjoyed the festivities which, after all, did follow the +home-coming of Jean Jacques Barbille and his Spanische; for while they +lacked enthusiasm because Carmen was a foreigner, the romance of the +story gave the whole proceedings a spirit and interest which spread into +adjoining parishes: so that people came to mass from forty miles away to +see the pair who had been saved from the sea. + +And when the Quebec newspapers found their way into the parish, with a +thrilling account of the last hours of the Antoine; and of Jean Jacques’ +chivalrous act in refusing to enter a boat to save himself, though he +was such a bad swimmer and was in danger of cramp; and how he sang Bal +chez Boule while the men worked at the pumps; they permitted the apres +noces of M’sieu’ and Madame Jean Jacques Barbille to be as brilliant +as could be, with the help of lively improvisation. Even speech-making +occurred again in an address of welcome some days later. This was +followed by a feast of Spanish cakes and meats made by the hands of +Carmen Dolores, “the lady saved from the sea”--as they called her; not +knowing that she had saved herself, and saved Jean Jacques as well. It +was not quite to Jean Jacques’ credit that he did not set this error +right, and tell the world the whole exact truth. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A +STORY + +It was hard to say which was the more important person in the parish, +the New Cure or M’sieu’ Jean Jacques Barbille. When the Old Cure was +alive Jean Jacques was a lesser light, and he accepted his degree of +illumination with content. But when Pere Langon was gathered to his +fathers, and thousands had turned away from the graveyard, where he who +had baptised them, confirmed them, blessed them, comforted them, and +firmly led them was laid to rest, they did not turn at once to his +successor with confidence and affection. The new cure, M. Savry, was +young; the Old Cure had lived to be eighty-five, bearing wherever he +went a lamp of wisdom at which the people lighted their small souls. The +New Cure could command their obedience, but he could not command their +love and confidence until he had earned them. + +So it was that, for a time, Jean Jacques took the place of the Old Cure +in the human side of the life of the district, though in a vastly lesser +degree. Up to the death of M. Langon, Jean Jacques had done very well +in life, as things go in out-of-the-way places of the world. His mill, +which ground good flour, brought him increasing pence; his saw-mill more +than paid its way; his farms made a small profit, in spite of a +cousin who worked one on halves, but who had a spendthrift wife; the +ash-factory which his own initiative had started made no money, but the +loss was only small; and he had even made profit out of his lime-kilns, +although Sebastian Dolores, Carmen’s father, had at one time mismanaged +them--but of that anon. Jean Jacques himself managed the business +of money-lending and horse-dealing; and he also was agent for fire +insurance and a dealer in lightning rods. + +In the thirteen years since he married he had been able to keep a good +many irons in the fire, and also keep them more or less hot. Many people +in his and neighbouring parishes were indebted to him, and it was worth +their while to stand well with him. If he insisted on debts being paid, +he was never exacting or cruel. If he lent money, he never demanded +more than eight per cent.; and he never pressed his debtors unduly. His +cheerfulness seldom deserted him, and he was notably kind to the poor. +Not seldom in the winter time a poor man, here and there in the parish, +would find dumped down outside his door in the early morning a half-cord +of wood or a bag of flour. + +It could not be said that Jean Jacques did not enjoy his own generosity. +His vanity, however, did not come from an increasing admiration of his +own personal appearance, a weakness which often belongs to middle age; +but from the study of his so-called philosophy, which in time became an +obsession with him. In vain the occasional college professors, who spent +summer months at St. Saviour’s, sought to interest him in science and +history, for his philosophy had large areas of boredom; but science +marched over too jagged a road for his tender intellectual feet; the +wild places where it led dismayed him. History also meant numberless +dates and facts. Perhaps he could have managed the dates, for he was +quick at figures, but the facts were like bees in their hive,--he could +scarcely tell one from another by looking at them. + +So it was that Jean Jacques kept turning his eyes, as he thought, to the +everlasting meaning of things, to “the laws of Life and the decrees +of Destiny.” He was one of those who had found, as he thought, what he +could do, and was sensible enough to do it. Let the poor fellows, +who gave themselves to science, trouble their twisted minds with +trigonometry and the formula of some grotesque chemical combination; let +the dull people rub their noses in the ink of Greek and Latin, which was +no use for everyday consumption; let the heads of historians ache with +the warring facts of the lives of nations; it all made for sleep. But +philosophy--ah, there was a field where a man could always use knowledge +got from books or sorted out of his own experiences! + +It happened, therefore, that Jean Jacques, who not too vaguely realized +that there was reputation to be got from being thought a philosopher, +always carried about with him his little compendium from the quay at +Quebec, which he had brought ashore inside his redflannel shirt, with +the antique silver watch, when the Antoine went down. + +Thus also it was that when a lawyer in court at Vilray, four miles from +St. Saviour’s, asked him one day, when he stepped into the witness-box, +what he was, meaning what was his occupation, his reply was, “Moi-je +suis M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosophe--(Me--I am M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, +philosopher).” + +A little later outside the court-house, the Judge who had tried the +case--M. Carcasson--said to the Clerk of the Court: + +“A curious, interesting little man, that Monsieur Jean Jacques. What’s +his history?” + +“A character, a character, monsieur le juge,” was the reply of M. Amand +Fille. “His family has been here since Frontenac’s time. He is a figure +in the district, with a hand in everything. He does enough foolish +things to ruin any man, yet swims along--swims along. He has many kinds +of business--mills, stores, farms, lime-kilns, and all that, and keeps +them all going; and as if he hadn’t enough to do, and wasn’t risking +enough, he’s now organizing a cheese-factory on the co-operative +principle, as in Upper Canada among the English.” + +“He has a touch of originality, that’s sure,” was the reply of the +Judge. + +The Clerk of the Court nodded and sighed. “Monseigneur Giron of Laval, +the greatest scholar in Quebec, he said to me once that M’sieu’ Jean +Jacques missed being a genius by an inch. But, monsieur le juge, not to +have that inch is worse than to be an ignoramus.” + +Judge Carcasson nodded. “Ah, surely! Your Jean Jacques lacks a +balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough. He has vision, but it is +not steady; he has argument, but it breaks down just where it should be +most cohesive. He interested me. I took note of every turn of his mind +as he gave evidence. He will go on for a time, pulling his strings, +doing this and doing that, and then, all at once, when he has got a +train of complications, his brain will not be big enough to see the +way out. Tell me, has he a balance-wheel in his home--a sensible wife, +perhaps?” + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully and seemed to hesitate. +Then he said, “Comme ci, comme ca--but no, I will speak the truth about +it. She is a Spaniard--the Spanische she is called by the neighbours. I +will tell you all about that, and you will wonder that he has carried on +as well as he has, with his vanity and his philosophy.” + +“He’ll have need of his philosophy before he’s done, or I don’t know +human nature; he’ll get a bad fall one of these days,” responded the +Judge. “‘Moi-je suis M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosophe’--that is what he +said. Bumptious little man, and yet--and yet there’s something in him. +There’s a sense of things which everyone doesn’t have--a glimmer of life +beyond his own orbit, a catching at the biggest elements of being, a +hovering on the confines of deep understanding, as it were. Somehow +I feel almost sorry for him, though he annoyed me while he was in the +witness-box, in spite of myself. He was as the English say, so ‘damn +sure.’” + +“So damn sure always,” agreed the Clerk of the Court, with a sense of +pleasure that his great man, this wonderful aged little judge, should +have shown himself so human as to use such a phrase. + +“But, no doubt, the sureness has been a good servant in his business,” + returned the Judge. “Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit +often. But tell me about his wife--the Spanische. Tell me the how and +why, and everything. I’d like to trace our little money-man wise to his +source.” + +Again M. Fille was sensibly agitated. “She is handsome, and she has +great, good gifts when she likes to use them,” he answered. “She can do +as much in an hour as most women can do in two; but then she will not +keep at it. Her life is but fits and starts. Yet she has a good head for +business, yes, very good. She can see through things. Still, there it +is--she will not hold fast from day to day.” + +“Yes, yes, but where did she come from? What was the field where she +grew?” + +“To be sure, monsieur. It was like this,” responded the other. + +Thereupon M. Fille proceeded to tell the history, musical with legend, +of Jean Jacques’ Grand Tour, of the wreck of the Antoine, of the +marriage of the “seigneur,” the home-coming, and the life that followed, +so far as rumour, observation, and a mind with a gift for narrative, +which was not to be incomplete for lack of imagination, could make it. +It was only when he offered his own reflections on Carmen Dolores, now +Carmen Barbille, and on women generally, that Judge Carcasson pulled him +up. + +“So, so, I see. She has temperament and so on, but she’s unsteady, +and regarded by her neighbours not quite as one that belongs. Bah, +the conceit of every race! They are all the same. The English are the +worst--as though the good God was English. But the child--so beautiful, +you say, and yet more like the father than the mother. He is not +handsome, that Jean Jacques, but I can understand that the little one +should be like him and yet beautiful too. I should like to see the +child.” + +Suddenly the Clerk of the Court stopped and touched the arm of his +distinguished friend and patron. “That is very easy, monsieur,” he said +eagerly, “for there she is in the red wagon yonder, waiting for her +father. She adores him, and that makes trouble sometimes. Then the +mother gets fits, and makes things hard at the Manor Cartier. It is not +all a bed of roses for our Jean Jacques. But there it is. He is very +busy all the time. Something doing always, never still, except when you +will find him by the road-side, or in a tavern with all the people round +him, talking, jesting, and he himself going into a trance with his book +of philosophy. It is very strange that everlasting going, going, going, +and yet that love of his book. I sometimes think it is all pretence, and +that he is all vanity--or almost so. Heaven forgive me for my want of +charity!” + +The little round judge cocked his head astutely. “But you say he is kind +to the poor, that he does not treat men hardly who are in debt to him, +and that he will take his coat off his back to give to a tramp--is it +so?” + +“As so, as so, monsieur.” + +“Then he is not all vanity, and because of that he will feel the blow +when it comes--alas, so much he will feel it!” + +“What blow, monsieur le juge?--but ah, look, monsieur!” He pointed +eagerly. “There she is, going to the red wagon--Madame Jean Jacques. +Is she not a figure of a woman? See the walk of her--is it not +distinguished? She is half a hand-breadth taller than Jean Jacques. And +her face, most sure it is a face to see. If Jean Jacques was not so busy +with his farms and his mills and his kilns and his usury, he would see +what a woman he has got. It is his good fortune that she has such +sense in business. When Jean Jacques listens to her, he goes right. +She herself did not want her father to manage the lime-kilns--the old +Sebastian Dolores. She was for him staying at Mirimachi, where he kept +the books of the lumber firm. But no, Jean Jacques said that he could +make her happy by having her father near her, and he would not believe +she meant what she said. He does not understand her; that is the +trouble. He knows as much of women or men as I know of--” + +“Of the law--hein?” laughed the great man. + +“Monsieur--ah, that is your little joke! I laugh, yes, but I laugh,” + responded the Clerk of the Court a little uncertainly. “Now once when +she told him that the lime-kilns--” + +The Judge, who had retraced his steps down the street of the town--it +was little more than a large village, but because it had a court-house +and a marketplace it was called a town--that he might have a good look +at Madame Jean Jacques and her child before he passed them, suddenly +said: + +“How is it you know so much about it all, Maitre Fille--as to what +she says and of the inner secrets of the household? Ah, ha, my little +Lothario, I have caught you--a bachelor too, with time on his hands, +and the right side of seventy as well! The evidence you have given of a +close knowledge of the household of our Jean Jacques does not have its +basis in hearsay, but in acute personal observation. Tut-tut! Fie-fie! +my little gay Clerk of the Court. Fie! Fie!” + +M. Fille was greatly disconcerted. He had never been a Lothario. In +forty years he had never had an episode with one of “the other sex,” + but it was not because he was impervious to the softer emotions. An +intolerable shyness had ever possessed him when in the presence of +women, and even small girl children had frightened him, till he had made +friends with little Zoe Barbille, the daughter of Jean Jacques. Yet +even with Zoe, who was so simple and companionable and the very soul of +childish confidence, he used to blush and falter till she made him talk. +Then he became composed, and his tongue was like a running stream, and +on that stream any craft could sail. On it he became at ease with madame +the Spanische, and he even went so far as to look her full in the eyes +on more than one occasion. + +“Answer me--ah, you cannot answer!” teasingly added the Judge, who loved +his Clerk of the Court, and had great amusement out of his discomfiture. +“You are convicted. At an age when a man should be settling down, you +are gallivanting with the wife of a philosopher.” + +“Monsieur--monsieur le juge!” protested M. Fille with slowly heightening +colour. “I am innocent, yes, altogether. There is nothing, believe me. +It is the child, the little Zoe--but a maid of charm and kindness. She +brings me cakes and the toffy made by her own hands; and if I go to the +Manor Cartier, as I often do, it is to be polite and neighbourly. If +Madame says things to me, and if I see what I see, and hear what I hear, +it is no crime; it is no misdemeanour; it is within the law--the perfect +law.” + +Suddenly the Judge linked his arm within that of the other, for he also +was little, and he was fat and round and ruddy, and even smaller than M. +Fille, who was thin, angular and pale. + +“Ah, my little Confucius,” he said gently, “have you seen and heard me +so seldom that you do not know me yet, or what I really think? Of +course it is within the law--the perfect law--to visit at m’sieu’ the +philosopher’s house and talk at length also to m’sieu’ the philosopher’s +wife; while to make the position regular by friendship with the +philosopher’s child is a wisdom which I can only ascribe to”--his +voice was charged with humour and malicious badinage “to an extended +acquaintance with the devices of human nature, as seen in those episodes +of the courts with which you have been long familiar.” + +“Oh, monsieur, dear monsieur!” protested the Clerk of the Court, “you +always make me your butt.” + +“My friend,” said the Judge, squeezing his arm, “if I could have you no +other way, I would make you my butler!” + +Then they both laughed at the inexpensive joke, and the Clerk of the +Court was in high spirits, for on either side of the street were people +with whom he lived every day, and they could see the doyen of the Bench, +the great Judge Carcasson, who had refused to be knighted, arm in arm +with him. Aye, and better than all, and more than all, here was Zoe +Barbille drawing her mother’s attention to him almost in the embrace of +the magnificent jurist. + +The Judge, with his small, round, quizzical eyes which missed nothing, +saw too; and his attention was strangely arrested by the faces of both +the mother and the child. His first glance at the woman’s face made +him flash an inward light on the memory of Jean Jacques’ face in the +witness-box, and a look of reflective irony came into his own. The face +of Carmen Dolores, wife of the philosophic miller and money-master, did +not belong to the world where she was placed--not because she was so +unlike the habitant women, or even the wives of the big farmers, or the +sister of the Cure, or the ladies of the military and commercial exiles +who lived in that portion of the province; but because of an alien +something in her look--a lonely, distant sense of isolation, a something +which might hide a companionship and sympathy of a rare kind, or might +be but the mask of a furtive, soulless nature. In the child’s face was +nothing of this. It was open as the day, bright with the cheerfulness of +her father’s countenance, alive with a humour which that countenance +did not possess. The contour was like that of Jean Jacques, but with a +fineness and delicacy to its fulness absent from his own; and her eyes +were a deep and lustrous brown, under a forehead which had a boldness +of gentle dignity possessed by neither father nor mother. Her hair +was thick, brown and very full, like that of her father, and in all +respects, save one, she had an advantage over both her parents. Her +mouth had a sweetness which might not unfairly be called weakness, +though that was balanced by a chin of commendable strength. + +But the Judge’s eyes found at once this vulnerable point in her +character as he had found that of her mother. Delightful the child was, +and alert and companionable, with no remarkable gifts, but with a rare +charm and sympathy. Her face was the mirror of her mind, and it had +no ulterior thought. Her mother’s face, the Judge had noted, was the +foreground of a landscape which had lonely shadows. It was a face of +some distinction and suited to surroundings more notable, though the +rural life Carmen had led since the Antoine went down and her fortunes +came up, had coarsened her beauty a very little. + +“There’s something stirring in the coverts,” said the Judge to himself +as he was introduced to the mother and child. By a hasty gesture Zoe +gave a command to M. Fille to help her down. With a hand on his shoulder +she dropped to the ground. Her object was at once apparent. She made a +pretty old-fashioned curtsey to the Judge, then held out her hand, as +though to reassert her democratic equality. + +As the Judge looked at Madame Barbille, he was involuntarily, but none +the less industriously, noting her characteristics; and the sum of his +reflections, after a few moments’ talk, was that dangers he had seen +ahead of Jean Jacques, would not be averted by his wife, indeed might +easily have their origin in her. + +“I wonder it has gone on as long as it has,” he said to himself; though +it seemed unreasonable that his few moments with her, and the story told +him by the Clerk of the Court, should enable him to come to any definite +conclusion. But at eighty-odd Judge Carcasson was a Solon and a Solomon +in one. He had seen life from all angles, and he was not prepared to +give any virtue or the possession of any virtue too much rope; while +nothing in life surprised him. + +“How would you like to be a judge?” he asked of Zoe, suddenly taking +her hand in his. A kinship had been at once established between them, +so little has age, position, and intellect to do with the natural +gravitations of human nature. + +She did not answer direct, and that pleased him. “If I were a judge +I should have no jails,” she said. “What would you do with the bad +people?” he asked. + +“I would put them alone on a desert island, or out at sea in a little +boat, or out on the prairies without a horse, so that they’d have to +work for their lives.” + +“Oh, I see! If M. Fille here set fire to a house, you would drop him on +the prairie far away from everything and everybody and let him ‘root hog +or die’?” + +“Don’t you think it would kill him or cure him?” she asked whimsically. + +The Judge laughed, his eyes twinkling. “That’s what they did when the +world was young, dear ma’m’selle. There was no time to build jails. +Alone on the prairie--a separate prairie for every criminal--that would +take a lot of space; but the idea is all right. It mightn’t provide the +proper degree of punishment, however. But that is being too particular. +Alone on the prairie for punishment--well, I should like to see it +tried.” + +He remembered that saying of his long after, while yet he was alive, +and a tale came to him from the prairies which made his eyes turn +more intently towards a land that is far off, where the miserable +miscalculations and mistakes of this world are readjusted. Now he was +only conscious of a primitive imagination looking out of a young girl’s +face, and making a bridge between her understanding and his own. + +“What else would you do if you were a judge?” he asked presently. + +“I would make my father be a miller,” she replied. “But he is a miller, +I hear.” + +“But he is so many other things--so many. If he was only a miller we +should have more of him. He is at home only a little. If I get up early +enough in the morning, or if I am let stay up at night late enough, I +see him; but that is not enough--is it, mother?” she added with a sudden +sense that she had gone too far, that she ought not to say this perhaps. + +The woman’s face had darkened for an instant, and irritation showed in +her eyes, but by an effort of the will she controlled herself. + +“Your father knows best what he can do and can’t do,” she said evenly. + +“But you would not let a man judge for himself, would you, ma’m’selle?” + asked the old inquisitor. “You would judge for the man what was best for +him to do?” + +“I would judge for my father,” she replied. “He is too good a man to +judge for himself.” + +“Well, there’s a lot of sense in that, ma’m’selle philosophe,” answered +Judge Carcasson. “You would make the good idle, and make the bad work. +The good you would put in a mill to watch the stones grind, and the bad +you would put on a prairie alone to make the grist for the grinding. +Ma’m’selle, we must be friends--is it not so?” + +“Haven’t we always been friends?” the young girl asked with the look of +a visionary suddenly springing up in her eyes. + +Here was temperament indeed. She pleased Judge Carcasson greatly. “But +yes, always, and always, and always,” he replied. Inwardly he said to +himself, “I did not see that at first. It is her father in her. + +“Zoe!” said her mother reprovingly. + + + + +CHAPTER V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY + +A moment afterwards the Judge, as he walked down the street still arm in +arm with the Clerk of the Court, said: “That child must have good luck, +or she will not have her share of happiness. She has depths that are +not deep enough.” Presently he added, “Tell me, my Clerk, the +man--Jean Jacques--he is so much away--has there never been any talk +about--about.” + +“About--monsieur le juge?” asked M. Fille rather stiffly. “For +instance--about what?” + +“For instance, about a man--not Jean Jacques.” + +The lips of the Clerk of the Court tightened. “Never at any time--till +now, monsieur le juge.” + +“Ah--till now!” + +The Clerk of the Court blushed. What he was about to say was difficult, +but he alone of all the world guessed at the tragedy which was hovering +over Jean Jacques’ home. By chance he had seen something on an afternoon +of three days before, and he had fled from it as a child would fly from +a demon. He was a purist at law, but he was a purist in life also, and +not because the flush of youth had gone and his feet were on the path +which leads into the autumn of a man’s days. The thing he had seen had +been terribly on his mind, and he had felt that his own judgment was not +sufficient for the situation, that he ought to tell someone. + +The Cure was the only person who had come to his mind when he became +troubled to the point of actual mental agony. But the new curb, M. +Savry, was not like the Old Cure, and, besides, was it not stepping +between the woman and her confessional? Yet he felt that something ought +to be done. It never occurred to him to speak to Jean Jacques. That +would have seemed so brutal to the woman. It came to him to speak to +Carmen, but he knew that he dared not do so. He could not say to a +woman that which must shame her before him, she who had kept her head +so arrogantly high--not so much to him, however, as to the rest of the +world. He had not the courage; and yet he had fear lest some awful thing +would at any moment now befall the Manor Cartier. If it did, he would +feel himself to blame had he done nothing to stay the peril. So far +he was the only person who could do so, for he was the only person who +knew! + +The Judge could feel his friend’s arm tremble with emotion, and he said: +“Come, now, my Plato, what is it? A man has come to disturb the peace of +Jean Jacques, our philosophe, eh?” + +“That is it, monsieur--a man of a kind.” + +“Oh, of course, my bambino, of course, a man ‘of a kind,’ or there would +be no peace disturbed. You want to tell me, I see. Proceed then; there +is no reason why you should not. I am secret. I have seen much. I have +no prejudices. As you will, however; but I can see it would relieve your +mind to tell me. In truth I felt there was something when I saw you look +at her first, when you spoke to her, when she talked with me. She is a +fine figure of a woman, and Jean Jacques, as you say, is much away from +home. In fact he neglects her--is it not so?” + +“He means it not, but it is so. His life is full of--” + +“Yes, yes, of stores and ash-factories and debtors and lightning-rods +and lime-kilns, and mortgaged farms, and the price of wheat--but +certainly, I understand it all, my Fille. She is too much alone, and if +she has travelled by the compass all these thirteen years without losing +the track, it is something to the credit of human nature.” + +“Ah, monsieur, a vow before the good God--!” The Judge interrupted +sharply. “Tut, tut--these vows! Do you not know that a vow may be a +thing that ruins past redemption? A vow is sacred. Well, a poor mortal +in one moment of weakness breaks it. Then there is a sense of awful +shame of being lost, of never being able to put right the breaking of +the vow, though the rest can be put right by sorrow and repentance! I +would have no vows. They haunt like ghosts when they are broken, they +torture like fire then. Don’t talk to me of vows. It is not vows that +keep the world right, but the prayer of a man’s soul from day to day.” + +The Judge’s words sounded almost blasphemous to M. Fille. A vow not +keep the world right! Then why the vows of the Church at baptism, at +confirmation, at marriage? Why the vows of the priests, of the nuns, of +those who had given themselves to eternal service? Monsieur had spoken +terrible things. And yet he had said at the last: “It is not vows that +keep the world right, but the prayer of a man’s soul from day to day.” + That was not heretical, or atheistic, or blasphemous. It sounded logical +and true and good. + +He was about to say that, to some people, vows were the only way of +keeping them to their duty--and especially women--but the Judge added +gently: “I would not for the world hurt your sensibilities, my little +Clerk, and we are not nearly so far apart as you think at the minute. +Thank God, I keep the faith that is behind all faith--the speech of a +man’s soul with God.... But there, if you can, let us hear what man it +is who disturbs the home of the philosopher. It is not my Fille, that’s +sure.” + +He could not resist teasing, this judge who had a mind of the most rare +uprightness; and he was not always sorry when his teasing hurt; for, to +his mind, men should be lashed into strength, when they drooped over the +tasks of life; and what so sharp a lash as ridicule or satire! + +“Proceed, my friend,” he urged brusquely, not waiting for the gasp +of pained surprise of the little Clerk to end. He was glad to see the +figure beside him presently straighten itself, as though to be braced +for a task of difficulty. Indignation and resentment were good things to +stiffen a man’s back. + +“It was three days ago,” said M. Fille. “I saw it with my own eyes. +I had come to the Manor Cartier by the road, down the hill--Mont +Violet--behind the house. I could see into the windows of the house. +There was no reason why I should not see--there never has been a +reason,” he added, as though to justify himself. + +“Of course, of course, my friend. One’s eyes are open, and one sees what +one sees, without looking for it. Proceed.” + +“As I looked down I saw Madame with a man’s arms round her, and his lips +to hers. It was not Jean Jacques.” + +“Of course, of course. Proceed. What did you do?” + +“I stopped. I fell back--” + +“Of course. Behind a tree?” + +“Behind some elderberry bushes.” + +“Of course. Elderberry bushes--that’s better than a tree. I am very fond +of elderberry wine when it is new. Proceed.” + +The Clerk of the Court shrank. What did it matter whether or no the +Judge liked elderberry wine, when the world was falling down for Jean +Jacques and his Zoe--and his wife. But with a sigh he continued: “There +is nothing more. I stayed there for awhile, and then crept up the hill +again, and came back to my home and locked myself in.” + +“What had you done that you should lock yourself in?” + +“Ah, monsieur, how can I explain such things? Perhaps I was ashamed that +I had seen things I should not have seen. I do not blush that I wept for +the child, who is--but you saw her, monsieur le juge.” + +“Yes, yes, the little Zoe, and the little philosopher. Proceed.” + +“What more is there to tell!” + +“A trifle perhaps, as you will think,” remarked the Judge ironically, +but as one who, finding a crime, must needs find the criminal too. +“I must ask you to inform the Court who was the too polite friend of +Madame.” + +“Monsieur, pardon me. I forgot. It is essential, of course. You must +know that there is a flume, a great wooden channel--” + +“Yes, yes. I comprehend. Once I had a case of a flume. It was fifteen +feet deep and it let in the water of the river to the mill-wheels. +A flume regulates, concentrates, and controls the water power. I +comprehend perfectly. Well?” + +“So. This flume for Jean Jacques’ mill was also fifteen feet deep +or more. It was out of repair, and Jean Jacques called in a +master-carpenter from Laplatte, Masson by name--George Masson--to put +the flume right.” + +“How long ago was that?” + +“A month ago. But Masson was not here all the time. It was his workmen +who did the repairs, but he came over to see--to superintend. At first +he came twice in the week. Then he came every day.” + +“Ah, then he came every day! How do you know that?” + +“It was my custom to walk to the mill every day--to watch the work on +the flume. It was only four miles away across the fields and through the +woods, making a walk of much charm--especially in the autumn, when +the colours of the foliage are so fine, and the air has a touch of +pensiveness, so that one is induced to reflection.” + +There was the slightest tinge of impatience in the Judge’s response. +“Yes, yes, I understand. You walked to study life and to reflect and to +enjoy your intimacy with nature, but also to see our friend Zoe and her +home. And I do not wonder. She has a charm which makes me sad--for her.” + +“So I have felt, so I have felt for her, monsieur. When she is gayest, +and when, as it might seem, I am quite happy, talking to her, or +picnicking, or idling on the river, or helping her with her lessons, I +have sadness, I know not why.” + +The Judge pressed his friend’s arm firmly. His voice grew more +insistent. “Now, Maitre Fille, I think I understand the story, but there +are lacunee which you must fill. You say the thing happened three days +ago--now, when will the work be finished?” + +“The work will be finished to-morrow, monsieur. Only one workman is +left, and he will be quit of his task to-night.” + +“So the thing--the comedy or tragedy will come to an end to-morrow?” + remarked the Judge seriously. “How did you find out that the workmen go +tomorrow, maitre?” + +“Jean Jacques--he told me yesterday.” + +“Then it all ends to-morrow,” responded the Judge. + +The puzzled subordinate stood almost still, and looked at the Judge +in wonder. Why should it all end to-morrow simply because the work was +finished at the flume? At last he spoke. + +“It is only twelve miles to Laplatte where George Masson lives, and he +has, besides, another contract near here, but three miles from the Manor +Cartier. Also besides, how can we know what she will do--Jean Jacques’ +wife. How can we tell but that she will perhaps go and leave the beloved +Zoe alone!” + +“And leave our little philosopher--miller also alone?” remarked the +Judge quizzically, yet with solemnity. M. Fille was agitated; he made a +protesting gesture. “Jean Jacques can find comfort, but the child--ah, +no, it is too terrible! Someone should speak. I tried to do it--to +Madame Carmen, to Jean Jacques; but it was no use. How could I betray +her to him, how could I tell her that I knew her shame!” + +The Judge turned brusquely and caught his friend by the shoulders, +fastening him with the eyes which had made many a witness forget to lie. + +“If you were an avocat in practice I would ruin your reputation, Fille,” + he said. “A fool would tell Jean Jacques, or speak to the woman, and +spoil all; for women go mad when they are in danger, and they do the +impossible things. But did it not occur to you that the one person to +have in a quiet room with the doors shut, with the light of the sun in +his face, with the book of the law open on your desk and the damages +to be got by an injured husband, in a Catholic province with a Catholic +Judge, written down on a piece of paper, to hand over at the right +moment--did it not strike you that that person was your George Masson?” + +M. Fille’s head dropped before the disdainful eyes of M. Carcasson. He +who prided himself in keeping the court right on points of procedure, +who was looked upon almost with the respect given the position of the +Judge himself, that he should fail in thinking of the obvious thing was +humiliating, and alas! so disconcerting. + +“I am a fool, an imbecile,” he responded, in great dejection. + +“This much must be said, my imbecile, that every man some time or other +makes just such a fool of his intelligence,” was the soft reply. + +A thin hand made a gesture of dissent. “Not you, monsieur. Never!” + +“If it is any comfort to you, know then, my Solon, that I have done so +publicly in my time, while you have only done it privately. But let us +see. That Masson must be struck of a heap. What sort of a man is he to +look at? Apart from his morals, what class of creature is he?” + +“He is a man of strength, of force in his way, monsieur. He made himself +from an apprentice without a cent, and he has now thirty men at work.” + +“Then he does not drink or gamble?” + +“Neither, monsieur.” + +“Has he a family?” + +“No, monsieur.” + +“How old is he?” + +“Forty or thereabouts, monsieur.” + +The Judge cogitated for a moment, then said: “Ah, that’s bad--unmarried +and forty, and no vices except this. It gives him few escape-valves. Is +he good-looking? What is his appearance?” + +“Nor short, nor tall, and square shoulders. His face like the yellow +brown of a peach, hair that curls close to his head, blue eyes that see +everything, and a big hand that knows what it is doing.” + +The Judge nodded. “Ah, you have watched him, maitre.... When? Since +then?” + +“No, no, monsieur, not since. If I had watched him since, I should +perhaps have thought of the right thing to do. But I did not. I used to +study him while the work was going on, when he first came, but I have +known him some time from a distance. If a man makes himself what he is, +you look at him, of course.” + +“Truly. His temper--his disposition, what is it?” M. Fille was very much +alive now. He replied briskly. “Like the snap of a whip. He flies into +anger and flies out. He has a laugh that makes men say, ‘How he enjoys +himself!’ and his mind is very quick and sure.” + +The Judge nodded with satisfaction. “Well done! Well done! I have got +him in my eye. He will not be so easy to handle; but, if he has brains, +he will see that you have the right end of the stick; and he will kiss +and ride away. It will not be easy, but the game is in your hands, my +Fille. In a quiet room, with the book of the law open, and figures of +damages given by a Catholic court and Judge--I think that will do it; +and then the course of true philosophy will not long be interrupted in +the house of Jean Jacques Barbille.” + +“Monsieur--monsieur le juge, you mean that I shall do this, shall see +George Masson and warn him--me?” + +“Who else? You are a friend of the family. You are a public officer, to +whom the good name of your parish is dear. As all are aware, no doubt, +you are the trusted ancient comrade of the daughter of the woman--I +speak legally--Carmen Barbille nee Dolores, a name of charm to the ear. +Who but you then to do it?” + +“There is yourself, monsieur.” + +“Dismiss me from your mind. I go to Quebec to-night, as you know, and +there is not time; but even if there were, I should not be the best +person to do this. I am known to few; you are known to all. I have no +locus standi. You have. No, no, it would not be for me.” + +Suddenly, in his desperation, the Clerk of the Court sought release for +himself from this solemn and frightening duty. + +“Monsieur,” he said eagerly, “there is another. I had forgotten. It is +Madame Carmen’s father, Sebastian Dolores.” + +“Ah, a father! Yes, I had forgotten to ask about him; so we are one in +our imbecility, my little Aristotle. This Sebastian Dolores, where is +he?” + +“In the next parish, Beauharnais, keeping books for a lumber-firm. Ah, +monsieur, that is the way to deal with the matter--through Sebastian +Dolores, her father!” + +“What sort is he?” + +The other shook his head and did not answer. “Ah, not of the best? +Drinks?” + +M. Fille nodded. + +“Has a weak character?” + +Again M. Fille nodded. + +“Has no good reputation hereabouts?” + +The nod was repeated. “He has never been steady He goes here and there, +but always he comes back to get Jean Jacques’ help. He and his daughter +are not close friends, and yet he likes to be near her. She can endure +him at least. He can command her interest. He is a stranger in a strange +land, and he drifts back to where she is always. But that is all.” + +“Then he is out of the question, and he would be always out of the +question except as a last resort; for sooner or later he would tell his +daughter, and challenge our George Masson too; and that is what you do +not wish, eh?” + +“Precisely so,” remarked M. Fille, dropping back again into gloom. “To +be quite honest, monsieur, even though it gives me a task which I abhor, +I do not think that M. Dolores could do what is needed without mistakes +which could not be mended. At least I can--” He stopped. + +The Judge interposed at once, well pleased with the way things were +going for this “case.” “Assuredly. You can as can no other, my Solon. +The secret of success in such things is a good heart, a right mind, a +clear intelligence and some astuteness, and you have it all. It is your +task and yours only.” + +The little man’s self-respect seemed restored. He preened himself +somewhat and bowed to the Judge. “I take your commands, monsieur, to +obey them as heaven gives me power so to do. Shall it be tomorrow?” + +The Judge reflected a moment, then said: “Tonight would be better, +but--” + +“I can do it better to-morrow morning,” interposed M. Fille, “for George +Masson has a meeting here at Vilray with the avocat Prideaux at ten +o’clock to sign a contract, and I can ask him to step into my office +on a little affair of business. He will not guess, and I shall +be armed”--the Judge frowned--“with the book of the law on such +misdemeanours, and the figures of the damages,”--the Judge smiled--“and +I think perhaps I can frighten him as he has never been frightened +before.” + +A courage and confidence had now taken possession of the Clerk in +strange contrast to his timidity and childlike manner of a few minutes +before. He was now as he appeared in court, clothed with an austere +authority which gave him a vicarious strength and dignity. The Judge had +done his work well, and he was of those folk in the world who are not +content to do even the smallest thing ill. + +Arm in arm they passed into the garden which fronted the vine-covered +house, where Maitre Fille lived alone with his sister, a tiny edition of +himself, who whispered and smiled her way through life. + +She smiled and whispered now in welcome to the Judge; and as she did so, +the three saw Jean Jacques, laughing, and cracking his whip, drive past +with his daughter beside him, chirruping to the horses; while, moody and +abstracted, his wife sat silent on the backseat of the red wagon. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY + +Jean Jacques was in great good humour as he drove away to the Manor +Cartier. The day, which was not yet aged, had been satisfactory from +every point of view. He had impressed the Court, he had got a chance +to pose in the witness-box; he had been able to repeat in evidence +the numerous businesses in which he was engaged; had referred to his +acquaintance with the Lieutenant-Governor and a Cardinal; to his Grand +Tour (this had been hard to do in the cross-examination to which he was +subjected, but he had done it); and had been able to say at the very +start in reply as to what was his occupation--“Moi je suis M’sieu’ Jean +Jacques, philosophe.” + +Also he had, during the day, collected a debt long since wiped off his +books; he had traded a poor horse for a good cow; he had bought all the +wheat of a Vilray farmer below market-price, because the poor fellow +needed ready money; he had issued an insurance policy; his wife and +daughter had conversed in the public streets with the great judge who +was the doyen of the provincial Bench; and his daughter had been kissed +by the same judge in the presence of at least a dozen people. He was, in +fact, very proud of his Carmen and his Carmencita, as he called the two +who sat in the red wagon sharing his glory--so proud that he did not +extol them to others; and he was quite sure they were both very proud of +him. The world saw what his prizes of life were, and there was no need +to praise or brag. Dignity and pride were both sustained by silence +and a wave of the hand, which in fact said to the world, “Look you, my +masters, they belong to Jean Jacques. Take heed.” + +There his domestic scheme practically ended. He was so busy that he took +his joys by snatches, in moments of suspension of actual life, as it +were. His real life was in the eddy of his many interests, in the field +of his superficial culture, in the eyes of the world. The worst of him +was on the surface. He showed what other men hid, that was all. Their +vanity was concealed, he wore it in his cap. They put on a manner as +they put on their clothes, and wore it out in the world, or took it off +in their own homes-behind the door of life; but he was the same vain, +frank, cocksure fellow in his home as in the street. There was no +difference at all. He was vain, but he had no conceit; and therefore he +did not deceive, and was not tyrannous or dictatorial; in truth, if +you but estimated him at his own value, he was the least insistent man +alive. Many a debtor knew this; and, by asking Jean Jacques’ advice, +making an appeal to his logic, as it were--and it was always worth +listening to, even when wrong or sadly obvious, because of the glow with +which he declared things this or that--found his situation immediately +eased. Many a hard-up countryman, casting about for a five-dollar bill, +could get it of Jean Jacques by telling him what agreeable thing some +important person had said about him; or by writing to a great newspaper +in Montreal a letter, saying that the next candidate for the provincial +legislature should be M. Jean Jacques Barbille, of St. Saviour’s. +This never failed to draw a substantial “bill” from the wad which Jean +Jacques always carried in his pocket-loose, not tied up in a leather +roll, as so many lesser men freighted the burdens of their wealth. + +He had changed since the day he left Bordeaux on the Antoine; since +he had first caught the flash of interest in Carmen Dolores’ eyes--an +interest roused from his likeness to a conspirator who had been shot for +his country’s good. He was no stouter in body, for he was of the kind +that wear away the flesh by much doing and thinking; but there were +occasional streaks of grey in his bushy hair, and his eye roamed less +than it did once. In the days when he first brought Carmen home, his eye +was like a bead of brown light on a swivel. It flickered and flamed; it +saw here, saw there; it twinkled, and it pierced into life’s mysteries; +and all the while it was a good eye. Its whites never showed, as it +were. As an animal, his eye showed a nature free from vice. In some +respects he was easy to live with, for he never found fault with what +was given him to eat, or the way the house was managed; and he never +interfered with the “kitchen people,” or refused a dollar or ten dollars +to Carmen for finery. In fact, he was in a sense too lavish, for he used +at one time to bring her home presents of silks and clothes and toilet +things and stockings and hats, which were not in accord with her taste, +and only vexed her. Indeed, she resented wearing them, and could hardly +bring herself to thank him for them. At last, however, she induced him +to let her buy what she wanted with the presents of money which he might +give her. + +On the whole Carmen fared pretty well, for he would sometimes give her a +handful of bills from his pocket, bidding her take ten dollars, and she +would coolly take twenty, while he shrugged his shoulders and declared +she would be his ruin. He had never repented of marrying her, in +spite of the fact that she did not always keep house as his mother and +grandmother had kept it; that she was gravely remiss in going to mass; +and that she quarrelled with more than one of her neighbours, who had an +idea that Spain was an inferior country because it was south of France, +just as the habitants regarded the United States as a low and inferior +country because it was south of Quebec. You went north towards heaven +and south towards hell, in their view; but when they went so far as to +patronize or slander Carmen, she drove her verbal stilettos home without +a button; so that on one occasion there would have been a law-suit for +libel if the Old Cure had not intervened. To Jean Jacques’ credit, be it +said, he took his wife’s part on this occasion, though in his heart he +knew that she was in the wrong. + +He certainly was not always in the right himself. If he had been told +that he neglected his wife he would have been justly indignant. Also, +it never occurred to him that a woman did not always want to talk +philosophy or discuss the price of wheat or the cost of flour-barrels; +and that for a man to be stupidly and foolishly fond was dearer to a +woman than anything else. How should he know--yet he ought to have +done so, if he really was a philosopher--that a woman would want the +cleverest man in the world to be a boy and play the fool sometimes; that +she would rather, if she was a healthy woman, go to a circus than to a +revelation of the mysteries of the mind from an altar of culture, if her +own beloved man was with her. + +Carmen had been left too much alone, as M. Fille had said to Judge +Carcasson. Her spirits had moments of great dullness, when she was ready +to fling herself into the river--or the arms of the schoolmaster or the +farrier. When she first came to St. Saviour’s, the necessity of adapting +herself to the new conditions, of keeping faith with herself, which she +had planned on the Antoine, and making a good wife to the man who was to +solve all her problems for her, prevailed. She did not at first miss +so much the life of excitement, of danger, of intrigue, of romance, of +colour and variety, which she had left behind in Spain. When her child +was born, she became passionately fond of it; her maternal spirit +smothered it. It gave the needed excitement in the routine of life at +St. Saviour’s. + +Yet the interest was not permanent. There came a time when she resented +the fact that Jean Jacques made more of the child than he did of +herself. That was a bad day for all concerned, for dissimulation +presently became necessary, and the home of Jean Jacques was a home of +mystery which no philosophy could interpret. There had never been but +the one child. She was not less handsome than when Jean Jacques married +her and brought her home, though the bloom of maiden youthfulness was no +longer there; and she certainly was a cut far above the habitant women +or even the others of a higher social class, in a circle which had an +area equal to a principality in Europe. + +The old cure, M. Langon, had had much influence over her, for few could +resist the amazing personal influence which his rare pure soul secured +over the worst. It was a sad day to her when he went to his long home; +and inwardly she felt a greater loss than she had ever felt, save that +once when her Carvillho Gonzales went the way of the traitor. Memories +of her past life far behind in Madrid did not grow fainter; indeed, they +grew more distinct as the years went on. They seemed to vivify, as her +discontent and restlessness grew. + +Once, when there had come to St. Saviour’s a middle-aged baron from +Paris who had heard the fishing was good at St. Saviour’s, and talked to +her of Madrid and Barcelona, of Cordova and Toledo, as one who had seen +and known and (he declared) loved them; who painted for her in splashing +impressionist pictures the life that still eddied in the plazas and +dreamed in the patios, she had been almost carried off her feet with +longing; and she nearly gave that longing an expression which would have +brought a tragedy, while still her Zoe was only eight years old. But M. +Langon, the wise priest whose eyes saw and whose heart understood, had +intervened in time; and she never knew that the sudden disappearance of +the Baron, who still owed fifty dollars to Jean Jacques, was due to the +practical wisdom of a great soul which had worked out its own destiny in +a little back garden of the world. + +When this good priest was alive she felt she had a friend who was +as large of heart as he was just, and who would not scorn the fool +according to his folly, or chastise the erring after his deserts. In his +greatness of soul Pere Langon had shut his eyes to things that pained +him more than they shocked him, for he had seen life in its most various +and demoralized forms, and indeed had had his own temptations when he +lived in Belgium and France, before he had finally decided to become a +priest. He had protected Carmen with a quiet persistency since her first +day in the parish, and had had a saving influence over her. Pere Langon +reproved those who criticized her and even slandered her, for it was +evident to all that she would rather have men talk to her than women; +and any summer visitor who came to fish, gave her an attention never +given even to the youngest and brightest in the district; and the eyes +of the habitant lass can be very bright at twenty. Yet whatever Carmen’s +coquetry and her sport with fire had been, her own emotions had never +been really involved till now. + +The new cure, M. Savry, would have said they were involved now because +she never came to confession, and indeed, since the Old Cure died, +she had seldom gone to mass. Yet when, with accumulated reproof on his +tongue, M. Savry did come to the Manor Cartier, he felt the inherent +supremacy of beauty, not the less commanding because it had not the +refinement of the duchess or the margravine. + +Once M. Savry ventured to do what the Old Cure would never have +done--he spoke to Jean Jacques concerning Carmen’s neglect of mass and +confession, and he received a rebuff which was almost au seigneur; for +in Jean Jacques’ eyes he was now the figure in St. Saviour’s; and this +was an occasion when he could assert his position as premier of the +secular world outside the walls of the parish church. He did it in good +style for a man who had had no particular training in the social arts. + +This is how he did it and what he said: + +“There have been times when I myself have thought it would be a good +thing to have a rest from the duties of a Catholic, m’sieu’ le cure,” he +remarked to M. Savry, when the latter had ended his criticism. He said +it with an air of conflict, and with full intent to make his supremacy +complete. + +“No Catholic should speak like that,” returned the shocked priest. + +“No priest should speak to me as you have done,” rejoined Jean Jacques. +“What do you know of the reasons for the abstention of madame? The soul +must enjoy rest as well as the body, and madame has a--mind which can +judge for itself. I have a body that is always going, and it gets too +little rest, and that keeps my soul in a flutter too. It must be getting +to mass and getting to confession, and saying aves and doing penance, +it is such a busy little soul of mine; but we are not all alike, and +madame’s body goes in a more stately way. I am like a comet, she is like +the sun steady, steady, round and round, with plenty of sleep and the +comfortable darkness. Sometimes madame goes hard; so does the sun in +summer-shines, shines, shines like a furnace. Madame’s body goes like +that--at the dairy, in the garden, with the loom, among the fowls, +growing her strawberries, keeping the women at the beating of the flax; +and then again it is all still and idle like the sun on a cloudy day; +and it rests. So it is with the human soul--I am a philosopher--I think +the soul goes hard the same as the body, churning, churning away in the +heat of the sun; and then it gets quiet and goes to sleep in the cloudy +day, when the body is sick of its bouncing, and it has a rest--the soul +has a rest, which is good for it, m’sieu’. I have worked it all out so. +Besides, the soul of madame is her own. I have not made any claim upon +it, and I will not expect you to do more, m’sieu’ le cure.” + +“It is my duty to speak,” protested the good priest. “Her soul is God’s, +and I am God’s vicar--” + +Jean Jacques waved a hand. “T’sh, you are not the Pope. You are not even +an abbe. You were only a deacon a few years ago. You did not know how +to hold a baby for the christening when you came to St. Saviour’s first. +For the mass, you have some right to speak; it is your duty perhaps; but +the confession, that is another thing; that is the will of every soul to +do or not to do. What do you know of a woman’s soul-well, perhaps, you +know what they have told you; but madame’s soul--” + +“Madame has never been to confession to me,” interjected M. Savry +indignantly. Jean Jacques chuckled. He had his New Cure now for sure. + +“Confession is for those who have sinned. Is it that you say one must go +to confession, and in order to go to confession it is needful to sin?” + +M. Savry shivered with pious indignation. He had a sudden desire to +rend this philosophic Catholic--to put him under 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 not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist. + +“If mother doesn’t think it’s sensible, why do it, father?” asked Zoe +anxiously, looking up into her father’s face. + +She had seen the look in her mother’s eyes, and also she had no love for +her grandfather. Her instinct had at one time wavered regarding him; but +she had seen an incident with a vanished female cook, and though she had +not understood, a prejudice had been created in her mind. She was always +contrasting him with M. Fille, who, to her mind, was what a grandfather +ought to be. + +“I won’t have him beholden to you,” said Carmen, almost passionately. + +“He is of my family,” said Jean Jacques firmly and chivalrously. “There +is no question of being beholden.” + +“Let well enough alone,” was the gloomy reply. With a sigh, Jean Jacques +turned back to the study of the road before him, to gossip with Zoe, and +to keep on planning subconsciously the new things he must do. + +Carmen sighed too, or rather she gave a gasp of agitation and annoyance. +Her father? She had lost whatever illusion once existed regarding him. +For years he had clung to her--to her pocket. He was given to drinking +in past years, and he still had his sprees. Like the rest of the world, +she had not in earlier years seen the furtiveness in his handsome face; +but at last, as his natural viciousness became stereotyped, and bad +habits matured and emphasized, she saw beneath his mask of low-class +comeliness. When at last she had found it necessary to dismiss the best +cook she ever had, because of him, they saw little of each other. This +was coincident with his failure at the ash-factory, where he mismanaged +and even robbed Jean Jacques right and left; and she had firmly insisted +on Jean Jacques evicting him, on the ground that it was not Sebastian +Dolores’ bent to manage a business. + +This little episode, as they drove home from Vilray, had an unreasonable +effect upon her. + +It was like the touch of a finger which launches a boat balancing in the +ways onto the deep. It tossed her on a sea of agitation. She was swept +away on a flood of morbid reflection. + +Her husband and her daughter, laughing and talking in the front seat of +the red wagon, seemed quite oblivious of her, and if ever there was +a time when their influence was needed it was now. George Masson was +coming over late this afternoon to inspect the work he had been doing; +and she was trembling with an agitation which, however, did not show +upon the surface. She had not seen him for two days--since the day after +the Clerk of the Court had discovered her in the arms of a man who +was not her husband; but he was coming this evening, and he was coming +to-morrow for the last time; for the repair work on the flume of the dam +would all be finished then. + +But would the work he had been doing all be finished then? As she +thought of that incident of three days ago and of its repetition on the +following day, she remembered what he had said to her as she snatched +herself almost violently from his arms, in a sudden access of remorse. +He had said that it had to be, that there was no escape now; and at +his words she had felt every pulse in her body throbbing, every vein +expanding with a hot life which thrilled and tortured her. Life had been +so meagre and so dull, and the man who had worshipped her on the Antoine +now worshipped himself only, and also Zoe, the child, maybe; or so she +thought; while the man who had once possessed her whole mind and whole +heart, and never her body, back there in Spain, he, Carvillho Gonzales, +would have loved her to the end, in scenes where life had colour and +passion and danger and delightful movement. + +She was one of those happy mortals who believe that the dead and gone +lover was perfect, and that in losing him she was losing all that life +had in store; but the bare, hard truth was that her Gonzales could have +been true neither to her nor to any woman in the world for longer than +one lingering year, perhaps one lunar month. It did not console her--she +did not think of it-that the little man on the seat of the red wagon, +chirruping with their daughter, had been, would always be, true to her. +Of what good was fidelity if he that was faithful desired no longer as +he once did? + +A keen observer would have seen in the glowing, unrestful look, in the +hot cheek, in the interlacing fingers, that a contest was going on in +the woman’s soul, as she drove homeward with all that was her own in +the world. The laughter of her husband and child grated painfully on her +ears. Why should they be mirthful while her life was being swept by a +storm of doubt, temptation, and dark passion? Why was it? + +Yet she smiled at Jean Jacques when he lifted her down from the red +wagon at the door of the Manor Cartier, even though he lifted his +daughter down first. + +Did she smile at Jean Jacques because, as they came toward the Manor, +she saw George Masson in the distance by the flume, and in that moment +decided to keep her promise and meet him at a secluded point on the +river-bank at sunset after supper? + + + + +CHAPTER VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP + +The pensiveness of a summer evening on the Beau Cheval was like a veil +hung over all the world. While yet the sun was shining, there was the +tremor of life in the sadness; but when the last glint of amethyst and +gold died away behind Mont Violet, and the melancholy swish of the river +against the osiered banks rose out of the windless dusk, all the region +around Manor Cartier, with its cypresses, its firs, its beeches, and its +elms, became gently triste. Even the weather-vane on the Manor--the gold +Cock of Beaugard, as it was called--did not move; and the stamping of +a horse in the stable was like the thunderous knock of a traveller +from Beyond. The white mill and the grey manor stood out with ghostly +vividness in the light of the rising moon. Yet there were times +innumerable when they looked like cool retreats for those who wanted +rest; when, in the summer solstice, they offered the pleasant peace of +the happy fireside. How often had Jean Jacques stood off from it all of +a summer night and said to himself: “Look at that, my Jean Jacques. It +is all yours, Manor and mills and farms and factory--all.” + +“Growing, growing, fattening, while I drone in my feather bed,” he had +as often said, with the delighted observation of the philosopher. “And +me but a young man yet--but a mere boy,” he would add. “I have piled +it up--I have piled it up, and it keeps on growing, first one thing and +then another.” + +Could such a man be unhappy? Finding within himself his satisfaction, +his fountain of appeasement, why should not his days be days of +pleasantness and peace? So it appeared to him during that summer, just +passed, when he had surveyed the World and his world within the World, +and it seemed to his innocent mind that he himself had made it all. +There he was, not far beyond forty, and eligible to become a member of +Parliament, or even a count of the Holy Roman Empire! He had thought of +both these honours, but there was so much to occupy him--he never had +a moment to himself, except at night; and then there was planning +and accounting to do, his foremen to see, or some knotty thing to +disentangle. But when the big clock in the Manor struck ten, and he took +out his great antique silver watch, to see if the two marched to the +second, he would go to the door, look out into the night, say, “All’s +well, thank the good God,” and would go to bed, very often forgetting to +kiss Carmen, and even forgetting his darling little Zoe. + +After all, a mind has to be very big and to have very many tentacles to +hold so many things all at once, and also to remember to do the right +thing at the right moment every time. He would even forget to ask Carmen +to play on the guitar, which in the first days of their married life +was the recreation of every evening. Seldom with the later years had he +asked her to sing, because he was so busy; and somehow his ear had not +that keenness of sound once belonging to it. There was a time when he +himself was wont to sing, when he taught his little Zoe the tunes of +the Chansons Canadiennes; but even that had dropped away, except at rare +intervals, when he would sing Le Petit Roger Bontemps, with Petite Fleur +de Bois, and a dozen others; but most he would sing--indeed there was +never a sing-song in the Manor Cartier but he would burst forth with A +la Claire Fontaine and its haunting refrain: + + “Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, + Jamais je ne t’oublierai.” + +But this very summer, when he had sung it on the birthday of the little +Zoe, his voice had seemed out of tune. At first he had thought that +Carmen was playing his accompaniment badly on the guitar, but she had +sharply protested against that, and had appealed to M. Fille, who was +present at the pretty festivity. He had told the truth, as a Clerk of +the Court should. He said that Jean Jacques’ voice was not as he had so +often heard it; but he would also frankly admit that he did not think +madame played the song as he had heard her play it aforetime, and that +covered indeed twelve years or more--in fact, since the birth of the +renowned Zoe. + +M. Fille had wondered much that night of June at the listless manner and +listless playing of Carmen Barbille. For a woman of such spirit and fire +it would seem as though she must be in ill-health to play like that. +Yet when he looked at her he saw only the comeliness of a woman whom the +life of the haut habitant had not destroyed or, indeed, dimmed. Her skin +was smooth, she had no wrinkles, and her neck was a pillar of softly +moulded white flesh, around which a man might well string unset jewels, +if he had them; for the tint and purity of her skin would be a better +setting than platinum or fine gold. But the Clerk of the Court was +really unsophisticated, or he would have seen that Carmen played the +guitar badly because she was not interested in Jean Jacques’ singing. +He would have known that she had come to that stage in her married +life when the tenure is pitifully insecure. He would have seen that +the crisis was near. If he had had any real observation he would have +noticed that Carmen’s eyes at once kindled, and that the guitar became +a different thing, when M. Colombin, the young schoolmaster, one of the +guests, caught up the refrain of A la Claire Fontaine, and in a soft +tenor voice sang it with Jean Jacques to the end, and then sang it again +with Zoe. Then Carmen’s dark eyes deepened with the gathering light in +them, her body seemed to vibrate and thrill with emotion; and when M. +Colombin and Zoe ceased, with her eyes fixed on the distance, and as +though unconscious of them all, she began to sing a song of Cadiz which +she had not sung since boarding the Antoine at Bordeaux. Her mind had, +suddenly flown back out of her dark discontent to the days when all life +was before her, and, with her Gonzales, she had moved in an atmosphere +of romance, adventure and passion. + +In a second she was transformed from the wife of the brown money-master +to the girl she was when she came to St. Saviour’s from the plaza, +where her Carvillho Gonzales was shot, with love behind her and memory +blazoned in the red of martyrdom. She sang now as she had not sung for +some years. Her guitar seemed to leap into life, her face shone with the +hot passion of memory, her voice rang with the pain of a disappointed +life: + + “Granada, Granada, thy gardens are gay, + And bright are thy stars, the high stars above; + But as flowers that fade and are gray, + But as dusk at the end of the day, + Are ye to the light in the eyes of my love + In the eyes, in the soul, of my love. + + “Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see + My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me? + + “Beloved, beloved, have pity, and make + Not the sun shut its eyes, its hot, envious eyes, + And the world in the darkness of night + Be debtor to thee for its light. + Turn thy face, turn thy face from the skies + To the love, to the pain in my eyes. + + “Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see + My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me!” + +From that night forward she had been restless and petulant and like one +watching and waiting. It seemed to her that she must fly from the life +which was choking her. It was all so petty and so small. People went +about sneaking into other people’s homes like detectives; they turned +yellow and grew scrofulous from too much salt pork, green tea, native +tobacco, and the heat of feather beds. The making of a rag carpet was an +event, the birth of a baby every year till the woman was forty-five was +a commonplace; but the exit of a youth to a seminary to become a priest, +or the entrance to the novitiate of a young girl, were matters as +important as a battle to Napoleon the Great. + +How had she gone through it all so long, she asked herself? The presence +of Jean Jacques had become almost unbearable when, the day done, he +retired to the feather bed which she loathed, though he would have +looked upon discarding it like the abdication of his social position. +A feather bed was a sign of social position; it was as much the dais +to his honour as is the woolsack to the Lord Chancellor in the House of +Lords. + +She was waiting for something. There was a restless, vagrant spirit +alive in her now. She had been so long inactive, tied by the leg, +with wings clipped; now her mind roamed into pleasant places of the +imagination where life had freedom, where she could renew the impulses +of youth. A true philosopher-a man of the world-would have known +for what she was waiting with that vague, disordered expectancy and +yearning; but there was no man of the world to watch and guide her this +fateful summer, when things began to go irretrievably wrong. + +Then George Masson came. He was a man of the world in his way; he saw +and knew better than the philosopher of the Manor Cartier. He grasped +the situation with the mind of an artist in his own sphere, and with +the knowledge got by experience. Thus there had been the thing which the +Clerk of the Court saw from Mont Violet behind the Manor; and so it +was that as Jean Jacques helped Carmen down from the red wagon on their +return from Vilray, she gave him a smile which was meant to deceive; +for though given to him it was really given to another man in her mind’s +eye. At sunset she gave it again to George Masson on the river-bank, +only warmer and brighter still, with eyes that were burning, with hands +that trembled, and with an agitated bosom more delicately ample than it +was on the day the Antoine was wrecked. + +Neither of these two adventurers into a wild world of feeling noticed +that a man was sitting on a little knoll under a tree, not far away from +their meeting-place, busy with pencil and paper. + +It was Jean Jacques, who had also come to the river-bank to work out a +business problem which must be settled on the morrow. He had stolen out +immediately after supper from neighbours who wished to see him, and had +come here by a roundabout way, because he wished to be alone. + +George Masson and Carmen were together for a few moments only, but Jean +Jacques heard his wife say, “Yes, to-morrow--for sure,” and then he saw +her kiss the master-carpenter--kiss him twice, thrice. After which they +vanished, she in one direction, and the invader and marauder in another. + +If either of these two had seen the face of the man with a pencil +and paper under the spreading beechtree, they would not have been so +impatient for tomorrow, and Carmen would not have said “for sure.” + +Jean Jacques was awake at last, man as well as philosopher. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL. Jean Jacques was not without +originality of a kind, and not without initiative; but there were also +the elements of the very old Adam in him, and the strain of the obvious. +If he had been a real genius, rather than a mere lively variation of the +commonplace--a chicken that could never burst its shell, a bird which +could not quite break into song--he might have made his biographer guess +hard and futilely, as to what he would do after having seen his wife’s +arms around the neck of another man than himself--a man little more +than a manual labourer, while he, Jean Jacques Barbille, had come of the +people of the Old Regime. As it was, this magnate of St. Saviour’s, +who yesterday posed so sympathetically and effectively in the Court at +Vilray as a figure of note, did the quite obvious thing: he determined +to kill the master-carpenter from Laplatte. + +There was no genius in that. When, from under the spreading beech-tree, +Jean Jacques saw his wife footing it back to her house with a light, +wayward step; when he watched the master-carpenter vault over a stone +fence five feet high with a smile of triumph mingled with doubt on his +face, he was too stunned at first to move or speak. If a sledge-hammer +strikes you on the skull, though your skull is of such a hardness that +it does not break, still the shock numbs activity for awhile, at any +rate. The sledge-hammer had descended on Jean Jacques’ head, and also +had struck him between the eyes; and it is in the credit balance of his +ledger of life, that he refrained from useless outcry at the moment. +Such a stroke kills some men, either at once, or by lengthened torture; +others it sends mad, so that they make a clamour which draws the +attention of the astonished and not sympathetic world; but it only +paralysed Jean Jacques. For a time he sat fascinated by the ferocity +of the event, his eyes following the hurrying wife and the jaunty, +swaggering master-carpenter with a strange, animal-like dismay and +apprehension. They remained fixed with a kind of blank horror and +distraction on the landscape for some time after both had disappeared. + +At last, however, he seemed to recover his senses, and to come back from +the place where he had been struck by the hammer of treachery. He seemed +to realize again that he was still a part of the common world, not a +human being swung through the universe on his heart-strings by a Gorgon. + +The paper and pencil in his hand brought him back from the far Gehenna +where he had been, to the world again--how stony and stormy a world it +was, with the air gone as heavy as lead, with his feet so loaded down +with chains that he could not stir! He had had great joy of this his +world; he had found it a place where every day were problems to +be solved by an astute mind, problems which gave way before the +master-thinker. There was of course unhappiness in his world. There was +death, there was accident occasionally--had his own people not gone +down under the scythe of time? But in going they had left behind in +real estate and other things good compensation for their loss. There was +occasional suffering and poverty and trouble in his little kingdom; but +a cord of wood here, a barrel of flour there, a side of beef +elsewhere, a little debt remitted, a bag of dried apples, or an Indian +blanket--these he gave, and had great pleasure in giving; and so the +world was not a place where men should hang their heads, but a place +where the busy man got more than the worth of his money. + +It had never occurred to him that he was ever translating the world +into terms of himself, that he went on his way saying in effect, “I am +coming. I am Jean Jacques Barbille. You have heard of me. You know me. +Wave a hand to me, duck your head to me, crack the whip or nod when I +pass. I am M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosopher.” + +And all the while he had only been vaguely, not really, conscious of +his wife and child. He did not know that he had only made of his wife an +incident in his life, in spite of the fact that he thought he loved +her; that he had been proud of her splendid personality; and that, with +passionate chivalry, he had resented any criticism of her. + +He thought still, as he did on the Antoine, that Carmen’s figure had the +lines of the Venus of Milo, that her head would have been a model either +for a Madonna, or for Joan of Arc, or the famous Isabella of Aragon. +Having visited the Louvre and the Luxembourg all in one day, he felt he +was entitled to make such comparisons, and that in making them he was on +sure ground. He had loved to kiss Carmen in the neck, it was so full +and soft and round; and when she went about the garden with her dress +shortened, and he saw her ankles, even after he had been married +thirteen years, and she was thirty-four, he still admired, he still +thought that the world was a good place when it produced such a woman. +And even when she had lashed him with her tongue, as she did sometimes, +he still laughed--after the smart was over--because he liked spirit. +He would never have a horse that had not some blood, and he had never +driven a sluggard in his life more than once. But wife and child and +world, and all that therein was, existed largely because they were +necessary to Jean Jacques. + +That is the way it had been; and it was as though the firmament had been +rolled up before his eyes, exposing the everlasting mysteries, when +he saw his wife in the arms of the master-carpenter. It was like some +frightening dream. + +The paper and pencil waked him to reality. He looked towards his house, +he looked the way George Masson had gone, and he knew that what he had +seen was real life and not a dream. The paper fell from his hand. He did +not pick it up. Its fall represented the tumbling walls of life, was the +earthquake which shook his world into chaos. He ground the sheet into +the gravel with his heel. There would be no cheese-factory built at St. +Saviour’s for many a year to come. The man of initiative, the man of the +hundred irons would not have the hundred and one, or keep the hundred +hot any more; because he would be so busy with the iron which had +entered into his soul. + +When the paper had been made one with the earth, a problem buried for +ever, Jean Jacques pulled himself up to his full height, as though +facing a great thing which he must do. + +“Well, of course!” he said firmly. + +That was what his honour, Judge Carcasson, had said a few hours before, +when the little Clerk of the Court had remarked an obvious thing about +the case of Jean Jacques. + +And Jean Jacques said only the obvious thing when he made up his mind to +do the obvious thing--to kill George Masson, the master-carpenter. + +This was evidence that he was no genius. Anybody could think of killing +a man who had injured him, as the master-carpenter had done Jean +Jacques. It is the solution of the problem of the Patagonian. It is old +as Rameses. + +Yet in his own way Jean Jacques did what he felt he had to do. The thing +he was going to do was hopelessly obvious, but the doing of it was Jean +Jacques’ own; and it was not obvious; and that perhaps was genius after +all. There are certain inevitable things to do, and for all men to do; +and they have been doing them from the beginning of time; but the way it +is done--is not that genius? There is no new story in the world; all the +things that happen have happened for untold centuries; but the man who +tells the story in a new way, that is genius, so the great men say. If, +then, Jean Jacques did the thing he had to do with a turn of his own, he +would justify to some degree the opinion he had formed of himself. + +As he walked back to his desecrated home he set himself to think. How +should it be done? There was the rifle with which he had killed deer in +the woods beyond the Saguenay and bear beyond the Chicoutimi. That was +simple--and it was obvious; and it could be done at once. He could soon +overtake the man who had spoiled the world for him. + +Yet he was a Norman, and the Norman thinks before he acts. He is the +soul of caution; he wants to get the best he can out of his bargain. He +will throw nothing away that is to his advantage. There should be other +ways than the gun with which to take a man’s life--ways which might give +a Norman a chance to sacrifice only one life; to secure punishment where +it was due, but also escape from punishment for doing the obvious thing. + +Poison? That was too stupid even to think of once. A pitch-fork and a +dung-heap? That had its merits; but again there was the risk of more +than one life. + +All the way to his house, Jean Jacques, with something of the rage of +passion and the glaze of horror gone from his eyes, and his face not now +so ghastly, still brooded over how, after he had had his say, he was +to put George Masson out of the world. But it did not come at once. All +makers of life-stories find their difficulty at times. Tirelessly they +grope along a wall, day in, day out, and then suddenly a great gate +swings open, as though to the touch of a spring, and the whole way is +clear to the goal. + +Jean Jacques went on thinking in a strange, new, intense abstraction. +His restless eyes were steadier than they had ever been; his wife +noticed that as he entered the house after the Revelation. She +noticed also his paleness and his abstraction. For an instant she was +frightened; but no, Jean Jacques could not know anything. Yet--yet he +had come from the direction of the river! + +“What is it, Jean Jacques?” she asked. “Aren’t you well?” + +He put his hand to his head, but did not look her in the eyes. His +gesture helped him to avoid that. “I have a head--la, such a head! I +have been thinking, thinking-it is my hobby. I have been planning the +cheese-factory, and all at once it comes on-the ache in my head. I +will go to bed. Yes, I will go at once.” Suddenly he turned at the door +leading to the bedroom. “The little Zoe--is she well?” + +“Of course. Why should she not be well? She has gone to the top of the +hill. Of course, she’s well, Jean Jacques.” + +“Good-good!” he remarked. Somehow it seemed strange to him that Zoe +should be well. Was there not a terrible sickness in his house, and +had not that woman, his wife, her mother, brought the infection? Was he +himself not stricken by it? + +Carmen was calm enough again. “Go to bed, Jean Jacques,” she said, “and +I’ll bring you a sleeping posset. I know those headaches. You had one +when the ash-factory was burned.” + +He nodded without looking at her, and closed the door behind him. + +When she came to the bedroom a half-hour later, his face was turned to +the wall. She spoke, but he did not answer. She thought he was asleep. +He was not asleep. He was only thinking how to do the thing which +was not obvious, which was also safe for himself. That should be his +triumph, if he could but achieve it. + +When she came to bed he did not stir, and he did not answer her when she +spoke. + +“The poor Jean Jacques!” he heard her say, and if there had not been on +him the same courage that possessed him the night when the Antoine was +wrecked, he would have sobbed. + +He did not stir. He kept thinking; and all the time her words, “The poor +Jean Jacques!” kept weaving themselves through his vague designs. Why +had she said that--she who had deceived, betrayed him? Had he then seen +what he had seen? + +She did not sleep for a long time, and when she did it was uneasily. But +the bed was an immense one, and she was not near him. There was no sleep +for him--not even for an hour. Once, in exhaustion, he almost rolled +over into the poppies of unconsciousness; but he came back with a start +and a groan to sentient life again, and kept feeling, feeling along the +wall of purpose for a masterly way to kill. + +At dawn it came, suddenly spreading out before him like a picture. He +saw himself standing at the head of the flume out there by the Mill +Cartier with his hand on the lever. Below him in the empty flume was +the master-carpenter giving a last inspection to the repairs. Beyond the +master-carpenter--far beyond--was the great mill-wheel! Behind himself, +Jean Jacques, was the river held back by the dam; and if the lever was +opened,--the river would sweep through the raised gates down the flume +to the millwheel--with the man. And then the wheel would turn and turn, +and the man would be in the wheel. + +It was not obvious; it was original; and it looked safe for Jean +Jacques. How easily could such an “accident” occur! + + + + +CHAPTER IX. “MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE” + +The air was like a mellow wine, and the light on the landscape was full +of wistfulness. It was a thing so exquisite that a man of sentiment like +Jean Jacques in his younger days would have wept to see. And the feeling +was as palpable as the seeing; as in the early spring the new life which +is being born in the year, produces a febrile kind of sorrow in the +mind. But the glow of Indian summer, that compromise, that after-thought +of real summer, which brings her back for another good-bye ere she +vanishes for ever--its sadness is of a different kind. Its longing has a +sharper edge; there stir in it the pangs of discontent; and the mind and +body yearn for solace. It is a dangerous time, even more dangerous than +spring for those who have passed the days of youth. + +It had proved dangerous to Carmen Barbille. The melancholy of the +gorgeously tinted trees, the flights of the birds to the south, the +smell of the fallow field, the wind with the touch of the coming +rains--these had given to a growing discontent with her monotonous +life the desire born of self-pity. In spite of all she could do she was +turning to the life she had left behind in Cadiz long ago. + +It seemed to her that Jean Jacques had ceased to care for the charms +which once he had so proudly proclaimed. There was in her the strain of +the religion of Epicurus. She desired always that her visible corporeal +self should be admired and desired, that men should say, “What a +splendid creature!” It was in her veins, an undefined philosophy +of life; and she had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by his +caresses. She had no other vital standard. This she could measure, she +could grasp it and say, “Here I have a hold; it is so much harvested.” + But if some one had written her a poem a thousand verses long, she would +have said, “Yes, all very fine, but let me see what it means; let me +feel that it is so.” + +She had an inherent love of luxury and pleasure, which was far more +active in her now than when she married Jean Jacques. For a Spanish +woman she had matured late; and that was because, in her youth, she had +been active and athletic, unlike most Spanish girls; and the microbes of +a sensuous life, or what might have become a sensual life, had not good +chance to breed. + +It all came, however, in the dullness of the winter days and nights, in +the time of deep snows, when they could go abroad but very little. Then +her body and her mind seemed to long for the indolent sun-spaces of +Spain. The artificial heat of the big stoves in the rooms with the low +ceilings only irritated her, and she felt herself growing more ample +from lassitude of the flesh. This particular autumn it seemed to her +that she could not get through another winter without something going +wrong, without a crisis of some sort. She felt the need of excitement, +of change. She had the desire for pleasures undefined. + +Then George Masson came, and the undefined took form almost at once. +It was no case of the hunter pursuing his prey with all the craft and +subtlety of his trade. She had answered his look with spontaneity, due +to the fact that she had been surprised into the candour of her feelings +by the appearance of one who had the boldness of a brigand, the health +of a Hercules, and the intelligence of a primitive Jesuit. He had not +hesitated; he had yielded himself to the sumptuous attraction, and the +fire in his eyes was only the window of the furnace within him. He had +gone headlong to the conquest, and by sheer force of temperament and +weight of passion he had swept her off her feet. + +He had now come to the last day of his duty at the Mill Cartier, when +all he had to do was to inspect the work done, give assurance and +guarantee that it was all right, and receive his cheque from Jean +Jacques. He had come 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 of Beaugard--like the +Baron of Beaugard that killed the man who abused his wife.” + +It was so. Great-great-grand-nephew of the Baron of Beaugard as he was, +Jean Jacques looked like the portrait of him which hung in the Manor +Cartier. “Wait--but wait one minute!” exclaimed George Masson; and now, +all at once, he had grown cool and determined, and his brain was at work +again with an activity and a clearness it had never known. He had gained +one minute of time, he might be able to gain more. In any case, no one +could save him except himself. There was Jean Jacques with his hand on +the lever--one turn and the thing was done for ever. If a rescuer was +even within one foot of Jean Jacques, the deed could still be done. It +was so much easier opening than shutting the gates of the flume! + +“Why should I wait, devil and rogue?” The words came from Jean Jacques’ +lips with a snarl. “I am going to kill you. It will do you no good to +whine--cochon!” + +To call a man a pig is the worst insult which could be offered by one +man to another in the parish of St. Saviour’s. To be called a pig as you +are going to die, is an offensive business indeed. + +“I know you are going to kill me--that you can kill me, and I can do +nothing,” was the master-carpenter’s reply. “There it is--a turn of the +lever, and I am done. Bien sur, I know how easy! I do not want to die, +but I will not squeal even if I am a pig. One can only die once. And +once is enough.... No, don’t--not yet! Give me a minute till I tell you +something; then you can open the gates. You will have a long time to +live--yes, yes, you are the kind that live long. Well, a minute or two +is not much to ask. If you want to murder, you will open the gates at +once; but if it is punishment, if you are an executioner, you will give +me time to pray.” + +Jean Jacques did not soften. His voice was harsh and grim. “Well, get on +with your praying, but don’t talk. You are going to die,” he added, his +hands gripping the lever tighter. + +The master-carpenter had had the true inspiration in his hour of danger. +He had touched his appeal with logic, he had offered an argument. +Jean Jacques was a logician, a philosopher! That point made about the +difference between a murder and an execution was a good one. Beside +it was an acknowledgment, by inference, from his victim, that he was +getting what he deserved. + +“Pray quick and have it over, pig of an adulterer!” added Jean Jacques. + +The master-carpenter raised a protesting hand. “There you are mistaken; +but it is no matter. At the end of to-day I would have been an +adulterer, if you hadn’t found out. I don’t complain of the word. But +see, as a philosopher”--Jean Jacques jerked a haughty assent--“as a +philosopher you will want to know how and why it is. Carmen will never +tell you--a woman never tells the truth about such things, because she +does not know how. She does not know the truth ever, exactly, about +anything. It is because she is a woman. But I would like to tell you the +exact truth; and I can, because I am a man. For what she did you are as +much to blame as she ... no, no--not yet!” + +Jean Jacques’ hand had spasmodically tightened on the lever as though he +would wrench the gates open, and a snarl came from his lips. + +“Figure de Christ, but it is true, as true as death! Listen, M’sieu’ +Jean Jacques. You are going to kill me, but listen so that you will know +how to speak to her afterwards, understanding what I said as I died.” + +“Get on--quick!” growled Jean Jacques with white wrinkled lips and the +sun in his agonized eyes. George Masson continued his pleading. “You +were always a man of mind”--Jean Jacques’ fierce agitation visibly +subsided, and a surly sort of vanity crept into his face--“and +you married a girl who cared more for what you did than what you +thought--that is sure, for I know women. I am not married, and I have +had much to do with many of them. I will tell you the truth. I left +the West because of a woman--of two women. I had a good business, but I +could not keep out of trouble with women. They made it too easy for me.” + +“Peacock-pig!” exclaimed Jean Jacques with an ugly sneer. + +“Let a man when he is dying tell all the truth, to ease his mind,” said +the master-carpenter with a machiavellian pretence and cunning. “It +was vanity, it was, as you say; it was the peacock in me made me be the +friend of many women and not the husband of one. I came down here +to Quebec from the Far West to get away from consequences. It was +expensive. I had to sacrifice. Well, here I am in trouble again--my +last trouble, and with the wife of a man that I respect and admire, not +enough to keep my hands off his wife, but still that I admire. It is +my weakness that I could not be, as a man, honourable to Jean Jacques +Barbille. And so I pay the price; so I have to go without time to make +my will. Bless heaven above, I have no wife--” + +“If you had a wife you would not be dying now. You would not then meddle +with the home of Jean Jacques Barbille,” sneered Jean Jacques. The note +was savage yet. + +“Ah, for sure, for sure! It is so. And if I lived I would marry at +once.” + +Desperate as his condition was, the master-carpenter could almost have +laughed at the idea of marriage preventing him from following the bent +of his nature. He was the born lover. If he had been as high as the +Czar, or as low as the ditcher, he would have been the same; but it +would be madness to admit that to Jean Jacques now. + +“But, as you say, let me get on. My time has come--” + +Jean Jacques jerked his head angrily. “Enough of this. You keep on +saying ‘Wait a little,’ but your time has come. Now take it so, and +don’t repeat.” + +“A man must get used to the idea of dying, or he will die hard,” replied +the master-carpenter, for he saw that Jean Jacques’ hands were not +so tightly clenched on the lever now; and time was everything. He had +already been near five minutes, and every minute was a step to a chance +of escape--somehow. + +“I said you were to blame,” he continued. “Listen, Jean Jacques +Barbille. You, a man of mind, married a girl who cared more for a touch +of your hand than a bucketful of your knowledge, which every man in the +province knows is great. At first you were almost always thinking of +her and what a fine woman she was, and because everyone admired her, +you played the peacock, too. I am not the only peacock. You are a good +man--no one ever said anything against your character. But always, +always, you think most of yourself. It is everywhere you go as if you +say, ‘Look out. I am coming. I am Jean Jacques Barbille. + +“‘Make way for Jean Jacques. I am from the Manor Cartier. You have heard +of me.’... That is the way you say things in your mind. But all the time +the people say, ‘That is Jean Jacques Barbille, but you should see his +wife. She is a wonder. She is at home at the Manor with the cows and the +geese. Jean Jacques travels alone through the parish to Quebec, to Three +Rivers, to Tadousac, to the great exhibition at Montreal, but madame, +she stays at home. M’sieu’ Jean Jacques is nothing beside her’--that +is what the people say. They admire you for your brains, but they would +have fallen down before your wife, if you had given her half a chance.” + +“Ah, that’s bosh--what do you know!” exclaimed Jean Jacques fiercely, +but he was fascinated too by the argument of the man whose life he was +going to take. + +“I know the truth, my money-man. Do you think she’d have looked at me +if you’d been to her what she thought I might be? No, bien sur! Did you +take her where she could see the world? No. Did you bring her presents? +No. Did you say, ‘Come along, we will make a little journey to see the +world?’ No. Do you think that a woman can sit and darn your socks, and +tidy your room, and bake you pancakes in the morning while you roast +your toes, and be satisfied with just that, and not long for something +outside?” + +Jean Jacques was silent. He did not move. He was being hypnotized by a +mind of subtle strength, by the logic of which he was so great a lover. + +The master-carpenter pressed his logic home. “No, she must sit in your +shadow always. She must wait till you come. And when you come, it was +‘Here am I, your Jean Jacques. Fall down and worship me. I am your +husband.’ Did you ever say, ‘Heavens, there you are, the woman of all +the world, the rising and the setting sun, the star that shines, the +garden where all the flowers of love grow’? Did you ever do that? But +no, there was only one person in the world--there was only you, Jean +Jacques. You were the only pig in the sty.” + +It was a bold stroke, but if Jean Jacques could stand that, he could +stand anything. There was a savage start on the part of Jean Jacques, +and the lever almost moved. + +“Stop one second!” cried the master-carpenter, sharply now, for in +spite of the sudden savagery on Jean Jacques’ part, he felt he had an +advantage, and now he would play his biggest card. + +“You can kill me. It is there in your hand. No one can stop you. But +will that give you anything? What is my life? If you take it away, will +you be happier? It is happiness you want. Your wife--she will love you, +if you give her a chance. If you kill me, I will have my revenge in +death, for it is the end of all things for you. You lose your wife for +ever. You need not do so. She would have gone with me, not because +of me, but because I was a man who she thought would treat her like a +friend, like a comrade; who would love her--sacre, what husband could +help make love to such a woman, unless he was in love with himself +instead of her!” + +Jean Jacques rocked to and fro over the lever in his agitation, yet he +made no motion to move it. He was under a spell. + +Straight home drove the master-carpenter’s reasoning now. “Kill me, and +you lose her for ever. Kill me, and she will hate you. You think she +will not find out? Then see: as I die I will shriek out so loud that she +can hear me, and she will understand. She will go mad, and give you over +to the law. And then--and then! Did you ever think what will become of +your child, of your Zoe, if you go to the gallows? That would be your +legacy and your blessing to her--the death of a murderer; and she would +be left alone with the woman that would hate you in death! Voila--do you +not see?” + +Jean Jacques saw. The terrific logic of the thing smote him. His wife +hating him, himself on the scaffold, his little Zoe disgraced and +dishonoured all her life; and himself out of it all, unable to help her, +and bringing irremediable trouble on her! As a chemical clears a muddy +liquid, leaving it pure and atomless, so there seemed to pass over Jean +Jacques’ face a thought like a revelation. + +He took his hand from the lever. For a moment he stood like one awakened +out of a sleep. He put his hands to his eyes, then shook his head as +though to free it of some hateful burden. An instant later he stooped, +lifted up the ladder beside him, and let it down to the floor of the +flume. + +“There, go--for ever,” he said. + +Then he turned away with bowed head. He staggered as he stepped down +from the bridge of the flume, where the lever was. He swayed from side +to side. Then he raised his head and looked towards his house. His child +lived there--his Zoe. + +“Moi je suis philosophe!” he said brokenly. + +After a moment or two, as he stumbled on, he said it again--“Me, I am a +philosopher!” + + + + +CHAPTER X. “QUIEN SABE”--WHO KNOWS! + +This much must be said for George Masson, that after the terrible +incident at the flume he would have gone straight to the Manor Cartier +to warn Carmen, if it had been possible, though perhaps she already +knew. But there was Jean Jacques on his way back to the Manor, and +nothing remained but to proceed to Laplatte, and give the woman up for +ever. He had no wish to pull up stakes again and begin life afresh, +though he was only forty, and he had plenty of initiative left. But if +he had to go, he would want to go alone, as he had done before. Yes, he +would have liked to tell Carmen that Jean Jacques knew everything; +but it was impossible. She would have to face the full shock from Jean +Jacques’ own battery. But then again perhaps she knew already. He hoped +she did. + +At the very moment that Masson was thinking this, while he went to the +main road where he had left his horse and buggy tied up, Carmen came to +know. + +Carmen had not seen her husband that morning until now. She had waked +late, and when she was dressed and went into the dining-room to look for +him, with an apprehension which was the reflection of the bad dreams of +the night, she found that he had had his breakfast earlier than usual +and had gone to the mill. She also learned that he had eaten very +little, and that he had sent a man into Vilray for something or other. +Try as she would to stifle her anxiety, it obtruded itself, and she +could eat no breakfast. She kept her eyes on the door and the window, +watching for Jean Jacques. + +Yet she reproved herself for her stupid concern, for Jean Jacques would +have spoken last night, if he had discovered anything. He was not the +man to hold his tongue when he had a chance of talking. He would be sure +to make the most of any opportunity for display of intellectual emotion, +and he would have burst his buttons if he had known. That was the way +she put it in a vernacular which was not Andalusian. Such men love a +grievance, because it gives them an opportunity to talk--with a good +case and to some point, not into the air at imaginary things, as she had +so often seen Jean Jacques do. She knew her Jean Jacques. That is, +she thought she knew her Jean Jacques after living with him for over +thirteen years; but hers was a very common mistake. It is not time which +gives revelation, or which turns a character inside out, and exposes a +new and amazing, maybe revolting side to it. She had never really seen +Jean Jacques, and he had never really seen himself, as he was, but only +as circumstances made him seem to be. What he had showed of his nature +all these forty odd years was only the ferment of a more or less shallow +life, in spite of its many interests: but here now at last was life, +with the crust broken over a deep well of experience and tragedy. +She knew as little what he would do in such a case as he himself knew +beforehand. As the incident of the flume just now showed, he knew little +indeed, for he had done exactly the opposite of what he meant to do. It +was possible that Carmen would also do exactly the opposite of what she +meant to do in her own crisis. + +Her test was to come. Would she, after all, go off with the +master-carpenter, leaving behind her the pretty, clever, volatile Zoe +... Zoe--ah, where was Zoe? Carmen became anxious about Zoe, she knew +not why. Was it the revival of the maternal instinct? + +She was told that Zoe had gone off on her pony to take a basket of good +things to a poor old woman down the river three miles away. She would +be gone all morning. By so much, fate was favouring her; for the child’s +presence would but heighten the emotion of her exit from that place +where her youth had been wasted. Already the few things she had meant +to take away were secreted in a safe place some distance from the house, +beside the path she meant to take when she left Jean Jacques for +ever. George Masson wanted her, they were to meet to-day, and she was +going--going somewhere out of this intolerable dullness and discontent. + +When she pushed her coffee-cup aside and rose from the table without +eating, she went straight to her looking-glass and surveyed herself with +a searching eye. Certainly she was young enough (she said to herself) to +draw the eyes of those who cared for youth and beauty. There was not a +grey hair in the dark brown of her head, there was not a wrinkle--yes, +there were two at the corners of her mouth, which told the story of her +restlessness, of her hunger for the excitement of which she had been +deprived all these years. To go back to Cadiz?--oh, anywhere, anywhere, +so that her blood could beat faster; so that she could feel the stir +of life which had made her spirit flourish even in the dangers of the +far-off day when Gonzales was by her side. + +She looked at her guitar. She was sorry she could not take that away +with her. But Jean Jacques would, no doubt, send it after her with his +curse. She would love to play it once again with the old thrill; with +the thrill she had felt on the night of Zoe’s birthday a little while +ago, when she was back again with her lover and the birds in the gardens +of Granada. She would sing to someone who cared to hear her, and to +someone who would make her care to sing, which was far more important. +She would sing to the master-carpenter. Though he had not asked her to +go with him--only to meet in a secret place in the hills--she meant to +do so, just as she once meant to marry Jean Jacques, and had done so. It +was true she would probably not have married Jean Jacques, if it had not +been for the wreck of the Antoine; but the wreck had occurred, and she +had married him, and that was done and over so far as she was concerned. +She had determined to go away with the master-carpenter, and though he +might feel the same hesitation as that which Jean Jacques had shown--she +had read her Norman aright aboard the Antoine--yet, still, George Masson +should take her away. A catastrophe had thrown Jean Jacques into +her arms; it would not be a catastrophe which would throw the +master-carpenter into her arms. It would be that they wanted each other. + +The mirror gave her a look of dominance--was it her regular features and +her classic head? Does beauty in itself express authority, just because +it has the transcendent thing in it? Does the perfect form convey +something of the same thing that physical force--an army in arms, +a battleship--conveys? In any case it was there, that inherent +masterfulness, though not in its highest form. She was not an +aristocrat, she was no daughter of kings, no duchess of Castile, no dona +of Segovia; and her beauty belonged to more primary manifestations; but +it was above the lower forms, even if it did not reach to the highest. +“A handsome even splendid woman of her class” would have been the +judgment of the connoisseur. + +As she looked in the glass at her clear skin, at the wonderful throat +showing so soft and palpable and tower-like under the black velvet +ribbon brightened by a paste ornament; as she saw the smooth breadth of +brow, the fulness of the lips, the limpid lustre of the large eyes, the +well-curved ear, so small and so like ivory, it came home to her, as it +had never done before, that she was wasted in this obscure parish of St. +Saviour’s. + +There was not a more restless soul or body in all the hemisphere than +the soul and body of Carmen Barbille, as she went from this to that +on the morning when Jean Jacques had refrained from killing the +soul-disturber, the master-carpenter, who had with such skill destroyed +the walls and foundations of his home. Carmen was pointlessly busy as +she watched for the return of Jean Jacques. + +At last she saw him coming from the flume of the mill! She saw that he +stumbled as he walked, and that, every now and then, he lifted his head +with an effort and threw it back, and threw his shoulders back also, as +though to assert his physical manhood. He wore no hat, his hands were +making involuntary gestures of helplessness. But presently he seemed +to assert authority over his fumbling body and to come erect. His hands +clenched at his sides, his head came up stiffly and stayed, and with +quickened footsteps he marched rigidly forward towards the Manor. + +Then she guessed at the truth, and as soon as she saw his face she was +sure beyond peradventure that he knew. + +His figure darkened the doorway. Her first thought was to turn and flee, +not because she was frightened of what he would do, but because she did +not wish to hear what he would say. She shrank from the uprolling of +the curtain of the last thirteen years, from the grim exposure of the +nakedness of their life together. Her indolent nature in repose wanted +the dust of existence swept into a corner out of sight; yet when she was +roused, and there were no corners into which the dust could be swept, +she could be as bold as any better woman. + +She hesitated till it was too late to go, and then as he entered the +house from the staring sunlight and the peace of the morning, she +straightened herself, and a sulky, stubborn look came into her eyes. He +might try to kill her, but she had seen death in many forms far away +in Spain, and she would not be afraid till there was cause. Imagination +would not take away her courage. She picked up a half-knitted stocking +which lay upon the table, and standing there, while he came into the +middle of the room, she began to ply the needles. + +He stood still. Her face was bent over her knitting. She did not look at +him. + +“Well, why don’t you look at me?” he asked in a voice husky with +passion. + +She raised her head and looked straight into his dark, distracted eyes. + +“Good morning,” she said calmly. + +A kind of snarling laugh came to his lips. “I said good morning to my +wife yesterday, but I will not say it to-day. What is the use of saying +good morning, when the morning is not good!” + +“That’s logical, anyhow,” she said, her needles going faster now. She +was getting control of them--and of herself. + +“Why isn’t the morning good? Speak. Why isn’t it good, Carmen?” + +“Quien sabe--who knows!” she replied with exasperating coolness. + +“I know--I know all; and it is enough for a lifetime,” he challenged. + +“What do you know--what is the ‘all’?” Her voice had lost timbre. It was +suddenly weak, but from suspense and excitement rather than from fear. + +“I saw you last night with him, by the river. I saw what you did. I +heard you say, ‘Yes, to-morrow, for sure.’ I saw what you did.” + +Her eyes were busy with the knitting now. She did not know what to +say. Then, he had known all since the night before! He knew it when he +pretended that his head ached--knew it as he lay by her side all night. +He knew it, and said nothing! But what had he done--what had he done? +She waited for she knew not what. George Masson was to come and inspect +the flume early that morning. Had he come? She had not seen him. But +the river was flowing through the flume: she could hear the mill-wheel +turning--she could hear the mill-wheel turning! + +As she did not speak, with a curious husky shrillness to his voice he +said: “There he was down in the flume, there was I at the lever above, +there was the mill-wheel unlocked. There it was. I gripped the lever, +and--” + +Her great eyes stared with horror. The knitting-needles stopped; a +pallor swept across her face. She felt as she did when she heard the +court-martial sentence Carvillho Gonzales to death. + +The mill-wheel sounded louder and louder in her ears. + +“You let in the river!” she cried. “You drove him into the wheel--you +killed him!” + +“What else was there to do?” he demanded. “It had to be done, and it +was the safest way. It would be an accident. Such a thing might easily +happen.” + +“You have murdered him!” she gasped with a wild look. + +“To call it murder!” he sneered. “Surely my wife would not call it +murder.” + +“Fiend--not to have the courage to fight him!” she flung back at him. +“To crawl like a snake and let loose a river on a man! In any other +country, he’d have been given a chance.” + +This was his act in a new light. He had had only one idea in his mind +when he planned the act, and that was punishment. What rights had a man +who had stolen what was nearer and dearer than a man’s own flesh, and +for which he would have given his own flesh fifty times? Was it that +Carmen would now have him believe he ought to have fought the man, who +had spoiled his life and ruined a woman’s whole existence. + +“What chance had I when he robbed me in the dark of what is worth fifty +times my own life to me?” he asked savagely. + +“Murderer--murderer!” she cried hoarsely. “You shall pay for this.” + +“You will tell--you will give me up?” + +Her eyes were on the mill and the river... “Where--where is he? Has he +gone down the river? Did you kill him and let him go--like that!” + +She made a flinging gesture, as one would toss a stone. + +He stared at her. He had never seen her face like that--so strained and +haggard. George Masson was right when he said that she would give him +up; that his life would be in danger, and that his child’s life would be +spoiled. + +“Murderer!” she repeated. “And when you go to the gallows, your child’s +life--you did not think of that, eh? To have your revenge on the man who +was no more to blame than I, thinking only of yourself, you killed him; +but you did not think of your child.” + +Ah, yes, surely George Masson was right! That was what he had said about +his child, Zoe. What a good thing it was he had not killed the ravager +of his home! + +But suddenly his logic came to his aid. In terrible misery as he was, he +was almost pleased that he could reason. “And you would give me over to +the law? You would send me to the gallows--and spoil your child’s life?” + he retorted. + +She threw the knitting down and flung her hands up. “I have no husband. +I have no child. Take your life. Take it. I will go and find his body,” + she said, and she moved swiftly towards the door. “He has gone down the +river--I will find him!” + +“He has gone up the river,” he exclaimed. “Up the river, I say!” + +She stopped short and looked at him blankly. Then his meaning became +clear to her. + +“You did not kill him?” she asked scarce above a whisper. + +“I let him go,” he replied. + +“You did not fight him--why?” There was scorn in her tone. + +“And if I had killed him that way?” he asked with terrible logic, as he +thought. + +“There was little chance of that,” she replied scornfully, and steadied +herself against a chair; for, now that the suspense was over, she felt +as though she had been passed between stones which ground the strength +out of her. + +A flush of fierce resentment crossed over his face. “It is not +everything to be big,” he rejoined. “The greatest men in the world have +been small like me, but they have brought the giant things to their +feet.” + +She waved a hand disdainfully. “What are you going to do now?” she +asked. + +He drew himself up. He seemed to rearrange the motions of his mind with +a little of the old vanity, which was at once grotesque and piteous. +“I am going to forgive you and to try to put things right,” he said. “I +have had my faults. You were not to blame altogether. I have left you +too much alone. I did not understand everything all through. I had never +studied women. If I had I should have done the right thing always. I +must begin to study women.” The drawn look was going a little from his +face, the ghastly pain was fading from his eyes; his heart was speaking +for her, while his vain intellect hunted the solution of his problem. + +She could scarcely believe her ears. No Spaniard would ever have acted +as this man was doing. She had come from a land of No Forgiveness. +Carvillho Gonzales would have killed her, if she had been untrue to him; +and she would have expected it and understood it. + +But Jean Jacques was going to forgive her--going to study women, and so +understand her and understand women, as he understood philosophy! This +was too fantastic for human reason. She stared at him, unable to say a +word, and the distracted look in her face did not lessen. Forgiveness +did not solve her problem. + +“I am going to take you to Montreal--and then out to Winnipeg, when I’ve +got the cheese-factory going,” he said with a wise look in his face, and +with tenderness even coming into his eyes. “I know what mistakes I’ve +made”--had not George Masson the despoiler told him of them?--“and I +know what a scoundrel that fellow is, and what tricks of the tongue he +has. Also he is as sleek to look at as a bull, and so he got a hold on +you. I grasp things now. Soon we will start away together again as we +did at Gaspe.” + +He came close to her. “Carmen!” he said, and made as though he would +embrace her. + +“Wait--wait a little. Give me time to think,” she said with dry lips, +her heart beating hard. Then she added with a flattery which she knew +would tell, “I cannot think quick as you do. I am slow. I must have +time. I want to work it all out. Wait till to-night,” she urged. “Then +we can--” + +“Good, we will make it all up to-night,” he said, and he patted her +shoulder as one would that of a child. It had the slight flavour of the +superior and the paternal. + +She almost shrank from his touch. If he had kissed her she would have +felt that she must push him away; and yet she also knew how good a man +he was. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE + +“Well, what is it, M’sieu’ Fille? What do you want with me? I’ve got a +lot to do before sundown, and it isn’t far off. Out with it.” + +George Masson was in no good humour; from the look on the face of the +little Clerk of the Court he had no idea that he would disclose any good +news. It was probably some stupid business about “money not being paid +into the Court,” which had been left over from cases tried and lost; +and he had had a number of cases that summer. His head was not so clear +to-day as usual, but he had had little difficulties with M’sieu’ Fille +before, and he was sure that there was something wrong now. + +“Do you want to make me a present?” he added with humorous impatience, +for though he was not in a good temper, he liked the Clerk of the Court, +who was such a figure at Vilray. + +The opening for his purpose did not escape M. Fille. He had been at a +loss to begin, but here was a natural opportunity for him. + +“Well, good advice is not always a present, but I should like mine to be +taken as such, monsieur,” he said a little oracularly. + +“Oh, advice--to give me advice--that’s why you’ve brought me in here, +when I’ve so much to do I can’t breathe! Time is money with me, old +‘un.” + +“Mine is advice which may be money in your pocket, monsieur,” remarked +the Clerk of the Court with meaning. “Money saved is money earned.” + +“How do you mean to save me money--by getting the Judge to give +decisions in my favour? That would be money in my pocket for sure. The +Court has been running against my interests this year. When I think +I was never so right in my life--bang goes the judgment of the Court +against me, and into my pocket goes my hand. I don’t only need to save +money, I need to make it; so if you can help me in that way I’m your +man, M’sieu’ la Fillette?” + +The little man bristled at the misuse of his name, and he flushed +slightly also; but there was always something engaging in the +pleasure-loving master-carpenter. He had such an eloquent and warm +temperament, the atmosphere of his personality was so genial, that +his impertinence was insulated. Certainly the master-carpenter was not +unpopular, and people could not easily resist the grip of his physical +influence, while mentally he was far indeed from being deficient. He +looked as little like a villain as a man could, and yet--and yet--a +nature like that of George Masson (even the little Clerk could see that) +was not capable of being true beyond the minute in which he took his +oath of fidelity. While the fit of willingness was on him he would be +true; yet in reality there was no truth at all--only self-indulgence +unmarked by duty or honour. + +“Give me a judgment for defamation of character. Give me a thousand +dollars or so for that, m’sieu’, and you’ll do a good turn to a +deserving fellow-citizen and admirer--one little thousand, that’s all, +m’sieu’. Then I’ll dance at your wedding and weep at your tomb--so +there!” + +How easy he made the way for the little Clerk of the Court! “Defamation +of character”--could there possibly be a better opening for what he had +promised Judge Carcasson he would say! + +“Ah, Monsieur Masson,” very officially and decorously replied M. Fille, +“but is it defamation of character? If the thing is true, then what is +the judgment? It goes against you--so there!” There was irony in the +last words. + +“If what thing is true?” sharply asked the mastercarpenter, catching at +the fringe of the idea in M. Fille’s mind. “What thing?” + +“Ah, but it is true, for I saw it! Yes, alas! I saw it with my own +eyes. By accident of course; but there it was--absolute, uncompromising, +deadly and complete.” + +It was a happy moment for the little Clerk of the Court when he could, +in such an impromptu way, coin a phrase, or a set of adjectives, which +would bear inspection of purists of the language. He loved to +talk, though he did not talk a great deal, but he made innumerable +conversations in his mind, and that gave him facility when he did +speak. He had made conversations with George Masson in his mind since +yesterday, when he gave his promise to Judge Carcasson; but none of +them was like the real conversation now taking place. It was all +the impression of the moment, while the phrases in his mind had been +wonderfully logical things which, from an intellectual standpoint, would +have delighted the man whose cause he was now engaged in defending. + +“You saw what, M’sieu’ la Fillette? Out with it, and don’t use such big +adjectives. I’m only a carpenter. ‘Absolute, uncompromising, deadly, +complete’--that’s a mouthful of grammar, my lords! Come, my sprig of +jurisprudence, tell us what you saw.” There was an apparent nervousness +in Masson’s manner now. Indeed he showed more agitation than when, a few +hours before, Jean Jacques had stood with his hand on the lever of the +gates of the flume, and the life of the master-carpenter at his feet, to +be kicked into eternity. + +“Four days ago at five o’clock in the afternoon”--in a voice formal and +exact, the little Clerk of the Court seemed to be reading from a paper, +since he kept his eyes fixed on the blotter before him, as he did in +Court--“I was coming down the hill behind the Manor Cartier, when my +attention--by accident--was drawn to a scene below me in the Manor. I +stopped short, of course, and--” + +“Diable! You stopped short ‘of course’ before what you saw! Spit it +out--what did you see?” George Masson had had a trying day, and there +was danger of losing control of himself. There was a whiteness growing +round the eyes, and eating up the warmth of the cheek; his admirably +smooth brow was contracted into heavy wrinkles, and a foot shifted +uneasily on the floor with a scraping sole. This drew the attention of +M. Fille, who raised his head reprovingly--he could not get rid of the +feeling that he was in court, and that a case was being tried; and the +severity of a Judge is naught compared with the severity of a Clerk of +the Court, particularly if he is small and unmarried, and has no one to +beat him into manageable humanity. + +M. Fille’s voice was almost querulous. + +“If you will but be patient, monsieur! I saw a man with a woman in his +arms, and I fear that I must mention the name of the man. It is not +necessary to give the name of the woman, but I have it written here”--he +tapped the paper--“and there is no mistake in the identity. The man’s +name is George Masson, master-carpenter, of the town of Laplatte in the +province of Quebec.” + +George Masson was as one hit between the eyes. He made a motion as +though to ward off a blow. “Name of Peter, old cock!” he exclaimed +abruptly. “You saw enough certainly, if you saw that, and you needn’t +mention the lady’s name, as you say. The evidence is not merely +circumstantial. You saw it with your own eyes, and you are an official +of the Court, and have the ear of the Judge, and you look like a saint +to a jury. Well for sure, I can’t prove defamation of character, as you +say. But what then--what do you want?” + +“What I want I hope you may be able to grant without demur, monsieur. +I want you to give your pledge on the Book”--he laid his hand on +a Testament lying on the table--“that you will hold no further +communication with the lady.” + +“Where do you come inhere? What’s your standing in the business?” + Masson jerked out his words now. The Clerk of the Court made a reproving +gesture. “Knowing what I did, what I had seen, it was clear that I must +approach one or other of the parties concerned. Out of regard for the +lady I could not approach her husband, and so betray her; out of regard +for the husband I could not approach himself and destroy his peace; out +of regard for all concerned I could not approach the lady’s father, for +then--” + +Masson interrupted with an oath. + +“That old reprobate of Cadiz--well no, bagosh! + +“And so you whisked me into your office with the talk of urgent business +and--” + +“Is not the business urgent, monsieur?” + +“Not at all,” was the sharp reply of the culprit. + +“Monsieur, you shock me. Do you consider that your conduct is not +criminal? I have here”--he placed his hand on a book--“the Statutes of +Victoria, and it lays down with wholesome severity the law concerning +the theft of the affection of a wife, with the accompanying penalty, +going as high as twenty thousand dollars.” + +George Masson gasped. Here was a new turn of affairs. But he set his +teeth. + +“Twenty thousand dollars--think of that!” he sneered angrily. + +“That is what I said, monsieur. I said I could save you money, and money +saved is money earned. I am your benefactor, if you will but permit me +to be so, monsieur. I would save you from the law, and from the damages +which the law gives. Can you not guess what would be given in a court of +the Catholic province of Quebec, against the violation of a good man’s +home? Do you not see that the business is urgent?” + +“Not at all,” curtly replied the master-carpenter. M. Fille bridled up, +and his spare figure seemed to gain courage and dignity. + +“If you think I will hold my peace unless you give your sacred pledge, +you are mistaken, monsieur. I am no meddler, but I have had much +kindness at the hands of Monsieur and Madame Barbille, and I will do +what I can to protect them and their daughter--that good and sweet +daughter, from the machinations, corruptions and malfeasance--” + +“Three damn good words for the Court, bagosh!” exclaimed Masson with a +jeer. + +“No, with a man devoid of honour, I shall not hesitate, for the Manor +Cartier has been the home of domestic peace, and madame, who came to +us a stranger, deserves well of the people of that ancient abode of +chivalry-the chivalry of France.” + +“When we are wound up, what a humming we can make!” laughed George +Masson sourly. “Have you quite finished, m’sieu’?” + +“The matter is urgent, you will admit, monsieur?” again demanded M. +Fille with austerity. + +“Not at all.” + +The master-carpenter was defiant and insolent, yet there was a devilish +kind of humour in his tone as in his attitude. + +“You will not heed the warning I give?” The little Clerk pointed to the +open page of the Victorian statutes before him. + +“Not at all.” + +“Then I shall, with profound regret--” + +Suddenly George Masson thrust his face forward near that of M. Fille, +who did not draw back. + +“You will inform the Court that the prisoner refuses to incriminate +himself, eh?” he interjected. + +“No, monsieur, I will inform Monsieur Barbille of what I saw. I will do +this without delay. It is the one thing left me to do.” + +In quite a grand kind of way he stood up and bowed, as though to dismiss +his visitor. + +As George Masson did not move, the other went to the door and opened +it. “It is the only thing left to do,” he repeated, as he made a gentle +gesture of dismissal. + +“Not at all, my legal bombardier. Not at all, I say. All you know Jean +Jacques knows, and a good deal more--what he has seen with his own +eyes, and understood with his own mind, without legal help. So, you see, +you’ve kept me here talking when there’s no need and while my business +waits. It is urgent, M’sieu’ la Fillette--your business is stale. It +belongs to last session of the Court.” He laughed at his joke. “M’sieu’ +Jean Jacques and I understand each other.” He laughed grimly now. “We +know each other like a book, and the Clerk of the Court couldn’t get in +an adjective that would make the sense of it all clearer.” + +Slowly M. Fille shut the door, and very slowly he came back. Almost +blindly, as it might seem, and with a moan, he dropped into his chair. +His eyes fixed themselves on George Masson. + +“Ah--that!” he said helplessly. “That! The little Zoe--dear God, the +little Zoe, and the poor madame!” His voice was aching with pain and +repugnance. + +“If you were not such an icicle naturally, I’d be thinking your interest +in the child was paternal,” said the master-carpenter roughly, for the +virtuous horror of the other’s face annoyed him. He had had a vexing +day. + +The Clerk of the Court was on his feet in a second. “Monsieur, you +dare!” he exclaimed. “You dare to multiply your crimes in that shameless +way. Begone! There are those who can make you respect decency. I am +not without my friends, and we all stand by each other in our love of +home--of sacred home, monsieur.” + +There was something right in the master-carpenter at the bottom, with +all his villainy. It was not alone that he knew there were fifty men +in the Parish of St. Saviour’s who would man-handle him for such a +suggestion, and for what he had done at the Manor Cartier, if they were +roused; but he also had a sudden remorse for insulting the man who, +after all, had tried to do him a service. His amende was instant. + +“I take it back with humble apology--all I can hold in both hands, +m’sieu’,” he said at once. “I would not insult you so, much less Madame +Barbille. If she’d been like what I’ve hinted at, I wouldn’t have gone +her way, for the promiscuous is not for me. I’ll tell you the whole +truth of what happened to-day this morning. Last night I met her at the +river, and--Then briefly he told all that had happened to the moment +when Jean Jacques had left him at the flume with the words, ‘Moi, je +suis philosophe!’ And at the last he said: + +“I give you my word--my oath on this”--he laid his hand on the Testament +on the table--“that beyond what you saw, and what Jean Jacques saw, +there has been nothing.” He held up a hand as though taking an oath. + +“Name of God, is it not enough what there has been?” whispered the +little Clerk. + +“Oh, as you think, and as you say! It is quite enough for me after +to-day. I’m a teetotaller, but I’m not so fond of water as to want to +take my eternal bath in it.” He shuddered slightly. “Bien sur, I’ve had +my fill of the Manor Cartier for one day, my Clerk of the Court.” + +“Bien sur, it was enough to set you thinking, monsieur,” was the dry +comment of M. Fille, who was now recovering his composure. + +At that moment there came a knock at the door, and another followed +quickly; then there entered without waiting for a reply--Carmen +Barbille. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM + +The Clerk of the Court came to his feet with a startled “Merci!” and the +master-carpenter fell back with a smothered exclamation. Both men stared +confusedly at the woman as she shut the door slowly and, as it might +seem, carefully, before she faced them. + +“Here I am, George,” she said, her face alive with vital adventure. + +His face was instantly swept by a storm of feeling for her, his nature +responded to the sound of her voice and the passion of her face. + +“Carmen--ah!” he said, and took a step forward, then stopped. The hoarse +feeling in his voice made her eyes flash gratitude and triumph, and she +waited for him to take her in his arms; but she suddenly remembered M. +Fille. She turned to him. + +“I am sorry to intrude, m’sieu’,” she said. “I beg your pardon. They +told me at the office of avocat Prideaux that M’sieu’ Masson was here. +So I came; but be sure I would not interrupt you if there was not +cause.” + +M. Fille came forward and took her hand respectfully. “Madame, it is +the first time you have honoured me here. I am very glad to receive you. +Monsieur and Mademoiselle Zoe, they are with you? They will also come in +perhaps?” + +M. Fille was courteous and kind, yet he felt that a duty was devolving +on him, imposed by his superior officer, Judge Carcasson, and by his +own conscience, and with courage he faced the field of trouble which his +simple question opened up. George Masson had but now said there had been +nothing more than he himself had seen from the hill behind the Manor; +and he had further said, in effect, that all was ended between Carmen +Barbille and himself; yet here they were together, when they ought to be +a hundred miles apart for many a day. Besides, there was the look in +the woman’s face, and that intense look also in the face of the +master-carpenter! The Clerk of the Court, from sheer habit of his +profession, watched human faces as other people watch the weather, or +the rise or fall in the price of wheat and potatoes. He was an archaic +little official, and apparently quite unsophisticated; yet there was +hidden behind his ascetic face a quiet astuteness which would have +been a valuable asset to a worldly-minded and ambitious man. Besides, +affection sharpens the wits. Through it the hovering, protecting sense +becomes instinctive, and prescience takes on uncanny certainty. He had +a real and deep affection for Jean Jacques and his Carmen, and a deeper +one still for the child Zoe; and the danger to the home at the Manor +Cartier now became again as sharp as the knife of the guillotine. His +eyes ran from the woman to the man, and back again, and then with great +courage he repeated his question: + +“Monsieur and mademoiselle, they are well--they are with you, I hope, +madame?” + +She looked at him in the eyes without flinching, and on the instant she +was aware that he knew all, and that there had been talk with George +Masson. She knew the little man to be as good as ever can be, but she +resented the fact that he knew. It was clear George Masson had told +him--else how could he know; unless, perhaps, all the world knew! + +“You know well enough that I have come alone, my friend,” she answered. +“It is no place for Zoe; and it is no place for my husband and him +together,” she made a motion of the head towards the mastercarpenter. +“Santa Maria, you know it very well indeed!” + +The Clerk of the Court bowed, but made no reply. What was there to say +to a remark like that! It was clear that the problem must be worked out +alone between these two people, though he was not quite sure what the +problem was. The man had said the thing was over; but the woman had +come, and the look of both showed that it was not all over. + +What would the man do? What was it the woman wished to do? The +master-carpenter had said that Jean Jacques had spared him, and meant to +forgive his wife. No doubt he had done so, for Jean Jacques was a man +of sentiment and chivalry, and there was no proof that there had been +anything more than a few mad caresses between the two misdemeanants; yet +here was the woman with the man for whom she had imperilled her future +and that of her husband and child! + +As though Carmen understood what was going on in his mind, she said: +“Since you know everything, you can understand that I want a few words +with M’sieu’ George here alone.” + +“Madame, I beg of you,” the Clerk of the Court answered instantly, his +voice trembling a little--“I beg that you will not be alone with him. +As I believe, your husband is willing to let bygones be bygones, and to +begin to-morrow as though there was no to-day. In such case you should +not see Monsieur Masson here alone. It is bad enough to see him here in +the office of the Clerk of the Court, but to see him alone--what would +Monsieur Jean Jacques say? Also, outside there in the street, if our +neighbours should come to know of the trouble, what would they say? I +wish not to be tiresome, but as a friend, a true friend of your whole +family, madame--yes, in spite of all, your whole family--I hope you +will realize that I must remain here. I owe it to a past made happy by +kindness which is to me like life itself. Monsieur Masson, is it +not so?” he added, turning to the master-carpenter. More flushed +and agitated than when he had faced Jean Jacques in the flume, the +master-carpenter said: “If she wants a few words-of farewell--alone +with me, she must have it, M’sieu’ Fille. The other room--eh? Outside +there”--he jerked a finger towards the street--“they won’t know that you +are not with us; and as for Jean Jacques, isn’t it possible for a Clerk +of the Court to stretch the truth a little? Isn’t the Clerk of the Court +a man as well as a mummy? I’d do as much for you, little lawyer, any +time. A word to say farewell, you understand!” He looked M. Fille +squarely in the eye. + +“If I had to answer M. Jean Jacques on such a matter--and so much at +stake--” + +Masson interrupted. “Well, if you like we’ll bind your eyes and put wads +in your ears, and you can stay, so that you’ll have been in the room +all the time, and yet have heard and seen nothing at all. How is that, +m’sieu’? It’s all right, isn’t it?” + +M. Fille stood petrified for a moment at the audacity of the +proposition. For him, the Clerk of the Court, to be blinded and made +ridiculous with wads in his ears-impossible! + +“Grace of Heaven, I would prefer to lie!” he answered quickly. “I will +go into the next room, but I beg that you be brief, monsieur and madame. +You owe it to yourselves and to the situation to be brief, and, if I may +say so, you owe it to me. I am not a practised Ananias.” + +“As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, m’sieu’,” returned Masson. + +“I must beg that you will make your farewells of a minute and no more,” + replied the Clerk of the Court firmly. He took out his watch. “It is +six o’clock. I will come again at three minutes past six. That is long +enough for any farewell--even on the gallows.” + +Not daring to look at the face of the woman, he softly disappeared into +the other room, and shut the door without a sound. + +“Too good for this world,” remarked the master-carpenter when the +door closed tight. He said it after the disappearing figure and not to +Carmen. “I don’t suppose he ever kissed a real grown-up woman in his +life. It would have shattered his frail little carcass if, if”--he +turned to his companion--“if you had kissed him, Carmen. He’s made of +tissue-paper,--not tissue--and apple-jelly. Yes, but a stiff little +backbone, too, or he’d not have faced me down.” + +Masson talked as though he were trying to gain time. “He said three +minutes,” she returned with a look of death in her face. As George +Masson had talked with the Clerk of the Court, she had come to see, in +so far as agitation would permit, that he was not the same as when he +left her by the river the evening before. + +“There’s no time to waste,” she continued. “You spoke of +farewells--twice you spoke, and three times he spoke of farewells +between us. Farewells--farewells--George--!” + +With sudden emotion she held out her arms, and her face flushed with +passion and longing. + +The tempest which shook her shook him also, and he swayed from side to +side like an animal uncertain if the moment had come to try its strength +with its foe; and in truth the man was fighting with himself. His +moments with Jean Jacques at the flume had expanded him in a curious +kind of way. His own arguments while he was fighting for his life +had, in a way, convinced himself. She was a rare creature, and she was +alluring--more alluring than she had ever been; for a tragic sense had +made her thinner, had refined the boldness of her beauty, had given a +wonderful lustre to her eyes; and suffering has its own attraction to +the degenerate. But he, George Masson, had had a great shock, and he had +come out of the jaws of death by the skin of his teeth. It had been the +nearest thing he had ever known; for though once he had had a pistol +pointed at him, there was the chance that it might miss at half-a-dozen +yards, while there was no chance of the lever of the flume going wrong; +and water and a mill-wheel were as absolute as the rope of the gallows. + +In a sense he had saved himself by his cleverness, but if Jean Jacques +had not been just the man he was, he could not have saved himself. It +did not occur to him that Jean Jacques had acted weakly. He would not +have done what Jean Jacques had done, had Jean Jacques spoiled his home. +He would have sprung the lever; but he was not so mean as to despise +Jean Jacques because he had foregone his revenge. This master-carpenter +had certain gifts, or he could not have caused so much trouble in the +world. There is a kind of subtlety necessary to allure or delude even +the humblest of women, if she is not naturally bad; and Masson had had +experiences with the humblest, and also with those a little higher up. +This much had to be said for him, that he did not think Jean Jacques +contemptible because he had been merciful, or degraded because he had +chosen to forgive his wife. + +The sight of the woman, as she stood with arms outstretched, had made +his pulses pound in his veins, but the heat was suddenly chilled by the +wave of tragedy which had passed over him. When he had climbed out of +the flume, and opened the lever for the river to rush through, he had +felt as though ice--cold liquid flowed in his veins, not blood; and all +day he had been like that. He had moved much as one in a dream, and he +had felt for the first time in his life that he was not ready to bluff +creation. He had always faced things down, as long as it could be done; +and when it could not, he had retreated, with the comment that no man +was wise who took gruel when he needn’t. He was now face to face with +his greatest problem. One thing was clear--they must either part for +ever, or go together, and part no more. There could be no half measures. +She was a remarkable woman in her way, with a will of her own, and a +kind of madness in her; and there could be no backing and filling. They +only had three minutes to talk together alone, and two of them were up. + +Her arms were held out to him, but he stood still, and before the fire +of her eyes his own eyes dropped. “No, not yet!” he exclaimed. “It’s +been a day--heaven and hell, what a day it’s been! He had me like that!” + 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 years old. She will soon be old enough to keep house for him, +and then to marry--ah, before there is time to think she will marry!” + +“It would be better then for you to wait till she marries +before--before--” + +“Before I go away with you!” She gave a shrill, agonized laugh. “So that +is the end of it all! What did you think of my child when you forced +your way into my life, when you made me think of you--ah, quel +bete--what a coward and beast you are!” + +“No, I am not all coward, though I may be a beast,” he answered. “I +didn’t think of your child when I began to talk to you as I did. I was +out for all I could get. I was the hunter. And you were the finest woman +that I’d ever met and talked with; you--” + +“Oh, stop lying!” she cried with a face suddenly grown white and cold. + +“It isn’t lying. You’re the sort of woman to drive men mad. I went mad, +and I didn’t think of your child. But this morning in the flume I +saved my life by thinking of her, and I saved your life, too, maybe, by +thinking of her; and I owe her something. I’m going to try to pay back +by letting her keep her mother. I never felt towards a woman as I’ve +felt towards you; and that’s why I want to make things not so bad for +you as they might be.” + +In her bitter eagerness she took a step nearer to him. “As things +might be, if you were the man you were yesterday, willing to throw up +everything for me?” + +“Like that--if you put it so,” he answered. + +She walked slowly up to him, looking as though she would plunge a knife +into his heart. “I wish Jean Jacques had opened the gates,” she said. +“It would have saved the hangman trouble.” + +Then suddenly, and with a cry, she raised her hand and struck him full +in the face with her fist. At that instant came a tap at the door of the +other room, and the Clerk of the Court appeared. He saw the blow, and +drew back with an exclamation. + +Carmen turned to him. “Farewell has been said, M’sieu’ Fille,” she +remarked in a voice sombre with rage and despair, and she went to the +door leading to the street. + +Masson had winced at the blow, but he remained silent. He knew not what +to say or do. + +M. Fille hastily followed Carmen to the door. “You are going home, +dear madame? Permit me to accompany you,” he said gently. “I have to do +business with Jean Jacques.” + +A hand upon his chest, she pushed him back. “Where I go I’m going +alone,” she said. Opening the door she went out, but turning back +again she gave George Masson a look that he never forgot. Then the door +closed. + +“Grace of God, she is not going home!” brokenly murmured the Clerk of +the Court. + +With a groan the master-carpenter started forward towards the door, but +M. Fille stepped between, laid a hand on his arm, and stopped him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE + + “Oh, who will walk the wood with me, + I fear to walk alone; + So young am I, as you may see; + No dangers have I known. + So young, so small--ah, yes, m’sieu’, + I’ll walk the wood with you!” + +In the last note of the song applause came instantaneously, almost +impatiently, as it might seem. With cries of “Encore! Encore!” it lasted +some time, while the happy singer looked around with frank pleasure on +the little group encircling her in the Manor Cartier. + +“Did you like it so much?” she asked in a general way, and not looking +at any particular person. A particular person, however, replied, and she +had addressed the question to him, although not looking at him. He was +the Man from Outside, and he sat near the bright wood-fire; for though +it was almost June the night was cool and he was delicate. + +“Ah, but splendid, but splendid--it got into every corner of every one +of us,” the Man from Outside responded, speaking his fluent French with +a slight English accent, which had a pleasant piquancy--at least to the +ears of the pretty singer, Mdlle. Zoe Barbille. He was a man of +about thirty-three, clean-shaven, dark-haired, with an expression of +cleverness; yet with an irresponsible something about him which M. +Fille had reflected upon with concern. For this slim, eager, talkative, +half-invalid visitor to St. Saviour’s had of late shown a marked liking +for the presence and person of Zoe Barbille; and Zoe was as dear to M. +Fille as though she were his own daughter. He it was who, in sarcasm, +had spoken of this young stranger as “The Man from Outside.” + +Ever since Zoe’s mother had vanished--alone--seven years before from the +Manor Cartier, or rather from his office at Vilray, M. Fille had been +as much like a maiden aunt or a very elder brother to the Spanische’s +daughter as a man could be. Of M. Fille’s influence over his daughter +and her love of his companionship, Jean Jacques had no jealousy +whatever. Very often indeed, when he felt incompetent to do for his +child all that he wished--philosophers are often stupid in human +affairs--he thought it was a blessing Zoe had a friend like M. Fille. +Since the terrible day when he found that his wife had gone from +him--not with the master-carpenter who only made his exit from Laplatte +some years afterwards--he had had no desire to have a woman at the Manor +to fill her place, even as housekeeper. He had never swerved from +that. He had had a hard row to hoe, but he had hoed it with a will not +affected by domestic accidents or inconveniences. The one woman from +outside whom he permitted to go and come at will--and she did not +come often, because she and M. Fille agreed it would be best not to do +so--was the sister of the Cure. To be sure there was Seraphe Corniche, +the old cook, but she was buried in her kitchen, and Jean Jacques +treated her like a man. + +When Zoe was confirmed, and had come back from Montreal, having spent +two years in a convent there--the only time she had been away from her +father in seven years--having had her education chiefly from a Catholic +“brother,” the situation developed in a new way. Zoe at once became +as conspicuous in the country-side as her father had been over so many +years. She was fresh, volatile, without affectation or pride, and had +a temperament responsive to every phase of life’s simple interests. She +took the attention of the young men a little bit as her due, but yet +without conceit. The gallants had come about her like bees, for there +was Jean Jacques’ many businesses and his reputation for wealth; and +there was her own charm, concerning which there could be far less doubt +than about Jean Jacques’ magnificent solvency. + +Zoe had gone heart-whole and with no especial preference for any young +man, until the particular person came, the Man from Outside. + +His name was Gerard Fynes, and his business was mumming. He was a young +lawyer turned actor, and he had lived in Montreal before he went on the +stage. He was English--that was a misfortune; he was an actor--that was +a greater misfortune, for it suggested vagabondage of morals as well +as of profession; and he was a Protestant, which was the greatest +misfortune of all. But he was only at St. Saviour’s for his +convalescence after a so-called attack of congestion of the lungs; and +as he still had a slight cough and looked none too robust, and as, more +than all, he was simple in his ways, enjoying the life of the parish +with greater zest than the residents, he found popularity. Undoubtedly +he had a taking way with him. He was lodging with Louis Charron, a +small farmer and kinsman of Jean Jacques, who sold whisky--“white +whisky”--without a license. It was a Charron family habit to sell +liquor illegally, and Louis pursued the career with all an amateur’s +enthusiasm. He had a sovereign balm for “colds,” composed of camomile +flowers, boneset, liquorice, pennyroyal and gentian root, which he sold +to all comers; and it was not unnatural that a visitor with weak lungs +should lodge with him. + +Louis and his wife had only good things to say about Gerard Fynes; for +the young man lived their life as though he was born to it. He ate the +slap-jacks, the buttermilk-pop, the pork and beans, the Indian corn on +the cob, the pea-soup, and the bread baked in the roadside oven, with a +relish which was not all pretence; for indeed he was as primitive as he +was subtle. He himself could not have told how much of him was true and +how much was make-believe. But he was certainly lovable, and he was not +bad by nature. Since coming to St. Saviour’s he had been constant to one +attraction, and he had not risked his chances with Zoe by response to +the shy invitations of dark eyes, young and not so young, which met his +own here and there in the parish. + +Only M. Fille and Jean Jacques himself had feelings of real antagonism +to him. Jean Jacques, though not naturally suspicious, had, however, +seen an understanding look pass between his Zoe and this stranger--this +Protestant English stranger from the outer world, to which Jean Jacques +went less frequently since his fruitless search for his vanished Carmen. +The Clerk of the Court saw that Jean Jacques had observed the intimate +glances of the two young people, and their eyes met in understanding. It +was just before Zoe had sung so charmingly, ‘Oh, Who Will Walk the Wood +With Me’. + +At first after Carmen’s going Jean Jacques had found it hard to endure +singing in his house. Zoe’s trilling was torture to him, though he had +never forbidden her to sing, and she had sung on to her heart’s content. +By a subtle instinct, however, and because of the unspoken sorrow in her +own heart, she never sang the songs like ‘La Manola’. Never after the +day Carmen went did Zoe speak of her mother to anyone at all. It was +worse than death; it was annihilation, so far as speech was concerned. +The world at large only knew that Carmen Barbille had run away, and that +even Sebastian Dolores her father did not know where she was. The old +man had not heard from her, and he seldom visited at the Manor Cartier +or saw his grand-daughter. His own career of late years had been marked +by long sojourns in Quebec, Montreal and even New York; yet he always +came back to St. Saviour’s when he was penniless, and was there started +afresh by Jean Jacques. Some said that Carmen had gone back to Spain, +but others discredited that, for, if she had done so, certainly old +Sebastian Dolores would have gone also. Others continued to insist that +she had gone off with a man; but there was George Masson at Laplatte +living alone, and never going twenty miles away from home, and he was +the only person under suspicion. Others again averred that since her +flight Carmen had become a loose woman in Montreal; but the New Cure +came down on that with a blow which no one was tempted to invite again. + +M. Savry’s method of punishing was of a kind to make men shrink. If +Carmen Barbille had become a loose woman in Montreal, how did any member +of his flock know that it was the case? What company had he kept in +Montreal that he could say that? Did he see the woman--or did he hear +about her? And if he heard, what sort of company was he keeping when he +went to Montreal without his wife to hear such things? That was final, +and the slanderer was under a cloud for a time, by reason of the anger +of his own wife. It was about this time that the good priest preached +from the text, “Judge not that ye be not judged,” and said that there +were only ten commandments on the tables of stone; but that the ten +included all the commandments which the Church made for every man, and +which every man, knowing his own weakness, must also make for himself. + +His flock understood, though they did refrain, every one, from looking +towards the place where Jean Jacques sat with Ma’m’selle--she was always +called that, as though she was a great lady; or else she was called “the +little Ma’m’selle Zoe,” even when she had grown almost as tall as her +mother had been. + +Though no one looked towards the place where Jean Jacques and his +daughter sat when this sermon was preached, and although Zoe seemed not +to apprehend personal reference in the priest’s words, when she reached +home, after talking to her father about casual things all the way, she +flew to her room, and, locking the door, flung herself on her bed and +cried till her body felt as though it had been beaten by rods. Then +she suddenly got up and, from a drawer, took out two things--an old +photograph of her mother at the time of her marriage, and Carmen’s +guitar, which she had made her own on the day after the flight, and had +kept hidden ever since. She lay on the bed with her cheek pressed to +the guitar, and her eyes hungrily feeding on the face of a woman whose +beauty belonged to spheres other than where she had spent the thirteen +years of her married life. + +Zoe had understood more even at the time of the crisis than they thought +she did, child though she was; and as the years had gone on she had +grasped the meaning of it all more clearly perhaps than anyone at all +except her adored friends Judge Carcasson, at whose home she had visited +in Montreal, and M. Fille. + +The thing last rumoured about her mother in the parish was that she +had become an actress. To this Zoe made no protest in her mind. It was +better than many other possibilities, and she fixed her mind on it, so +saving herself from other agonizing speculations. In a fixed imagination +lay safety. In her soul she knew that, no matter what happened, her +mother would never return to the Manor Cartier. + +The years had not deepened confidence between father and daughter. A +shadow hung between them. They laughed and talked together, were even +boisterous in their fun sometimes, and yet in the eyes of both was the +forbidden thing--the deserted city into which they could not enter. He +could not speak to the child of the shame of her mother; she could not +speak of that in him which had contributed to that mother’s shame--the +neglect which existed to some degree in her own life with him. This +was chiefly so because his enterprises had grown to such a number and +height, that he seemed ever to be counting them, ever struggling to the +height, while none of his ventures ever reached that state of success +when it “ran itself”, although as years passed men called him rich, +and he spent and loaned money so freely that they called him the Money +Master, or the Money Man Wise, in deference to his philosophy. + +Zoe was not beautiful, but there was a wondrous charm in her deep +brown eyes and in the expression of her pretty, if irregular, features. +Sometimes her face seemed as small as that of a young child, and alive +with eerie fancies; and always behind her laughter was something which +got into her eyes, giving them a haunting melancholy. She had no signs +of hysteria, though now and then there came heart-breaking little +outbursts of emotion which had this proof that they were not +hysteria--they were never seen by others. They were sacred to her own +solitude. While in Montreal she had tasted for the first time the joys +of the theatre, and had then secretly read numbers of plays, which she +bought from an old bookseller, who was wise enough to choose them for +her. She became possessed of a love for the stage even before Gerard +Fynes came upon the scene. The beginning of it all was the rumour that +her mother was now an actress; yet the root-cause was far down in a +temperament responsive to all artistic things. + +The coming of the Man from Outside acted on the confined elements of +her nature like the shutter of a camera. It let in a world of light upon +unexplored places, it set free elements of being which had not before +been active. She had been instantly drawn to Gerard Fynes. He had the +distance from her own life which provoked interest, and in that distance +was the mother whom perhaps it was her duty to forget, yet for whom she +had a longing which grew greater as the years went on. + +Gerard Fynes could talk well, and his vivid pictures of his short +play-acting career absorbed her; and all the time she was vigilant for +some name, for the description of some actress which would seem to be +a clue to the lost spirit of her life. This clue never came, but before +she gave up hope of it, the man had got nearer to her than any man had +ever done. + +After meeting him she awoke to the fact that there was a difference +between men, that it was not the same thing to be young as to be old; +that the reason why she could kiss the old Judge and the little Clerk of +the Court, and not kiss, say, the young manager of the great lumber firm +who came every year for a fortnight’s fishing at St. Saviour’s, was +one which had an understandable cause and was not a mere matter of +individual taste. She had been good friends with this young manager, who +was only thirty years of age, and was married, but when he had wanted +to kiss her on saying good-bye one recent summer, she had said, “Oh, +no, oh, no, that would spoil it all!” Yet when he had asked her why, and +what she meant, she could not tell him. She did not know; but by the +end of the first week after Gerard Fynes had been brought to the Manor +Cartier by Louis Charron, she knew. + +She had then been suddenly awakened from mere girlhood. Judge Carcasson +saw the difference in her on a half-hour’s visit as he passed westward, +and he had said to M. Fille, “Who is the man, my keeper of the +treasure?” The reply had been of such a sort that the Judge was +startled: + +“Tut, tut,” he had exclaimed, “an actor--an actor once a lawyer! That’s +serious. She’s at an age--and with a temperament like hers she’ll +believe anything, if once her affections are roused. She has a flair for +the romantic, for the thing that’s out of reach--the bird on the highest +branch, the bird in the sky beyond ours, the song that was lost before +time was, the light that never was on sea or land. Why, damn it, damn it +all, my Solon, here’s the beginning of a case in Court unless we can lay +the fellow by the heels! How long is he here for?” + +When M. Fille had told him that he would stay for another month for +certain, and no doubt much longer, if there seemed a prospect of winning +the heiress of the Manor Cartier, the Judge gave a groan. + +“We must get him away, somehow,” he said. “Where does he stay?” + +“At the house of Louis Charron,” was the reply. “Louis Charron--isn’t he +the fellow that sells whisky without a license?” + +“It is so, monsieur.” + +The Judge moved his head from side to side like a bear in a cage. “It +is that, is it, my Fille? By the thumb of the devil, isn’t it time then +that Louis Charron was arrested for breaking the law? Also how do we +know but that the interloping fellow Fynes is an agent for a whisky firm +perhaps? Couldn’t he, then, on suspicion, be arrested with--” + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully. His Judge was surely +becoming childish in his old age. He looked again closely at the great +man, and saw a glimmer of moisture in the grey eyes. It was clear that +Judge Carcasson felt deeply the dangers of the crisis, and that the +futile outburst had merely been the agitated protest of the helpless. + +“The man is what he says he is--an actor; and it would be folly to +arrest him. If our Zoe is really fond of him, it would only make a +martyr of him.” + +As he made this reply M. Fille looked furtively at the other--out of +the corner of his eye, as it were. The reply of the Judge was +impatient, almost peevish and rough. “Did you think I was in earnest, +my punchinello? Surely I don’t look so young as all that. I am over +sixty-five, and am therefore mentally developed!” + +M. Fille was exactly sixty-five years of age, and the blow was a shrewd +one. He drew himself up with rigid dignity. + +“You must feel sorry sometimes for those who suffered when your mind was +undeveloped, monsieur,” he answered. “You were a judge at forty-nine, +and you defended poor prisoners for twenty years before that.” + +The Judge was conquered, and he was never the man to pretend he was not +beaten when he was. He admired skill too much for that. He squeezed M. +Fille’s arm and said: + +“I’ve been quick with my tongue myself, but I feel sure now, that it’s +through long and close association with my Clerk of the Court.” + +“Ah, monsieur, you are so difficult to understand!” was the reply. “I +have known you all these years, and yet--” + +“And yet you did not know how much of the woman there was in me!... +But yes, it is that. It is that which I fear with our Zoe. Women break +out--they break out, and then there is the devil to pay. Look at her +mother. She broke out. It was not inevitable. It was the curse of +opportunity, the wrong thing popping up to drive her mad at the wrong +moment. Had the wrong thing come at the right time for her, when she was +quite sane, she would be yonder now with our philosopher. Perhaps she +would not be contented if she were there, but she would be there; and +as time goes on, to be where we were in all things which concern the +affections, that is the great matter.” + +“Ah, yes, ah, yes,” was the bright-eyed reply of that Clerk, “there is +no doubt of that! My sister and I there, we are fifty years together, +never with the wrong thing at the wrong time, always the thing as it +was, always to be where we were.” + +The Judge shook his head. “There is an eternity of difference, Fille, +between the sister and brother and the husband and wife. The sacredness +of isolation is the thing which holds the brother and sister together. +The familiarity of--but never mind what it is that so often forces +husband and wife apart. It is there, and it breaks out in rebellion as +it did with the wife of Jean Jacques Barbille. As she was a strong woman +in her way, it spoiled her life, and his too when it broke out.” + +M. Fille’s face lighted with memory and feeling. “Ah, a woman of +powerful emotions, monsieur, that is so! I think I never told you, but +at the last, in my office, when she went, she struck George Masson in +the face. It was a blow that--but there it was; I have never liked to +think of it. When I do, I shudder. She was a woman who might have been +in other circumstances--but there!” + +The Judge suddenly stopped in his walk and faced round on his friend. +“Did you ever know, my Solon,” he said, “that it was not Jean Jacques +who saved Carmen at the wreck of the Antoine, but it was she who saved +him; and yet she never breathed of it in all the years. One who was +saved from the Antoine told me of it. Jean Jacques was going down. +Carmen gave him her piece of wreckage to hang on to, and swam ashore +without help. He never gave her the credit. There was something big in +the woman, but it did not come out right.” + +M. Fille threw up his hands. “Grace de Dieu, is it so that she saved +Jean Jacques? Then he would not be here if it had not been for her?” + +“That is the obvious deduction, Maitre Fille,” replied the Judge. + +The Clerk of the Court seemed moved. “He did not treat her ill. I +know that he would take her back to-morrow if he could. He has never +forgotten. I saw him weeping one day--it was where she used to sing to +the flax-beaters by the Beau Cheval. I put my hand on his shoulder, and +said, ‘I know, I comprehend; but be a philosopher, Jean Jacques.’” + +“What did he say?” asked the Judge. + +“He drew himself up. ‘In my mind, in my soul, I am philosopher always,’ +he said, ‘but my eyes are the windows of my heart, m’sieu’. They look +out and see the sorrow of one I loved. It is for her sorrow that I weep, +not for my own. I have my child, I have money; the world says to me, +“How goes it, my friend?” I have a home--a home; but where is she, and +what does the world say to her?’” + +The Judge shook his head sadly. “I used to think I knew life, but I come +to the belief in the end that I know nothing. Who could have guessed +that he would have spoken like that!” + +“He forgave her, monsieur.” + +The Judge nodded mournfully. “Yes, yes, but I used to think it is such +men who forgive one day and kill the next. You never can tell where they +will explode, philosophy or no philosophy.” + +The Judge was right. After all the years that had passed since his wife +had left him, Jean Jacques did explode. It was the night of his birthday +party at which was present the Man from Outside. It was in the hour when +he first saw what the Clerk of the Court had seen some time before--the +understanding between Zoe and Gerard Fynes. It had never occurred to him +that there was any danger. Zoe had been so indifferent to the young men +of St. Saviour’s and beyond, had always been so much his friend and the +friend of those much older than himself, like Judge Carcasson and M. +Fille, that he had not yet thought of her electing to go and leave him +alone. + +To leave him alone! To be left alone--it had never become a possibility +to his mind. It did not break upon him with its full force all at once. +He first got the glimmer of it, then the glimmer grew to a glow, and the +glow to a great red light, in which his brain became drunk, and all his +philosophy was burned up like wood-shavings in a fiery furnace. + +“Did you like it so much?” Zoe had asked when her song was finished, and +the Man from Outside had replied, “Ah, but splendid, splendid! It got +into every corner of every one of us.” + +“Into the senses--why not into the heart? Songs are meant for the +heart,” said Zoe. + +“Yes, yes, certainly,” was the young man’s reply, “but it depends upon +the song whether it touches the heart more than the senses. Won’t you +sing that perfect thing, ‘La Claire Fontaine’?” he added, with eyes as +bright as passion and the hectic fires of his lung-trouble could make +them. + +She nodded and was about to sing, for she loved the song, and it had +been ringing in her head all day; but at that point M. Fille rose, and +with his glass raised high--for at that moment Seraphe Corniche and +another carried round native wine and cider to the company--he said: + +“To Monsieur Jean Jacques Barbille, and his fifty years, good +health--bonne sante! This is his birthday. To a hundred years for Jean +Jacques!” + +Instantly everyone was up with glass raised, and Zoe ran and threw her +arms round her father’s neck. “Kiss me before you drink,” she said. + +With a touch almost solemn in its tenderness Jean Jacques drew her head +to his shoulder and kissed her hair, then her forehead. “My blessed +one--my angel,” he whispered; but there was a look in his eyes which +only M. Fille had seen there before. It was the look which had been in +his eyes at the flax-beaters’ place by the river. + +“Sing--father, you must sing,” said Zoe, and motioned to the fiddler. +“Sing It’s Fifty Years,” she cried eagerly. They all repeated her +request, and he could but obey. + +Jean Jacques’ voice was rather rough, but he had some fine resonant +notes in it, and presently, with eyes fastened on the distance, and +with free gesture and much expression, he sang the first verse of the +haunting ballad of the man who had reached his fifty years: + + “Wherefore these flowers? + This fete for me? + Ah, no, it is not fifty years, + Since in my eyes the light you see + First shone upon life’s joys and tears! + How fast the heedless days have flown + Too late to wail the misspent hours, + To mourn the vanished friends I’ve known, + To kneel beside love’s ruined bowers. + Ah, have I then seen fifty years, + With all their joys and hopes and fears!” + +Through all the verses he ranged, his voice improving with each phrase, +growing more resonant, till at last it rang out with a ragged richness +which went home to the hearts of all. He was possessed. All at once he +was conscious that the beginning of the end of things was come for +him; and that now, at fifty, in no sphere had he absolutely “arrived,” + neither in home nor fortune, nor--but yes, there was one sphere of +success; there was his fatherhood. There was his daughter, his wonderful +Zoe. He drew his eyes from the distance, and saw that her ardent look +was not towards him, but towards one whom she had known but a few weeks. + +Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a verse, and broke forward with +his arms outstretched, laughing. He felt that he must laugh, or he would +cry; and that would be a humiliating thing to do. + +“Come, come, my friends, my children, enough of that!” he cried. “We’ll +have no more maundering. Fifty years--what are fifty years! Think of +Methuselah! It’s summer in the world still, and it’s only spring at +St. Saviour’s. It’s the time of the first flowers. Let’s dance--no, no, +never mind the Cure to-night! He will not mind. I’ll settle it with him. +We’ll dance the gay quadrille.” + +He caught the hands of the two youngest girls present, and nodded at the +fiddler, who at once began to tune his violin afresh. One of the joyous +young girls, however, began to plead with him. + +“Ah, no, let us dance, but at the last--not yet, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques! +There is Zoe’s song, we must have that, and then we must have charades. +Here is M’sieu’ Fynes--he can make splendid charades for us. Then the +dance at the last--ah, yes, yes, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques! Let it be like +that. We all planned it, and though it is your birthday, it’s us are +making the fete.” + +“As you will then, as you will, little ones,” Jean Jacques acquiesced +with a half-sigh; but he did not look at his daughter. Somehow, +suddenly, a strange constraint possessed him where Zoe was concerned. +“Then let us have Zoe’s song; let us have ‘La Claire Fontaine’,” cried +the black-eyed young madcap who held Jean Jacques’ arms. + +But Zoe interrupted. “No, no,” she protested, “the singing spell is +broken. We will have the song after the charades--after the charades.” + +“Good, good--after the charades!” they all cried, for there would be +charades like none which had ever been played before, with a real actor +to help them, to carry them through as they did on the stage. To them +the stage was compounded of mystery, gaiety and the forbidden. + +So, for the next half-hour they were all at the disposal of the Man from +Outside, who worked as though it was a real stage, and they were real +players, and there were great audiences to see them. It was all quite +wonderful, and it involved certain posings, attitudes, mimicry and +pantomime, for they were really ingenious charades. + +So it happened that Zoe’s fingers often came in touch with those of +the stage-manager, that his hands touched her shoulders, that his cheek +brushed against her dark hair once, and that she had sensations never +experienced before. Why was it that she thrilled when she came near to +him, that her whole body throbbed and her heart fluttered when their +shoulders or arms touched? Her childlike nature, with all its warmth and +vibration of life, had never till now felt the stir of sex in its vital +sense. All men had in one way been the same to her; but now she realized +that there was a world-wide difference between her Judge Carcasson, her +little Clerk of the Court, and this young man whose eyes drank hers. She +had often been excited, even wildly agitated, had been like a sprite let +loose in quiet ways; but that was mere spirit. Here was body and senses +too; here was her whole being alive to a music, which had an aching +sweetness and a harmony coaxing every sense into delight. + +“To-morrow evening, by the flume, where the beechtrees are--come--at +six. I want to speak with you. Will you come?” + +Thus whispered the maker of this music of the senses, who directed the +charades, but who was also directing the course of another life than his +own. + +“Yes, if I can,” was Zoe’s whispered reply, and the words shook as she +said them; for she felt that their meeting in the beech-trees by the +flume would be of consequence beyond imagination. + +Judge Carcasson had always said that Zoe had judgment beyond her years; +M. Fille had remarked often that she had both prudence and shrewdness as +well as a sympathetic spirit; but M. Fille’s little whispering sister, +who could never be tempted away from her home to any house, to whom the +market and the church were like pilgrimages to distant wilds, had said +to her brother: + +“Wait, Armand--wait till Zoe is waked, and then prudence and wisdom will +be but accident. If all goes well, you will see prudence and wisdom; but +if it does not, you will see--ah, but just Zoe!” + +The now alert Jean Jacques had seen the whispering of the two, though he +did not know what had been said. It was, however, something secret, and +if it was secret, then it was--yes, it was love; and love between his +daughter and that waif of the world--the world of the stage--in which +men and women were only grown-up children, and bad grown-up children at +that--it was not to be endured. One thing was sure, the man should come +to the Manor Cartier no more. He would see to that to-morrow. There +would be no faltering or paltering on his part. His home had been shaken +to its foundations once, and he was determined that it should not fall +about his ears a second time. An Englishman, an actor, a Protestant, and +a renegade lawyer! It was not to be endured. + +The charade now being played was the best of the evening. One of the +madcap friends of Zoe was to be a singing-girl. She was supposed to +carry a tambourine. When her turn to enter came, with a look of mischief +and a gay dancing step, she ran into the room. In her hands was a +guitar, not a tambourine. When Zoe saw the guitar she gave a cry. + +“Where did you get that?” she asked in a low, shocked, indignant voice. + +“In your room--your bedroom,” was the half-frightened answer. “I saw it +on the dresser, and I took it.” + +“Come, come, let’s get on with the charade,” urged the Man from Outside. + +On the instant’s pause, in which Zoe looked at her lover almost +involuntarily, and without fully understanding what he said, someone +else started forward with a smothered exclamation--of anger, of horror, +of dismay. It was Jean Jacques. He was suddenly transformed. + +His eyes were darkened by hideous memory, his face alight with passion. +He caught from the girl’s hands the guitar--Carmen’s forgotten guitar +which he had not seen for seven years--how well he knew it! With both +hands he broke it across his knee. The strings, as they snapped, gave +a shrill, wailing cry, like a voice stopped suddenly by death. Stepping +jerkily to the fireplace he thrust it into the flame. + +“Ah, there!” he said savagely. “There--there!” When he turned round +slowly again, his face--which he had never sought to control before +he had his great Accident seven years ago--was under his command. A +strange, ironic-almost sardonic-smile was on his lips. + +“It’s in the play,” he said. + +“No, it’s not in the charade, Monsieur Barbille,” said the Man from +Outside fretfully. + +“That is the way I read it, m’sieu’,” retorted Jean Jacques, and he made +a motion to the fiddler. + +“The dance! The dance!” he exclaimed. + +But yet he looked little like a man who wished to dance, save upon a +grave. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. “I DO NOT WANT TO GO” + +It is a bad thing to call down a crisis in the night-time. A “scene” at +midnight is a savage enemy of ultimate understanding, and that Devil, +called Estrangement, laughs as he observes the objects of his attention +in conflict when the midnight candle burns. + +He should have been seized with a fit of remorse, however, at the sight +he saw in the Manor Cartier at midnight of the day when Jean Jacques +Barbille had reached his fiftieth year. There is nothing which, for +pathos and for tragedy, can compare with a struggle between the young +and the old. + +The Devil of Estrangement when he sees it, may go away and indulge +himself in sleep; for there will be no sleep for those who, one young +and the other old, break their hearts on each other’s anvils, when the +lights are low and it is long till morning. + +When Jean Jacques had broken the forgotten guitar which his daughter had +retrieved from her mother’s life at the Manor Cartier (all else he had +had packed and stored away in the flour-mill out of sight) and thrown it +in the fire, there had begun a revolt in the girl’s heart, founded on a +sense of injustice, but which itself became injustice also; and that is +a dark thing to come between those who love--even as parent and child. + +After her first exclamation of dismay and pain, Zoe had regained her +composure, and during the rest of the evening she was full of feverish +gaiety. Indeed her spirits and playful hospitality made the evening a +success in spite of the skeleton at the feast. Jean Jacques had also +roused himself, and, when the dance began, he joined in with spirit, +though his face was worn and haggard even when lighted by his smile. But +though the evening came to the conventional height of hilarity, there +was a note running through it which made even the youngest look at each +other, as though to say, “Now, what’s going to happen next!” + +Three people at any rate knew that something was going to happen. They +were Zoe, the Man from Outside and M. Fille. Zoe had had more than one +revelation that night, and she felt again as she did one day, seven +years before, when, coming home from over the hills, she had stepped +into a house where Horror brooded as palpably as though it sat beside +the fire, or hung above the family table. She had felt something as soon +as she had entered the door that far-off day, though the house seemed +empty. It was an emptiness which was filled with a torturing presence or +torturing presenes. It had stilled her young heart. What was it? She +had learned the truth soon enough. Out of the sunset had come her father +with a face twisted with misery, and as she ran to him, he had caught +her by both shoulders, looked through her eyes to something far beyond, +and hoarsely said: “She is gone--gone from us! She has run away from +home! Curse her baptism--curse it, curse it!” + +Zoe could never forget these last words she had ever heard her father +speak of Carmen. They were words which would make any Catholic shudder +to hear. It was a pity he had used them, for they made her think at last +that her mother had been treated with injustice. This, in spite of the +fact that in the days, now so far away, when her mother was with them +she had ever been nearer to her father, and that, after first childhood, +she and her mother were not so close as they had been, when she went to +sleep to the humming of a chanson of Cadiz. Her own latent motherhood, +however, kept stealing up out of the dim distances of childhood’s +ignorance and, with modesty and allusiveness, whispering knowledge in +her ear. So it was that now she looked back pensively to the years she +had spent within sight and sound of her handsome mother, and out of the +hunger of her own spirit she had come to idealize her memory. It was +good to have a loving father; but he was a man, and he was so busy just +when she wanted--when she wanted she knew not what, but at least to go +and lay her head on a heart that would understand what was her sorrow, +her joy, or her longing. + +And now here at last was come Crisis, which showed its thunderous +head in the gay dance, and shook his war-locks in the fire, where her +mother’s guitar had shrieked in its last agony. + +When all the guests had gone, when the bolts had been shot home, and old +Seraphe Corniche had gone to bed, father and daughter came face to face. + +There was a moment’s pause, as the two looked at each other, and then +Zoe came up to Jean Jacques to kiss him good-night. It was her way of +facing the issue. Instinctively she knew that he would draw back, and +that the struggle would begin. It might almost seem that she had invited +it; for she had let the Man from Outside hold her hand for far longer +than courtesy required, while her father looked on with fretful +eyes--even with a murmuring which was not a benediction. Indeed, he had +evaded shaking hands with his hated visitor by suddenly offering him a +cigar, and then in the doorway itself handing a lighted match. + +“His eminence, Cardinal Christophe, gave these cigars to me when he +passed through St. Saviour’s five years ago,” Jean Jacques had remarked +loftily, “and I always smoke one on my birthday. I am a good Catholic, +and his eminence rested here for a whole day.” + +He had had a grim pleasure in avoiding the handshake, and in having the +Protestant outsider smoke the Catholic cigar! In his anger it seemed to +him that he had done something worthy almost of the Vatican, indeed of +the great Cardinal Christophe himself. Even in his moments of crisis, +in his hours of real tragedy, in the times when he was shaken to the +centre, Jean Jacques fancied himself more than a little. It was as +the master-carpenter had remarked seven years before, he was always +involuntarily saying, “Here I come--look at me. I am Jean Jacques +Barbille!” + +When Zoe reached out a hand to touch his arm, and raised her face as +though to kiss him good-night, Jean Jacques drew back. + +“Not yet, Zoe,” he said. “There are some things--What is all this +between you and that man?... I have seen. You must not forget who you +are--the daughter of Jean Jacques Barbille, of the Manor Cartier, whose +name is known in the whole province, who was asked to stand for the +legislature. You are Zoe Barbille--Mademoiselle Zoe Barbille. We do not +put on airs. We are kind to our neighbours, but I am descended from the +Baron of Beaugard. I have a place--yes, a place in society; and it is +for you to respect it. You comprehend?” + +Zoe flushed, but there was no hesitation whatever in her reply. “I am +what I have always been, and it is not my fault that I am the daughter +of M. Jean Jacques Barbille! I have never done anything which was not +good enough for the Manor Cartier.” She held her head firmly as she said +it. + +Now Jean Jacques flushed, and he did hesitate in his reply. He hated +irony in anyone else, though he loved it in himself, when heaven gave +him inspiration thereto. He was in a state of tension, and was ready +to break out, to be a force let loose--that is the way he would have +expressed it; and he was faced by a new spirit in his daughter which +would surely spring the mine, unless he secured peace by strategy. He +had sense enough to feel the danger. + +He did not see, however, any course for diplomacy here, for she had +given him his cue in her last words. As a pure logician he was bound to +take it, though it might lead to drama of a kind painful to them both. + +“It is not good enough for the Manor Cartier that you go falling in love +with a nobody from nowhere,” he responded. + +“I am not falling in love,” she rejoined. + +“What did you mean, then, by looking at him as you did; by whispering +together; by letting him hold your hand when he left, and him looking at +you as though he’d eat you up--without sugar!” + +“I said I was not falling in love,” she persisted, quietly, but with +characteristic boldness. “I am in love.” + +“You are in love with him--with that interloper! Heaven of heavens, do +you speak the truth? Answer me, Zoe Barbille.” + +She bridled. “Certainly I will answer. Did you think I would let a man +look at me as he did, that I would look at a man as I looked at him, +that I would let him hold my hand as I did, if I did not love him? Have +you ever seen me do it before?” + +Her voice was even and quiet--as though she had made up her mind on a +course, and meant to carry it through to the end. + +“No, I never saw you look at a man like that, and everything is as you +say, but--” his voice suddenly became uneven and higher--pitched and a +little hoarse, “but he is English, he is an actor--only that; and he is +a Protestant.” + +“Only that?” she asked, for the tone of his voice was such as one would +use in speaking of a toad or vermin, and she could not bear it. “Is it a +disgrace to be any one of those things?” + +“The Barbilles have been here for two hundred years; they have been +French Catholics since the time of”--he was not quite sure--“since the +time of Louis XI.,” he added at a venture, and then paused, overcome by +his own rashness. + +“Yes, that is a long time,” she said, “but what difference does it make? +We are just what we are now, and as if there never had been a Baron of +Beaugard. What is there against Gerard except that he is an actor, that +he is English, and that he is a Protestant? Is there anything?” + +“Sacre, is it not enough? An actor, what is that--to pretend to be +someone else and not to be yourself!” + +“It would be better for a great many people to be someone else rather +than themselves--for nothing; and he does it for money.” + +“For money! What money has he got? You don’t know. None of us know. +Besides, he’s a Protestant, and he’s English, and that ends it. There +never has been an Englishman or a Protestant in the Barbille family, and +it shan’t begin at the Manor Cartier.” Jean Jacques’ voice was rising in +proportion as he perceived her quiet determination. Here was something +of the woman who had left him seven years ago--left this comfortable +home of his to go to disgrace and exile, and God only knew what else! +Here in this very room--yes, here where they now were, father and +daughter, stood husband and wife that morning when he had his hand on +the lever prepared to destroy the man who had invaded his home; who had +cast a blight upon it, which remained after all the years; after he had +done all a man could do to keep the home and the woman too. The woman +had gone; the home remained with his daughter in it, and now again there +was a fight for home and the woman. Memory reproduced the picture of the +mother standing just where the daughter now stood, Carmen quiet and well +in hand, and himself all shaken with weakness, and with all power gone +out of him--even the power which rage and a murderous soul give. + +But yet this was different. There was no such shame here as had fallen +on him seven years ago. But there was a shame after its kind; and if it +were not averted, there was the end of the home, of the prestige, the +pride and the hope of “M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosophe.” + +“What shall not begin here at the Manor Cartier?” she asked with burning +cheek. + +“The shame--it shall not begin here.” + +“What shame, father?” + +“Of marriage with a Protestant and an actor.” + +“You will not let me marry him?” she persisted stubbornly. + +Her words seemed to shake him all to pieces. It was as though he was +going through the older tragedy all over again. It had possessed him +ever since the sight of Carmen’s guitar had driven him mad three hours +ago. He swayed to and fro, even as he did when his hand left the lever +and he let the master-carpenter go free. It was indeed a philosopher +under torture, a spirit rocking on its anchor. Just now she had put into +words herself what, even in his fear, he had hoped had no place in her +mind--marriage with the man. He did not know this daughter of his very +well. There was that in her which was far beyond his ken. Thousands of +miles away in Spain it had origin, and the stream of tendency came down +through long generations, by courses unknown to him. + +“Marry him--you want to marry him!” he gasped. “You, my Zoe, want to +marry that tramp of a Protestant!” + +Her eyes blazed in anger. Tramp--the man with the air of a young +Alexander, with a voice like the low notes of the guitar thrown to the +flames! Tramp! + +“If I love him I ought to marry him,” she answered with a kind of +calmness, however, though all her body was quivering. Suddenly she came +close to her father, a great sympathy welled up in her eyes, and her +voice shook. + +“I do not want to leave you, father, and I never meant to do so. I never +thought of it as possible; but now it is different. I want to stay with +you; but I want to go with him too.” + +Presently as she seemed to weaken before him, he hardened. “You can’t +have both,” he declared with as much sternness as was possible to him, +and with a Norman wilfulness which was not strength. “You shall +not marry an actor and a Protestant. You shall not marry a man like +that--never--never--never. If you do, you will never have a penny of +mine, and I will never--” + +“Oh, hush--Mother of Heaven, hush!” she cried. “You shall not put a +curse on me too.” + +“What curse?” he burst forth, passion shaking him. “You cursed my +mother’s baptism. It would be a curse to be told that you would see +me no more, that I should be no more part of this home. There has been +enough of that curse here.... Ah, why--why--” she added with a sudden +rush of indignation, “why did you destroy the only thing I had of hers? +It was all that was left--her guitar. I loved it so.” + +All at once, with a cry of pain, she turned and ran to the +door--entering on the staircase which led to her room. In the doorway +she turned. + +“I can’t help it. I can’t help it, father. I love him--but I love you +too,” she cried. “I don’t want to go--oh, I don’t want to go! Why do +you--?” her voice choked; she did not finish the sentence; or if she +did, he could not hear. + +Then she opened the door wide, and disappeared into the darkness of +the unlighted stairway, murmuring, “Pity--have pity on me, holy Mother, +Vierge Marie!” Then the door closed behind her almost with a bang. + +After a moment of stupefied inaction Jean Jacques hurried over and +threw open the door she had closed. “Zoe--little Zoe, come back and +say good-night,” he called. But she did not hear, for, with a burst of +crying, she had hurried into her own room and shut and locked the door. + +It was a pity, a measureless pity, as Mary the Mother must have seen, +if she could see mortal life at all, that Zoe did not hear him. It might +have altered the future. As it was, the Devil of Estrangement might well +be content with his night’s work. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. BON MARCHE + +Vilray was having its market day, and everyone was either going to or +coming from market, or buying and selling in the little square by +the Court House. It was the time when the fruits were coming in, when +vegetables were in full yield, when fish from the Beau Cheval were to be +had in plenty--from mud-cats and suckers, pike and perch, to rock-bass, +sturgeon and even maskinonge. Also it was the time of year when butter +and eggs, chickens and ducks were so cheap that it was a humiliation +not to buy. There were other things on sale also, not for eating +and drinking, but for wear and household use--from pots and pans to +rag-carpets and table-linen, from woollen yarn to pictures of the Virgin +and little calvaries. + +These were side by side with dried apples, bottled fruits, jars of maple +syrup, and cordials of so generous and penetrating a nature that the +currant and elderberry wine by which they were flanked were tipple for +babes beside them. Indeed, when a man wanted to forget himself quickly +he drank one of these cordials, in preference to the white whisky so +commonly imbibed in the parishes. But the cordials being expensive, they +were chiefly bought for festive occasions like a wedding, a funeral, a +confirmation, or the going away of some young man or young woman to +the monastery or the convent to forget the world. Meanwhile, if these +spiritual argonauts drank it, they were likely to forget the world on +the way to their voluntary prisons. It was very seldom that a man or +woman bought the cordials for ordinary consumption, and when that was +done, it would almost make a parish talk! Yet cordials of nice brown, +of delicate green, of an enticing yellow colour, were here for sale +at Vilray market on the morning after the painful scene at the Manor +Cartier between Zoe and her father. + +The market-place was full--fuller than it had been for many a day. A +great many people were come in as much to “make fete” as to buy and +sell. It was a saint’s day, and the bell of St. Monica’s had been +ringing away cheerfully twice that morning. To it the bell of the Court +House had made reply, for a big case was being tried in the court. It +was a river-driving and lumber case for which many witnesses had +been called; and there were all kinds of stray people in the +place--red-shirted river-drivers, a black-coated Methodist minister from +Chalfonte, clerks from lumber-firms, and foremen of lumber-yards; and +among these was one who greatly loved such a day as this when he could +be free from work, and celebrate himself! + +Other people might celebrate saints dead and gone, and drink to ‘La +Patrie’, and cry “Vive Napoleon!” or “Vive la Republique!” or “Vive la +Reine!” though this last toast of the Empire was none too common--but he +could only drink with real sincerity to the health of Sebastian Dolores, +which was himself. Sebastian Dolores was the pure anarchist, the most +complete of monomaniacs. + +“Here comes the father of the Spanische,” remarked Mere Langlois, who +presided over a heap of household necessities, chiefly dried fruits, +preserves and pickles, as Sebastian Dolores appeared not far away. + +“Good-for-nothing villain! I pity the poor priest that confesses him.” + +“Who is the Spanische?” asked a young woman from her own stall or stand +very near, as she involuntarily arranged her hair and adjusted her +waist-belt; for the rakish-looking reprobate, with the air of having +been somewhere, was making towards them; and she was young enough to +care how she looked when a man, who took notice, was near. Her own +husband had been a horse-doctor, farmer, and sportsman of a kind, and +she herself was now a farmer of a kind; and she had only resided in the +parish during the three years since she had been married to, and buried, +Palass Poucette. + +Old Mere Langlois looked at her companion in merchanting irritably, then +she remembered that Virginie Poucette was a stranger, in a way, and was +therefore deserving of pity, and she said with compassionate patronage: +“Newcomer you--I’d forgotten. Look you then, the Spanische was the wife +of my third cousin, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, and--” + +Virginie Poucette nodded, and the slight frown cleared from her low yet +shapely forehead. “Yes, yes, of course I know. I’ve heard enough. What +a fool she was, and M’sieu’ Jean Jacques so rich and kind and +good-looking! So this is her father--well, well, well!” + +Palass Poucette’s widow leaned forward, and looked intently at Sebastian +Dolores, who had stopped near by, and facing a couple of barrels on +which were exposed some bottles of cordial and home-made wine. He +was addressing himself with cheerful words to the dame that owned the +merchandise. + +“I suppose you think it’s a pity Jean Jacques can’t get a divorce,” + said Mere Langlois, rather spitefully to Virginie, for she had her +sex’s aversion to widows who had had their share of mankind, and were +afterwards free to have someone else’s share as well. But suddenly +repenting, for Virginie was a hard-working widow who had behaved +very well for an outsider--having come from Chalfonte beyond the Beau +Chevalshe added: “But if he was a Protestant and could get a divorce, +and you did marry him, you’d make him have more sense than he’s got; +for you’ve a quiet sensible way, and you’ve worked hard since Palass +Poucette died.” + +“Where doesn’t he show sense, that M’sieu’ Jean Jacques?” the younger +woman asked. + +“Where? Why, with his girl--with Ma’m’selle.” “Everybody I ever heard +speaks well of Ma’m’selle Zoe,” returned the other warmly, for she had +a very generous mind and a truthful, sentimental heart. Mere Langlois +sniffed, and put her hands on her hips, for she had a daughter of her +own; also she was a relation of Jean Jacques, and therefore resented in +one way the difference in their social position, while yet she plumed +herself on being kin. + +“Then you’ll learn something now you never knew before,” she said. +“She’s been carrying on--there’s no other word for it--with an actor +fellow--” + +“Yes, yes, I did hear about him--a Protestant and an Englishman.” + +“Well, then, why do you pretend you don’t know--only to hear me talk, is +it? Take my word, I’d teach cousin Zoe a lesson with all her education +and her two years at the convent. Wasn’t it enough that her mother +should spoil everything for Jean Jacques, and make the Manor Cartier +a place to point the finger at, without her bringing disgrace on the +parish too! What happened last night--didn’t I hear this morning before +I had my breakfast! Didn’t I--” + +She then proceeded to describe the scene in which Jean Jacques had +thrown the wrecked guitar of his vanished spouse into the fire. Before +she had finished, however, something occurred which swept them into +another act of the famous history of Jean Jacques Barbille and his +house. + +She had arrived at the point where Zoe had cried aloud in pain at her +father’s incendiary act, when there was a great stir at the Court House +door which opened on the market-place, and vagrant cheers arose. +These were presently followed by a more disciplined fusillade; which +presently, in turn, was met by hisses and some raucous cries of +resentment. These increased as a man appeared on the steps of the Court +House, looked round for a moment in a dazed kind of way, then seeing +some friends below who were swarming towards him, gave a ribald cry, and +scrambled down the steps towards them. + +He was the prisoner whose release had suddenly been secured by a +piece of evidence which had come as a thunder-clap on judge and jury. +Immediately after giving this remarkable evidence the witness--Sebastian +Dolores--had left the court-room. He was now engaged in buying cordials +in the market-place--in buying and drinking them; for he had pulled the +cork out of a bottle filled with a rich yellow liquid, and had drained +half the bottle at a gulp. Presently he offered the remainder to a +passing carter, who made a gesture of contempt and passed on, for, to +him, white whisky was the only drink worth while. Besides, he disliked +Sebastian Dolores. Then, with a flourish, the Spaniard tendered the +bottle to Madame Langlois and Palass Poucette’s widow, at whose corner +of merchandise he had now arrived. + +Surely there never was a more benign villain and perjurer in the world +than Sebastian Dolores! His evidence, given a half-hour before, with +every sign of truthfulness, was false. The man--Rocque Valescure--for +whom he gave it was no friend of his; but he owned a tavern called “The +Red Eagle,” a few miles from the works where the Spaniard was employed; +also Rocque Valescure’s wife set a good table, and Sebastian Dolores was +a very liberal feeder; when he was not hungry he was always thirsty. The +appeasement of hunger and thirst was now become a problem to him, for +his employers at Beauharnais had given him a month’s notice because of +certain irregularities which had come to their knowledge. Like a wise +man Sebastian Dolores had said nothing about this abroad, but had +enlarged his credit in every direction, and had then planned this piece +of friendly perjury for Rocque Valescure, who was now descending +the steps of the Court House to the arms of his friends and amid the +execrations of his foes. What the alleged crime was does not matter. +It has no vital significance in the history of Jean Jacques Barbille, +though it has its place as a swivel on which the future swung. + +Sebastian Dolores had saved Rocque Valescure from at least three years +in jail, and possibly a very heavy fine as well; and this service +must have its due reward. Something for nothing was not the motto of +Sebastian Dolores; and he confidently looked forward to having a home at +“The Red Eagle” and a banker in its landlord. He was no longer certain +that he could rely on help from Jean Jacques, to whom he already owed so +much. That was why he wanted to make Rocque Valescure his debtor. It +was not his way to perjure his soul for nothing. He had done so in +Spain--yet not for nothing either. He had saved his head, which was now +doing useful work for himself and for a needy fellow-creature. No one +could doubt that he had helped a neighbour in great need, and had done +it at some expense to his own nerve and brain. None but an expert could +have lied as he had done in the witness-box. Also he had upheld his lies +with a striking narrative of circumstantiality. He made things fit +in “like mortised blocks” as the Clerk of the Court said to Judge +Carcasson, when they discussed the infamy afterwards with clear +conviction that it was perjury of a shameless kind; for one who would +perjure himself to save a man from jail, would also swear a man into the +gallows-rope. But Judge Carcasson had not been able to charge the +jury in that sense, for there was no effective evidence to rebut the +untruthful attestation of the Spaniard. It had to be taken for what it +was worth, since the prosecuting attorney could not shake it; and yet to +the Court itself it was manifestly false witness. + +Sebastian Dolores was too wise to throw himself into the arms of his +released tavern-keeper here immediately after the trial, or to allow +Rocque Valescure a like indiscretion and luxury; for there was a strong +law against perjury, and right well Sebastian Dolores knew that old +Judge Carcasson would have little mercy on him, in spite of the fact +that he was the grandfather of Zoe Barbille. The Judge would probably +think that safe custody for his wayward character would be the kindest +thing he could do for Zoe. Therefore it was that Sebastian Dolores +paid no attention to the progress of the released landlord of “The Red +Eagle,” though, by a glance out of the corner of his eyes, he made sure +that the footsteps of liberated guilt were marching at a tangent from +where he was--even to the nearest tavern. + +It was enough for Dolores that he should watch the result of his good +deed from the isolated area where he now was, in the company of two +virtuous representatives of domesticity. His time with liberated guilt +would come! He chuckled to think how he had provided himself with +a refuge against his hour of trouble. That very day he had left his +employment, meaning to return no more, securing his full wages through +having suddenly become resentful and troublesome, neglectful--and +imperative. To avoid further unpleasantness the firm had paid him all +his wages; and he had straightway come to Vilray to earn his bed +and board by other means than through a pen, a ledger and a gift for +figures. It would not be a permanent security against the future, but +it would suffice for the moment. It was a rest-place on the road. If +the worst came to the worst, there was his grand-daughter and his dear +son-in-law whom he so seldom saw--blood was thicker than water, and he +would see to it that it was not thinned by neglect. + +Meanwhile he ogled Palass Poucette’s widow with one eye, and talked +softly with his tongue to Mere Langlois, as he importuned Madame to “Sip +the good cordial in the name of charity to all and malice towards none.” + +“You’re a bad man--you, and I want none of your cordials,” was Mere +Langlois’s response. “Malice towards none, indeed! If you and the devil +started business in the same street, you’d make him close up shop in a +year. I’ve got your measure, for sure; I have you certain as an arm and +a pair of stirrups.” + +“I go about doing good--only good,” returned the old sinner with a leer +at the young widow, whose fingers he managed to press unseen, as he +swung the little bottle of cordial before the eyes of Mere Langlois. +He was not wholly surprised when Palass Poucette’s widow did not show +abrupt displeasure at his bold familiarity. + +A wild thought flashed into his mind. Might there not be another refuge +here--here in Palass Poucette’s widow! He was sixty-three, it was true, +and she was only thirty-two; but for her to be an old man’s darling who +had no doubt been a young man’s slave, that would surely have its weight +with her. Also she owned the farm where she lived; and she was pleasant +pasturage--that was the phrase he used in his own mind, even as his eye +swept from Mere Langlois to hers in swift, hungry inquiry. + +He seemed in earnest when he spoke--but that was his way; it had done +him service often. “I do good whenever it comes my way to do it,” he +continued. “I left my work this morning”--he lied of course--“and hired +a buggy to bring me over here, all at my own cost, to save a fellow-man. +There in the Court House he was sure of prison, with a wife and three +small children weeping in ‘The Red Eagle’; and there I come at great +expense and trouble to tell the truth--before all to tell the truth--and +save him and set him free. Yonder he is in the tavern, the work of my +hands, a gift to the world from an honest man with a good heart and a +sense of justice. But for me there would be a wife and three children +in the bondage of shame, sorrow, poverty and misery”--his eyes again +ravished the brown eyes of Palass Poucette’s widow--“and here again I +drink to my own health and to that of all good people--with charity to +all and malice towards none!” + +The little bottle of golden cordial was raised towards Mere Langlois. +The fingers of one hand, however, were again seeking those of the +comely young widow who was half behind him, when he felt them caught +spasmodically away. Before he had time to turn round he heard a voice, +saying: “I should have thought that ‘With malice to all and charity +towards none,’ was your motto, Dolores.” + +He knew that voice well enough. He had always had a lurking fear that +he would hear it say something devastating to him, from the great chair +where its owner sat and dispensed what justice a jury would permit +him to do. That devastating something would be agony to one who loved +liberty and freedom--had not that ever been his watchword, liberty and +freedom to do what he pleased in the world and with the world? Yes, he +well knew Judge Carcasson’s voice. He would have recognized it in the +dark--or under the black cap. “M’sieu’ le juge!” he said, even before +he turned round and saw the faces of the tiny Judge and his Clerk of +the Court. There was a kind of quivering about his mouth, and a startled +look in his eyes as he faced the two. But there was the widow of Palass +Poucette, and, if he was to pursue and frequent her, something must be +done to keep him decently figured in her eye and mind. + +“It cost me three dollars to come here and save a man from jail to-day, +m’sieu’ le juge,” he added firmly. The Judge pressed the point of his +cane against the stomach of the hypocrite and perjurer. “If the +Devil and you meet, he will take off his hat to you, my escaped +anarchist”--Dolores started almost violently now--“for you can teach +him much, and Ananias was the merest aboriginal to you. But we’ll get +you--we’ll get you, Dolores. You saved that guilty fellow by a careful +and remarkable perjury to-day. In a long experience I have never seen a +better performance--have you, monsieur?” he added to M. Fille. + +“But once,” was the pointed and deliberate reply. “Ah, when was that?” + asked Judge Carcasson, interested. + +“The year monsieur le juge was ill, and Judge Blaquiere took your place. +It was in Vilray at the Court House here.” + +“Ah--ah, and who was the phenomenon--the perfect liar?” asked the Judge +with the eagerness of the expert. + +“His name was Sebastian Dolores,” meditatively replied M. Fille. “It was +even a finer performance than that of to-day.” + +The Judge gave a little grunt of surprise. “Twice, eh?” he asked. “Yet +this was good enough to break any record,” he added. He fastened the +young widow’s eyes. “Madame, you are young, and you have an eye of +intelligence. Be sure of this: you can protect yourself against almost +anyone except a liar--eh, madame?” he added to Mere Langlois. “I am sure +your experience of life and your good sense--” + +“My good sense would make me think purgatory was hell if I saw him”--she +nodded savagely at Dolores as she said it, for she had seen that last +effort of his to take the fingers of Palass Poucette’s widow--“if I saw +him there, m’sieu’ le juge.” + +“We’ll have you yet--we’ll have you yet, Dolores,” said the Judge, as +the Spaniard prepared to move on. But, as Dolores went, he again caught +the eyes of the young widow. + +This made him suddenly bold. “‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against +thy neighbour,’--that is the commandment, is it not, m’sieu’ le juge? +You are doing against me what I didn’t do in Court to-day. I saved a man +from your malice.” + +The crook of the Judge’s cane caught the Spaniard’s arm, and held him +gently. + +“You’re possessed of a devil, Dolores,” he said, “and I hope I’ll never +have to administer justice in your case. I might be more man than judge. +But you will come to no good end. You will certainly--” + +He got no further, for the attention of all was suddenly arrested by a +wagon driving furiously round the corner of the Court House. It was a +red wagon. In it was Jean Jacques Barbille. + +His face was white and set; his head was thrust forward, as though +looking at something far ahead of him; the pony stallions he was driving +were white with sweat, and he had an air of tragic helplessness and +panic. + +Suddenly a child ran across the roadway in front of the ponies, and the +wild cry of the mother roused Jean Jacques out of his agonized trance. +He sprang to his feet, wrenching the horses backward and aside with +deftness and presence of mind. The margin of safety was not more than a +foot, but the child was saved. + +The philosopher of the Manor Cartier seemed to come out of a dream +as men and women applauded, and cries arose of “Bravo, M’sieu’ Jean +Jacques!” + +At any other time this would have made Jean Jacques nod and smile, or +wave a hand, or exclaim in good fellowship. Now, however, his eyes were +full of trouble, and the glassiness of the semi-trance leaving them, +they shifted restlessly here and there. Suddenly they fastened on the +little group of which Judge Carcasson was the centre. He had stopped his +horses almost beside them. + +“Ah!” he said, “ah!” as his eyes rested on the Judge. “Ah!” he again +exclaimed, as the glance ran from the Judge to Sebastian Dolores. “Ah, +mercy of God!” he added, in a voice which had both a low note and a high +note-deep misery and shrill protest in one. Then he seemed to choke, and +words would not come, but he kept looking, looking at Sebastian Dolores, +as though fascinated and tortured by the sight of him. + +“What is it, Jean Jacques?” asked the little Clerk of the Court gently, +coming forward and laying a hand on the steaming flank of a spent and +trembling pony. + +As though he could not withdraw his gaze from Sebastian Dolores, Jean +Jacques did not look at M. Fille; but he thrust out the long whip +he carried towards the father of his vanished Carmen and his Zoe’s +grandfather, and with the deliberation of one to whom speaking was like +the laceration of a nerve he said: “Zoe’s run away--gone--gone!” + +At that moment Louis Charron, his cousin, at whose house Gerard Fynes +had lodged, came down the street galloping his horse. Seeing the red +wagon, he made for it, and drew rein. + +“It’s no good, Jean Jacques,” he called. “They’re married and gone to +Montreal--married right under our noses by the Protestant minister at +Terrebasse Junction. I’ve got the telegram here from the stationmaster +at Terrebasse.... Ah, the villain to steal away like that--only a +child--from her own father! Here it is--the telegram. But believe me, an +actor, a Protestant and a foreigner--what a devil’s mess!” + +He waved the telegram towards Jean Jacques. + +“Did he owe you anything, Louis?” asked old Mere Langlois, whose +practical mind was alert to find the material status of things. + +“Not a sou. Well, but he was honest, I’ll say that for the rogue and +seducer.” + +“Seducer--ah, God choke you with your own tongue!” cried Jean Jacques, +turning on Louis Charron with a savage jerk of the whip he held. “She is +as pure--” + +“It is no marriage, of course!” squeaked a voice from the crowd. + +“It’ll be all right among the English, won’t it, monsieur le juge?” + asked the gentle widow of Palass Poucette, whom the scene seemed to +rouse out of her natural shyness. + +“Most sure, madame, most sure,” answered the Judge. “It will be all +right among the English, and it is all right among the French so far +as the law is concerned. As for the Church, that is another +matter. But--but see,” he added addressing Louis Charron, “does the +station-master say what place they took tickets for?” + +“Montreal and Winnipeg,” was the reply. “Here it is in the telegram. +Winnipeg--that’s as English as London.” + +“Winnipeg--a thousand miles!” moaned Jean Jacques. + +With the finality which the tickets for Winnipeg signified, the shrill +panic emotion seemed to pass from him. In its mumbling, deadening force +it was like a sentence on a prisoner. + +As many eyes were on Sebastian Dolores as on Jean Jacques. “It’s the bad +blood that was in her,” said a farmer with a significant gesture towards +Sebastian Dolores. + +“A little bad blood let out would be a good thing,” remarked a truculent +river-driver, who had given evidence directly contrary to that given by +Sebastian Dolores in the trial just concluded. There was a savage look +in his eye. + +Sebastian Dolores heard, and he was not the man to invite trouble. He +could do no good where he was, and he turned to leave the market-place; +but in doing so he sought the eye of Virginie Poucette, who, however, +kept her face at an angle from him, as she saw Mere Langlois sharply +watching her. + +“Grandfather, mother and daughter, all of a piece!” said a spiteful +woman, as Sebastian Dolores passed her. The look he gave her was not +the same as that he had given to Palass Poucette’s widow. If it had +been given by a Spanish inquisitor to a heretic, little hope would have +remained in the heretic’s heart. Yet there was a sad patient look on his +face, as though he was a martyr. He had no wish to be a martyr; but he +had a feeling that for want of other means of expressing their sympathy +with Jean Jacques, these rough people might tar and feather him at +least; though it was only his misfortune that those sprung from his +loins had such adventurous spirits! + +Sebastian Dolores was not without a real instinct regarding things. What +was in his mind was also passing through that of the river-driver and a +few of his friends, and they carefully watched the route he was taking. + +Jean Jacques prepared to depart. He had ever loved to be the centre of a +picture, but here was a time when to be in the centre was torture. Eyes +of morbid curiosity were looking at the open wounds of his heart-ragged +wounds made by the shrapnel of tragedy and treachery, not the clean +wounds got in a fair fight, easily healed. For the moment at least the +little egoist was a mere suffering soul--an epitome of shame, misery and +disappointment. He must straightway flee the place where he was tied to +the stake of public curiosity and scorn. He drew the reins tighter, and +the horses straightened to depart. Then it was that old Judge Carcasson +laid a hand on his knee. + +“Come, come,” he said to the dejected and broken little man, “where is +your philosophy?” + +Jean Jacques looked at the Judge, as though with a new-born suspicion +that henceforth the world would laugh at him, and that Judge Carcasson +was setting the fashion; but seeing a pitying moisture in the other’s +eyes, he drew himself up, set his jaw, and calling on all the forces at +his command, he said: + +“Moi je suis philosophe!” + +His voice frayed a little on the last word, but his head was up now. +The Clerk of the Court would have asked to accompany him to the Manor +Cartier, but he was not sure that Jean Jacques would like it. He had a +feeling that Jean Jacques would wish to have his dark hour alone. So +he remained silent, and Jean Jacques touched his horses with the whip. +After starting, however, and having been followed for a hundred yards +or so by the pitying murmurs and a few I-told-you-so’s and revilings for +having married as he did, Jean Jacques stopped the ponies. Standing up +in the red wagon he looked round for someone whom, for a moment, he did +not see in the slowly shifting crowd. + +Philosophy was all very well, and he had courageously given his +allegiance to it, or a formula of it, a moment before; but there was +something deeper and rarer still in the little man’s soul. His heart +hungered for the two women who had been the joy and pride of his life, +even when he had been lost in the business of the material world. They +were more to him than he had ever known; they were parts of himself +which had slowly developed, as the features and characteristics of +ancestors gradually emerge and are emphasized in a descendant as his +years increase. Carmen and Zoe were more a part of himself now than they +had ever been. + +They were gone, the living spirits of his home. Anything that reminded +him of them, despite the pain of the reminder, was dear to him. Love +was greater than the vengeful desire of injured human nature. His eyes +wandered over the people, over the market. At last he saw what he was +looking for. He called. A man turned. Jean Jacques beckoned to him. He +came eagerly, he hurried to the red wagon. + +“Come home with me,” said Jean Jacques. + +The words were addressed to Sebastian Dolores, who said to himself that +this was a refuge surer than “The Red Eagle,” or the home of the widow +Poucette. He climbed in beside Jean Jacques with a sigh of content. + +“Ah, but that--but that is the end of our philosopher,” said Judge +Carcasson sadly to the Clerk of the Court, as with amazement he saw this +catastrophe. + +“Alas! if I had only asked to go with him, as I wished to do!” responded +M. Fille. “There, but a minute ago, it was in my mind,” he added with a +look of pain. + +“You missed your chance, falterer,” said the Judge severely. “If you +have a good thought, act on it--that is the golden rule. You missed your +chance. It will never come again. He has taken the wrong turning, our +unhappy Jean Jacques.” + +“Monsieur--oh, monsieur, do not shut the door in the face of God +like that!” said the shocked little master of the law. “Those two +together--it may be only for a moment.” + +“Ah, no, my little owl, Jean Jacques will wind the boa-constrictor round +his neck like a collar, all for love of those he has lost,” answered the +Judge with emotion; and he caught M. Fille’s arm in the companionship of +sorrow. + +In silence these two watched the red wagon till it was out of sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY + +Judge Carcasson was right. For a year after Zoe’s flight Jean Jacques +wrapped Sebastian Dolores round his neck like a collar, and it choked +him like a boaconstrictor. But not Sebastian Dolores alone did that. +When things begin to go wrong in the life of a man whose hands have +held too many things, the disorder flutters through all the radii of his +affairs, and presently they rattle away from the hub of his control. + +So it was with Jean Jacques. To take his reprobate father-in-law to his +lonely home would have brought him trouble in any case; but as things +were, the Spaniard became only the last straw which broke his camel’s +back. And what a burden his camel carried--flour-mill, saw-mill, +ash-factory, farms, a general store, lime-kilns, agency for +lightning-rods and insurance, cattle-dealing, the project for the new +cheese-factory, and money-lending! + +Money-lending? It seemed strange that Jean Jacques should be able to +lend money, since he himself had to borrow, and mortgage also, from time +to time. When things began to go really wrong with him financially, he +mortgaged his farms, his flour-mill, and saw-mill, and then lent money +on other mortgages. This he did because he had always lent money, and it +was a habit so associated with his prestige, that he tied himself up in +borrowing and lending and counter-mortgaging till, as the saying is, +“a Philadelphia lawyer” could not have unravelled his affairs without +having been born again in the law. That he was able to manipulate his +tangled affairs, while keeping the confidence of those from whom he +borrowed, and the admiration of those to whom he lent, was evidence of +his capacity. “Genius of a kind” was what his biggest creditor called it +later. + +After a personal visit to St. Saviour’s, this biggest creditor and +financial potentate--M. Mornay--said that if Jean Jacques had been +started right and trained right, he would have been a “general in the +financial field, winning big battles.” + +M. Mornay chanced to be a friend of Judge Carcasson, and when he visited +Vilray he remembered that the Judge had spoken often of his humble but +learned friend, the Clerk of the Court, and of his sister. So M. +Mornay made his way from the office of the firm of avocats whom he had +instructed in his affairs with Jean Jacques, to that of M. Fille. Here +he was soon engaged in comment on the master-miller and philosopher. + +“He has had much trouble, and no doubt his affairs have suffered,” + remarked M. Fille cautiously, when the ice had been broken and the Big +Financier had referred casually to the difficulties among which Jean +Jacques was trying to maintain equilibrium; “but he is a man who can do +things too hard for other men.” + +The Big Financier lighted another cigar and blew away several clouds of +smoke before he said in reply, “Yes, I know he has had family trouble +again, but that is a year ago, and he has had a chance to get another +grip of things.” + +“He did not sit down and mope,” explained M. Fille. “He was at work the +next day after his daughter’s flight just the same as before. He is a +man of great courage. Misfortune does not paralyse him.” + +M. Mornay’s speech was of a kind which came in spurts, with pauses of +thought between, and the pause now was longer than usual. + +“Paralysis--certainly not,” he said at last. “Physical activity is one +of the manifestations of mental, moral, and even physical shock and +injury. I’ve seen a man with a bullet in him run a half-mile--anywhere; +I’ve seen a man ripped up by a crosscut-saw hold himself together, and +walk--anywhere--till he dropped. Physical and nervous activity is one of +the forms which shattered force takes. I expect that your ‘M’sieu’ Jean +Jacques’ has been busier this last year than ever before in his life. +He’d have to be; for a man who has as many irons in the fire as he has, +must keep running from bellows to bellows when misfortune starts to damp +him down.” + +The Clerk of the Court sighed. He realized the significance of what his +visitor was saying. Ever Since Zoe had gone, Jean Jacques had been for +ever on the move, for ever making hay on which the sun did not shine. +Jean Jacques’ face these days was lined and changeful. It looked +unstable and tired--as though disturbing forces were working up to the +surface out of control. The brown eyes, too, were far more restless +than they had ever been since the Antoine was wrecked, and their owner +returned with Carmen to the Manor Cartier. But the new restlessness of +the eyes was different from the old. That was a mobility impelled by +an active, inquisitive soul, trying to observe what was going on in the +world, and to make sure that its possessor was being seen by the world. +This activity was that of a mind essentially concerned to find how many +ways it could see for escape from a maze of things; while his vanity +was taking new forms. It was always anxious to discover if the world was +trying to know how he was taking the blows of fate and fortune. He had +been determined that, whatever came, it should not see him paralysed or +broken. + +As M. Fille only nodded his head in sorrowful assent, the Big Financier +became more explicit. He was determined to lose nothing by Jean Jacques, +and he was prepared to take instant action when it was required; but +he was also interested in the man who might have done really powerful +things in the world, had he gone about them in the right way. + +“M. Barbille has had some lawsuits this year, is it not so?” he asked. + +“Two of importance, monsieur, and one is not yet decided,” answered M. +Fille. + +“He lost those suits of importance?” + +“That is so, monsieur.” + +“And they cost him six thousand dollars--and over?” The Big Financier +seemed to be pressing towards a point. + +“Something over that amount, monsieur.” + +“And he may lose the suit now before the Courts?” + +“Who can tell, monsieur!” vaguely commented the little learned official. + +M. Mornay was not to be evaded. “Yes, yes, but the case as it stands--to +you who are wise in experience of legal affairs, does it seem at all a +sure thing for him?” + +“I wish I could say it was, monsieur,” sadly answered the other. + +The Big Financier nodded vigorously. “Exactly. Nothing is so +unproductive as the law. It is expensive whether you win or lose, and +it is murderously expensive when you do lose. You will observe, I know, +that your Jean Jacques is a man who can only be killed once--eh?” + +“Monsieur?” M. Fille really did not grasp this remark. + +M. Mornay’s voice became precise. “I will explain. He has never created; +he has only developed what has been created. He inherited much of what +he has or has had. His designs were always affected by the fact that he +had never built from the very bottom. When he goes to pieces--” + +“Monsieur--to pieces!” exclaimed the Clerk of the Court painfully. + +“Well, put it another way. If he is broken financially, he will never +come up again. Not because of his age--I lost a second fortune at +fifty, and have a third ready to lose at sixty--but because the primary +initiative won’t be in him. He’ll say he has lost, and that there’s an +end to it all. His philosophy will come into play--just at the last. It +will help him in one way and harm him in another.” + +“Ah, then you know about his philosophy, monsieur?” queried M. Fille. +Was Jean Jacques’ philosophy, after all, to be a real concrete asset of +his life sooner or later? + +The Big Financier smiled, and turned some coins over in his pocket +rather loudly. Presently he said: “The first time I ever saw him he +treated me to a page of Descartes. It cost him one per cent. I always +charge a man for talking sentiment to me in business hours. I had to +listen to him, and he had to pay me for listening. I’ve no doubt his +general yearly expenditure has been increased for the same reason--eh, +Maitre Fille? He has done it with others--yes?” M. Fille waved a hand +in deprecation, and his voice had a little acidity as he replied: “Ah, +monsieur, what can we poor provincials do--any of us--in dealing with +men like you, philosophy or no philosophy? You get us between the +upper and the nether mill stones. You are cosmopolitan; M. Jean Jacques +Barbille is a provincial; and you, because he has soul enough to forget +business for a moment and to speak of things that matter more than money +and business, you grind him into powder.” + +M. Mornay shook his head and lighted his cigar again. “There you are +wrong, Maitre Fille. It is bad policy to grind to powder, or grind at +all, men out of whom you are making money. It is better to keep them +from between the upper and nether mill-stones. + +“I have done so with your Barbille. I could give him such trouble as +would bring things crashing down upon him at once, if I wanted to be +merely vicious in getting my own; but that would make it impossible for +me to meet at dinner my friend Judge Carcasson. So, as long as I can, I +will not press him. But I tell you that the margin of safety on which he +is moving now is too narrow--scarce a foot-hold. He has too much under +construction in the business of his life, and if one stone slips +out, down may come the whole pile. He has stopped building the +cheese-factory--that represents sheer loss. The ash-factory is to close +next week, the saw-mill is only paying its way, and the flour-mill and +the farms, which have to sustain the call of his many interests, can’t +stand the drain. Also, he has several people heavily indebted to him, +and if they go down--well, it depends on the soundness of the security +he holds. If they listened to him talk philosophy, encouraged him to +do it, and told him they liked it, when the bargain was being made, the +chances are the security is inadequate.” + +The Clerk of the Court bridled up. “Monsieur, you are very hard on a man +who for twenty-five years has been a figure and a power in this part of +the province. You sneer at one who has been a benefactor to the place +where he lives; who has given with the right hand and the left; whose +enterprise has been a source of profit to many; and who has got a savage +reward for the acts of a blameless and generous life. You know his +troubles, monsieur, and we who have seen him bear them with fortitude +and Christian philosophy, we resent--” + +“You need resent nothing, Maitre Fille,” interrupted the Big Financier, +not unkindly. “What I have said has been said to his friend and the +friend of my own great friend, Judge Carcasson; and I am only anxious +that he should be warned by someone whose opinions count with him; whom +he can trust--” + +“But, monsieur, alas!” broke in the Clerk of the Court, “that is the +trouble; he does not select those he can trust. He is too confiding. +He believes those who flatter him, who impose on his good heart. It has +always been so.” + +“I judge it is so still in the case of Monsieur Dolores, his daughter’s +grandfather?” the Big Financier asked quizzically. + +“It is so, monsieur,” replied M. Fille. “The loss of his daughter shook +him even more than the flight of his wife; and it is as though he could +not live without that scoundrel near him--a vicious man, who makes +trouble wherever he goes. He was a cause of loss to M. Barbille years +ago when he managed the ash-factory; he is very dangerous to women--even +now he is a danger to the future of a young widow” (he meant the widow +of Palass Poucette); “and he has caused a scandal by perjury as a +witness, and by the consequences--but I need not speak of that here. He +will do Jean Jacques great harm in the end, of that I am sure. The very +day Mademoiselle Zoe left the Manor Cartier to marry the English actor, +Jean Jacques took that Spanish bad-lot to his home; and there he stays, +and the old friends go--the old friends go; and he does not seem to miss +them.” + +There was something like a sob in M. Fille’s voice. He had loved Zoe in +a way that in a mother would have meant martyrdom, if necessary, and +in a father would have meant sacrifice when needed; and indeed he had +sacrificed both time and money to find Zoe. He had even gone as far as +Winnipeg on the chance of finding her, making that first big journey in +the world, which was as much to him in all ways as a journey to Bagdad +would mean to most people of M. Mornay’s world. Also he had spent money +since in corresponding with lawyers in the West whom he engaged to +search for her; but Zoe had never been found. She had never written +but one letter to Jean Jacques since her flight. This letter said, +in effect, that she would come back when her husband was no longer “a +beggar” as her father had called him, and not till then. It was written +en route to Winnipeg, at the dictation of Gerard Fynes, who had a +romantic view of life and a mistaken pride, but some courage too--the +courage of love. + +“He thinks his daughter will come back--yes?” asked M. Mornay. “Once +he said to me that he was sorry there was no lady to welcome me at the +Manor Cartier, but that he hoped his daughter would yet have the honour. +His talk is quite spacious and lofty at times, as you know.” + +“So--that is so, monsieur... Mademoiselle Zoe’s room is always ready for +her. At time of Noel he sent cards to all the families of the parish who +had been his friends, as from his daughter and himself; and when people +came to visit at the Manor on New Year’s Day, he said to each and all +that his daughter regretted she could not arrive in time from the +West to receive them; but that next year she would certainly have the +pleasure.” + +“Like the light in the window for the unreturning sailor,” somewhat +cynically remarked the Big Financier. “Did many come to the Manor on +that New Year’s Day?” + +“But yes, many, monsieur. Some came from kindness, and some because they +were curious--” + +“And Monsieur Dolores?” + +The lips of the Clerk of the Court curled, “He went about with a manner +as soft as that of a young cure. Butter would not melt in his mouth. +Some of the women were sorry for him, until they knew he had given one +of Jean Jacques’ best bear-skin rugs to Madame Palass Poucette for a New +Year’s gift.” + +The Big Financier laughed cheerfully. “It’s an old way to +popularity--being generous with other people’s money. That is why I am +here. The people that spend your Jean Jacques’ money will be spending +mine too, if I don’t take care.” + +M. Fille noted the hard look which now settled in M. Mornay’s face, and +it disturbed him. He rose and leaned over the table towards his visitor +anxiously. + +“Tell me, if you please, monsieur, is there any real and immediate +danger of the financial collapse of Jean Jacques?” + +The other regarded M. Fille with a look of consideration. He liked this +Clerk of the Court, but he liked Jean Jacques for the matter of that, +and away now from the big financial arena where he usually worked, his +natural instincts had play. He had come to St. Saviour’s with a bigger +thing in his mind than Jean Jacques and his affairs; he had come on the +matter of a railway, and had taken Jean Jacques on the way, as it were. +The scheme for the railway looked very promising to him, and he was in +good humour; so that all he said about Jean Jacques was free from that +general irritation of spirit which has sacrificed many a small man on +a big man’s altar. He saw the agitation he had caused, and he almost +repented of what he had already said; yet he had acted with a view to +getting M. Fille to warn Jean Jacques. + +“I repeat what I said,” he now replied. “Monsieur Jean Jacques’ affairs +are too nicely balanced. A little shove one way or another and over goes +the whole caboose. If anyone here has influence over him, it would be a +kindness to use it. That case before the Court of Appeal, for instance; +he’d be better advised to settle it, if there is still time. One or two +of the mortgages he holds ought to be foreclosed, so that he may get +out of them all the law will let him. He ought to pouch the money that’s +owing him; he ought to shave away his insurance, his lightning-rod, and +his horsedealing business; and he ought to sell his farms and his store, +and concentrate on the flour-mill and the saw-mill. He has had his +warnings generally from my lawyers, but what he wants most is the gentle +hand to lead him; and I should think that yours, M. Fille, is the hand +the Almighty would choose if He was concerned with what happens at St. +Saviour’s and wanted an agent.” + +The Clerk of the Court blushed greatly. This was a very big man indeed +in the great commercial world, and flattery from him had unusual +significance; but he threw out his hands with a gesture of helplessness, +and said: “Monsieur, if I could be of use I would; but he has ceased to +listen to me; he--” + +He got no further, for there was a sharp knock at the street door of the +outer office, and M. Fille hastened to the other room. After a moment he +came back, a familiar voice following him. + +“It is Monsieur Barbille, monsieur,” M. Fille said quietly, but with +apprehensive eyes. + +“Well--he wants to see me?” asked M. Mornay. “No, no, monsieur. It would +be better if he did not see you. He is in some agitation.” + +“Fille! Maitre Fille--be quick now,” called Jean Jacques’ voice from the +other room. + +“What did I say, monsieur?” asked the Big Financier. “The mind that’s +received a blow must be moving--moving; the man with the many irons must +be flying from bellows to bellows!” + +“Come, come, there’s no time to lose,” came Jean Jacques’ voice again, +and the handle of the door of their room turned. + +M. Fille’s hand caught the handle. “Excuse me, Monsieur Barbille,--a +minute please,” he persisted almost querulously. “Be good enough to keep +your manners... monsieur!” he added to the Financier, “if you do not +wish to speak with him, there is a door”--he pointed--“which will let +you into the side-street.” + +“What is his trouble?” asked M. Mornay. + +M. Fille hesitated, then said reflectively: “He has lost his case in the +Appeal Court, monsieur; also, his cousin, Auguste Charron, who has been +working the Latouche farm, has flitted, leaving--” + +“Leaving Jean Jacques to pay unexpected debts?” + +“So, monsieur.” + +“Then I can be of no use, I fear,” remarked M. Mornay dryly. + +“Fille! Fille!” came the voice of Jean Jacques insistently from the +room. + +“And so I will say au revoir, Monsieur Fille,” continued the Big +Financier. + +A moment later the great man was gone, and M. Fille was alone with the +philosopher of the Manor Cartier. + +“Well, well, why do you keep me waiting! Who was it in there--anyone +that’s concerned with my affairs?” asked Jean Jacques. + +In these days he was sensitive when there was no cause, and he was +credulous where he ought to be suspicious. The fact that the little man +had held the door against him made him sure that M. Fille had not wished +him to see the departed visitor. + +“Come, out with it--who was it making fresh trouble for me?” persisted +Jean Jacques. + +“No one making trouble for you, my friend,” answered the Clerk of the +Court, “but someone who was trying to do you a good turn.” + +“He must have been a stranger then,” returned Jean Jacques bitterly. +“Who was it?” + +M. Fille, after an instant’s further hesitation, told him. + +“Oh, him--M. Momay!” exclaimed Jean Jacques, with a look of relief, his +face lighting. “That’s a big man with a most capable and far-reaching +mind. He takes a thing in as the ocean mouths a river. If I had had +men like that to deal with all my life, what a different ledger I’d be +balancing now! Descartes, Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel--he +has an ear for them all. That is the intellectual side of him; and in +business”--he threw up a hand--“there he views the landscape from the +mountain-top. He has vision, strategy, executive. He is Napoleon +and Anacreon in one. He is of the builders on the one hand, of the +Illuminati and the Encyclopedistes on the other.” + +Even the Clerk of the Court, with his circumscribed range of thought and +experience, in that moment saw Jean Jacques as he really was. Here was +a man whose house of life was beginning to sway from an earthquake; +who had been smitten in several deadly ways, and was about to receive +buffetings beyond aught he had yet experienced, philosophizing on the +tight-rope--Blondin and Plato in one. Yet sardonically piteous as it +was, the incident had shown Jean Jacques with the germ of something big +in him. He had recognized in M. Mornay, who could level him to the dust +tomorrow financially, a master of the world’s affairs, a prospector of +life’s fields, who would march fearlessly beyond the farthest frontiers +into the unknown. Jean Jacques’ admiration of the lion who could, and +would, slay him was the best tribute to his own character. + +M. Fille’s eyes moistened as he realized it; and he knew that nothing he +could say or do would make this man accommodate his actions to the hard +rules of the business of life; he must for ever be applying to them +conceptions of a half-developed mind. + +“Quite so, quite so, Jean Jacques,” M. Fille responded gently, +“but”--here came a firmer note to his voice, for he had taken to heart +the lesson M. Mornay had taught him, and he was determined to do his +duty now when the opportunity was in his hand--“but you have got to deal +with things as they are; not as they might have been. If you cannot have +the great men you have to deal with the little men like me. You have to +prove yourself bigger than the rest of us by doing things better. A man +doesn’t fail only because of others, but also because of himself. You +were warned that the chances were all against you in the case that’s +just been decided, yet you would go on; you were warned that your +cousin, Auguste Charron, was in debt, and that his wife was mad to get +away from the farm and go West, yet you would take no notice. Now he +has gone, and you have to pay, and your case has gone against you in the +Appellate Court besides.... I will tell you the truth, my friend, even +if it cuts me to the heart. You have not kept your judgment in hand; you +have gone ahead like a bull at a gate; and you pay the price. You listen +to those who flatter, and on those who would go through fire and water +for you, you turn your back--on those who would help you in your hour of +trouble, in your dark day.” + +Jean Jacques drew himself up with a gesture, impatient, masterful and +forbidding. “I have fought my fight alone in the dark day; I have +not asked for any one’s help,” he answered. “I have wept on no man’s +shoulder. I have been mauled by the claws of injury and shame, and I +have not flinched. I have healed my own wounds, and I wear my scars +without--” + +He stopped, for there came a sharp rat-tat-tat at the door which opened +into the street. Somehow the commonplace, trivial interruption produced +on both a strange, even startling effect. It suddenly produced in their +minds a feeling of apprehension, as though there was whispered in their +ears, “Something is going to happen--beware!” + +Rat-tat-tat! The two men looked at each other. The same thought was in +the mind of both. Jean Jacques clutched at his beard nervously, then +with an effort he controlled himself. He took off his hat as though he +was about to greet some important person, or to receive sentence in +a court. Instinctively he felt the little book of philosophy which he +always carried now in his breast-pocket, as a pietist would finger his +beads in moments of fear or anxiety. The Clerk of the Court passed his +thin hand over his hair, as he was wont to do in court when the Judge +began his charge to the Jury, and then with an action more impulsive +than was usual with him, he held out his hand, and Jean Jacques grasped +it. Something was bringing them together just when it seemed that, in +the storm of Jean Jacques’ indignation, they were about to fall apart. +M. Fille’s eyes said as plainly as words could do, “Courage, my friend!” + +Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! The knocking was sharp and imperative now. The +Clerk of the Court went quickly forward and threw open the door. + +There stepped inside the widow of Palass Poucette. She had a letter in +her hand. “M’sieu’, pardon, if I intrude,” she said to M. Fille; “but I +heard that M’sieu’ Jean Jacques was here. I have news for him.” + +“News!” repeated Jean Jacques, and he looked like a man who was waiting +for what he feared to hear. “They told me at the post-office that you +were here. I got the letter only a quarter of an hour ago, and I thought +I would go at once to the Manor Cartier and tell M’sieu’ Jean Jacques +what the letter says. I wanted to go to the Manor Cartier for something +else as well, but I will speak of that by and by. It is the letter now.” + +She pulled off first one glove and then the other, still holding the +letter, as though she was about to perform some ceremony. “It was a +good thing I found out that M’sieu’ Jean Jacques was here. It saves a +four-mile drive,” she remarked. + +“The news--ah, nom de Dieu, the slowness of the woman--like a river +going uphill!” exclaimed Jean Jacques, who was finding it hard to still +the trembling of his limbs. + +The widow of Palass Poucette flushed, but she had some sense in her +head, and she realized that Jean Jacques was a little unbalanced at the +moment. Indeed, Jean Jacques was not so old that she would have found +it difficult to take a well-defined and warm interest in him, were +circumstances propitious. She held out the letter to him at once. “It is +from my sister in the West--at Shilah,” she explained. “There is nothing +in it you can’t read, and most of it concerns you.” Jean Jacques took +the letter, but he could not bring himself to read it, for Virginie +Poucette’s manner was not suggestive of happy tidings. After an +instant’s hesitation he handed the letter to M. Fille, who pressed his +lips with an air of determination, and put on his glasses. + +Jean Jacques saw the face of the Clerk of the Court flush and then turn +pale as he read the letter. “There, be quick!” he said before M. Fille +had turned the first page. + +Then the widow of Palass Poucette came to him and, in a simple harmless +way she had, free from coquetry or guile, stood beside him, took his +hand and held it. He seemed almost unconscious of her act, but his +fingers convulsively tightened on hers; while she reflected that here +was one who needed help sorely; here was a good, warm-hearted man on +whom a woman could empty out affection like rain and get a good harvest. +She really was as simple as a child, was Virginie Poucette, and even in +her acquaintance with Sebastian Dolores, there had only been working in +her the natural desire of a primitive woman to have a man saying that +which would keep alive in her the things that make her sing as she +toils; and certainly Virginie toiled late and early on her farm. She +really was concerned for Jean Jacques. Both wife and daughter had taken +flight, and he was alone and in trouble. At this moment she felt +she would like to be a sister to him--she was young enough to be his +daughter almost. Her heart was kind. + +“Now!” said Jean Jacques at last, as the Clerk of the Court’s eyes +reached the end of the last page. “Now, speak! It is--it is my Zoe?” + +“It is our Zoe,” answered M. Fille. + +“Figure de Christ, what do you wait for--she is not dead?” exclaimed +Jean Jacques with a courage which made him set his feet squarely. + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head and began. “She is alive. +Madame Poucette’s sister saw her by chance. Zoe was on her way up the +Saskatchewan River to the Peace River country with her husband. Her +husband’s health was bad. He had to leave the stage in the United States +where he had gone after Winnipeg. The doctors said he must live the +open-air life. He and Zoe were going north, to take a farm somewhere.” + +“Somewhere! Somewhere!” murmured Jean Jacques. “The farther away from +Jean Jacques the better--that is what she thinks.” + +“No, you are wrong, my friend,” rejoined M. Fille. “She said to Madame +Poucette’s sister”--he held up the letter--“that when they had proved +they could live without anybody’s help they would come back to see you. +Zoe thought that, having taken her life in her own hands, she ought to +justify herself before she asked your forgiveness and a place at your +table. She felt that you could only love her and be glad of her, if her +man was independent of you. It is a proud and sensitive soul--but there +it is!” + +“It is romance, it is quixotism--ah, heart of God, what quixotism!” + exclaimed Jean Jacques. + +“She gets her romance and quixotism from Jean Jacques Barbille,” + retorted the Clerk of the Court. “She does more feeling than +thinking--like you.” + +Jean Jacques’ heart was bleeding, but he drew himself up proudly, and +caught his hand away from the warm palm of Poucette’s widow. As his +affairs crumbled his pride grew more insistent. M. Fille had challenged +his intellect--his intellect! + +“My life has been a procession of practical things,” he declared +oracularly. “I have been a man of business who designs. I am no dreamer. +I think. I act. I suffer. I have been the victim of romance, not +its interpreter. Mercy of God, what has broken my life, what but +romance--romance, first with one and then with another! More feeling +than thinking, Maitre Fille--you say that? Why the Barbilles have ever +in the past built up life on a basis of thought and action, and I have +added philosophy--the science of thought and act. Jean Jacques Barbille +has been the man of design and the man of action also. Don Quixote was a +fool, a dreamer, but Jean Jacques is no Don Quixote. He is a man who has +done things, but also he is a man who has been broken on the wheel of +life. He is a man whose heart-strings have been torn--” + +He had worked himself up into a fit of eloquence and revolt. He was +touched by the rod of desperation, which makes the soul protest that it +is right when it knows that it is wrong. + +Suddenly, breaking off his speech, he threw up his hands and made for +the door. + +“I will fight it out alone!” he declared with rough emotion, and at the +door he turned towards them again. He looked at them both as though he +would dare them to contradict him. The restless fire of his eyes seemed +to dart from one to the other. + +“That’s the way it is,” said the widow of Palass Poucette coming quickly +forward to him. “It’s always the way. We must fight our battles alone, +but we don’t have to bear the wounds alone. In the battle you are +alone, but the hand to heal the wounds may be another’s. You are a +philosopher--well, what I speak is true, isn’t it?” + +Virginie had said the one thing which could have stayed the tide of Jean +Jacques’ pessimism and broken his cloud of gloom. She appealed to him +in the tune of an old song. The years and the curses of years had not +dispelled the illusion that he was a philosopher. He stopped with his +hand on the door. + +“That’s so, without doubt that’s so,” he said. “You have stumbled on a +truth of life, madame.” + +Suddenly there came into his look something of the yearning and hunger +which the lonely and forsaken feel when they are not on the full tide +of doing. It was as though he must have companionship, in spite of +his brave announcement that he must fight his fight alone. He had been +wounded in the battle, and here was one who held out the hand of healing +to him. Never since his wife had left him the long lonely years ago +had a woman meant anything to him except as one of a race; but in this +moment here a woman had held his hand, and he could feel still the warm +palm which had comforted his own agitated fingers. + +Virginie Poucette saw, and she understood what was passing in his mind. +Yet she did not see and understand all by any means; and it is hard to +tell what further show of fire there might have been, but that the Clerk +of the Court was there, saying harshly under his breath, “The huzzy! The +crafty huzzy!” + +The Clerk of the Court was wrong. Virginie was merely sentimental, not +intriguing or deceitful; for Jean Jacques was not a widower--and she was +an honest woman and genuinely tender-hearted. + +“I’m coming to the Manor Cartier to-morrow,” Virginie continued. “I have +a rug of yours. By mistake it was left at my house by M’sieu’ Dolores.” + +“You needn’t do that. I will call at your place tomorrow for it,” + replied Jean Jacques almost eagerly. “I told M’sieu’ Dolores to-day +never to enter my house again. I didn’t know it was your rug. It was +giving away your property, not his own,” she hurriedly explained, and +her face flushed. + +“That is the Spanish of it,” said Jean Jacques bitterly. His eyes were +being opened in many directions to-day. + +M. Fille was in distress. Jean Jacques had had a warning about Sebastian +Dolores, but here was another pit into which he might fall, the pit +digged by a widow, who, no doubt, would not hesitate to marry a divorced +Catholic philosopher, if he could get a divorce by hook or by crook. +Jean Jacques had said that he was going to Virginie Poucette’s place +the next day. That was as bad as it could be; yet there was this to +the good, that it was to-morrow and not to-day; and who could tell what +might happen between to-day and to-morrow! + +A moment later the three were standing outside the office in the street. +As Jean Jacques climbed into his red wagon, Virginie Poucette’s eyes +were attracted to the northern sky where a reddish glow appeared, and +she gave an exclamation of surprise. + +“That must be a fire,” she said, pointing. + +“A bit of pine-land probably,” said M. Fille--with anxiety, however, for +the red glow lay in the direction of St. Saviour’s where were the +Manor Cartier and Jean Jacques’ mills. Maitre Fille was possessed of a +superstition that all the things which threaten a man’s life to wreck +it, operate awhile in their many fields before they converge like an +army in one field to deliver the last attack on their victim. It would +not have seemed strange to him, if out of the night a voice of the +unseen had said that the glow in the sky came from the Manor Cartier. +This very day three things had smitten Jean Jacques, and, if three, why +not four or five, or fifty! + +With a strange fascination Jean Jacques’ eyes were fastened on the glow. +He clucked to his horses, and they started jerkily away. M. Fille and +the widow Poucette said good-bye to him, but he did not hear, or if he +heard, he did not heed. His look was set upon the red reflection which +widened in the sky and seemed to grow nearer and nearer. The horses +quickened their pace. He touched them with the whip, and they went +faster. The glow increased as he left Vilray behind. He gave the horses +the whip again sharply, and they broke into a gallop. Yet his eyes +scarcely left the sky. The crimson glow drew him, held him, till his +brain was afire also. Jean Jacques had a premonition and a conviction +which was even deeper than the imagination of M. Fille. + +In Vilray, behind him, the telegraph clerk was in the street shouting to +someone to summon the local fire-brigade to go to St. Saviour’s. + +“What is it--what is it?” asked M. Fille of the telegraph clerk in +marked agitation. + +“It’s M’sieu’ Jean Jacques’ flour-mill,” was the reply. + +Wagons and buggies and carts began to take the road to the Manor +Cartier; and Maitre Fille went also with the widow of Palass Poucette. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET + +Jean Jacques did not go to the house of the widow of Palass Poucette +“next day” as he had proposed: and she did not expect him. She had seen +his flour-mill burned to the ground on the-evening when they met in the +office of the Clerk of the evening Court, when Jean Jacques had learned +that his Zoe had gone into farther and farther places away from him. +Perhaps Virginie Poucette never had shed as many tears in any whole +year of her life as she did that night, not excepting the year Palass +Poucette died, and left her his farm and seven horses, more or less +sound, and a threshing-machine in good condition. The woman had a rare +heart and there was that about Jean Jacques which made her want to help +him. She had no clear idea as to how that could be done, but she had +held his hand at any rate, and he had seemed the better for it. Virginie +had only an objective view of things; and if she was not material, still +she could best express herself through the medium of the senses. + +There were others besides her who shed tears also--those who saw Jean +Jacques’ chief asset suddenly disappear in flame and smoke and all his +other assets become thereby liabilities of a kind; and there were many +who would be the poorer in the end because of it. If Jean Jacques went +down, he probably would not go alone. Jean Jacques had done a good +fire-insurance business over a course of years, but somehow he had not +insured himself as heavily as he ought to have done; and in any case +the fire-policy for the mill was not in his own hands. It was in the +safe-keeping of M. Mornay at Montreal, who had warned M. Fille of the +crisis in the money-master’s affairs on the very day that the crisis +came. + +No one ever knew how it was that the mill took fire, but there was one +man who had more than a shrewd suspicion, though there was no occasion +for mentioning it. This was Sebastian Dolores. He had not set the mill +afire. That would have been profitable from no standpoint, and he had no +grudge against Jean Jacques. Why should he have a grudge? Jean Jacques’ +good fortune, as things were, made his own good fortune; for he ate +and drank and slept and was clothed at his son-in-law’s expense. But he +guessed accurately who had set the mill on fire, and that it was done +accidentally. He remembered that a man who smoked bad tobacco which +had to be lighted over and over again, threw a burning match down +after applying it to his pipe. He remembered that there was a heap of +flour-bags near where the man stood when the match was thrown down; and +that some loose strings for tying were also in a pile beside the bags. +So it was easy for the thing to have happened if the man did not turn +round after he threw the match down, but went swaying on out of the +mill, and over to the Manor Cartier, and up staggering to bed; for he +had been drinking potato-brandy, and he had been brought up on the mild +wines of Spain! In other words, the man who threw down the lighted match +which did the mischief was Sebastian Dolores himself. + +He regretted it quite as much as he had ever regretted anything; and +on the night of the fire there were tears in his large brown eyes which +deceived the New Cure and others; though they did not deceive the widow +of Palass Poucette, who had found him out, and who now had no pleasure +at all in his aged gallantries. But the regret Dolores experienced would +not prevent him from doing Jean Jacques still greater injury if, and +when, the chance occurred, should it be to his own advantage. + +Jean Jacques shed no tears on the night that his beloved flour-mill +became a blackened ruin, and his saw-mill had a narrow escape. He was +like one in a dream, scarcely realizing that men were saying kind things +to him; that the New Cure held his hand and spoke to him more like +a brother than one whose profession it was to be good to those who +suffered. In his eyes was the same half-rapt, intense, distant look +which came into them when, at Vilray, he saw that red reflection in the +sky over against St. Saviour’s, and urged his horses onward. + +The world knew that the burning of the mill was a blow to Jean Jacques, +but it did not know how great and heavy the blow was. First one and +then another of his friends said he was insured, and that in another +six months the mill-wheel would be turning again. They said so to Jean +Jacques when he stood with his eyes fixed on the burning fabric, which +nothing could save; but he showed no desire to speak. He only nodded +and kept on staring at the fire with that curious underglow in his eyes. +Some chemistry of the soul had taken place in him in the hour when he +drove to the Manor Cartier from Vilray, and it produced a strange fire, +which merged into the reflection of the sky above the burning mill. +Later, came things which were strange and eventful in his life, but +that under-glow was for ever afterwards in his eyes. It was in singular +contrast to the snapping fire which had been theirs all the days of his +life till now--the snapping fire of action, will and design. It still +was there when they said to him suddenly that the wind had changed, and +that the flame and sparks were now blowing toward the saw-mill. Even +when he gave orders, and set to work to defend the saw-mill, arranging +a line of men with buckets on its roof, and so saving it, this look +remained. It was something spiritual and unmaterial, something, maybe, +which had to do with the philosophy he had preached, thought and +practised over long years. It did not disappear when at last, after +midnight, everyone had gone, and the smouldering ruins of his greatest +asset lay mournful in the wan light of the moon. + +Kind and good friends like the Clerk of the Court and the New Cure had +seen him to his bedroom at midnight, leaving him there with a promise +that they would come on the morrow; and he had said goodnight evenly, +and had shut the door upon them with a sort of smile. But long after +they had gone, when Sebastian Dolores and Seraphe Corniche were asleep, +he had got up again and left the house, to gaze at the spot where the +big white mill with the red roof had been-the mill which had been there +in the days of the Baron of Beaugard, and to which time had only added +size and adornment. The gold-cock weathervane of the mill, so long the +admiration of people living and dead, and indeed the symbol of himself, +as he had been told, being so full of life and pride, courage and +vigour-it lay among the ruins, a blackened relic of the Barbilles. + +He had said in M. Fille’s office not many hours before, “I will fight +it all out alone,” and here in the tragic quiet of the night he made his +resolve a reality. In appearance he was not now like the “Seigneur” who +sang to the sailors on the Antoine when she was fighting for the shore +of Gaspe; nevertheless there was that in him which would keep him much +the same man to the end. + +Indeed, as he got into bed that fateful night he said aloud: “They shall +see that I am not beaten. If they give me time up there in Montreal I’ll +keep the place till Zoe comes back--till Zoe comes home.” + +As he lay and tried to sleep, he kept saying over to himself, “Till Zoe +comes home.” + +He thought that if he could but have Zoe back, it all would not matter +so much. She would keep looking at him and saying, “There’s the man that +never flinched when things went wrong; there’s the man that was a friend +to everyone.” + +At last a thought came to him--the key to the situation as it seemed, +the one thing necessary to meet the financial situation. He would sell +the biggest farm he owned, which had been to him in its importance like +the flour-mill itself. He had had an offer for it that very day, and +a bigger offer still a week before. It was mortgaged to within eight +thousand dollars of what it could be sold for but, if he could gain +time, that eight thousand dollars would build the mill again. M. Mornay, +the Big Financier, would certainly see that this was his due--to get +his chance to pull things straight. Yes, he would certainly sell the +Barbille farm to-morrow. With this thought in his mind he went to sleep +at last, and he did not wake till the sun was high. + +It was a sun of the most wonderful brightness and warmth. Yesterday it +would have made the Manor Cartier and all around it look like Arcady. +But as it shone upon the ruins of the mill, when Jean Jacques went out +into the working world again, it made so gaunt and hideous a picture +that, in spite of himself, a cry of misery came from his lips. + +Through all the misfortunes which had come to him the outward semblance +of things had remained, and when he went in and out of the plantation +of the Manor Cartier, there was no physical change in the surroundings, +which betrayed the troubles and disasters fallen upon its overlord. +There it all was just as it had ever been, and seeming to deny that +anything had changed in the lives of those who made the place other +than a dead or deserted world. When Carmen went, when Zoe fled, when his +cousin Auguste Charron took his flight, when defeats at law abashed +him, the house and mills, and stores and offices, and goodly trees, and +well-kept yards and barns and cattle-sheds all looked the same. Thus +it was that he had been fortified. In one sense his miseries had seemed +unreal, because all was the same in the outward scene. It was as though +it all said to him: “It is a dream that those you love have vanished, +that ill-fortune sits by your fireside. One night you will go to bed +thinking that wife and child have gone, that your treasury is nearly +empty; and in the morning you will wake up and find your loved ones +sitting in their accustomed places, and your treasury will be full to +overflowing as of old.” + +So it was while the picture of his home scene remained unbroken and +serene; but the hideous mass of last night’s holocaust was now before +his eyes, with little streams of smoke rising from the cindered +pile, and a hundred things with which his eyes had been familiar lay +distorted, excoriated and useless. He realized with sudden completeness +that a terrible change bad come in his life, that a cyclone had ruined +the face of his created world. + +This picture did more to open up Jean Jacques’ eyes to his real position +in life than anything he had experienced, than any sorrow he had +suffered. He had been in torment in the past, but he had refused to see +that he was in Hades. Now it was as though he had been led through the +streets of Hell by some dark spirit, while in vain he looked round for +his old friends Kant and Hegel, Voltaire and Rousseau and Rochefoucauld, +Plato and Aristotle. + +While gazing at the dismal scene, however, and unheeding the idlers who +poked about among the ruins, and watched him as one who was the centre +of a drama, he suddenly caught sight of the gold Cock of Beaugard, which +had stood on the top of the mill, in the very centre of the ruins. + +Yes, there it was, the crested golden cock which had typified his own +life, as he went head high, body erect, spurs giving warning, and a +clarion in his throat ready to blare forth at any moment. There was the +golden Cock of Beaugard in the cinders, the ashes and the dust. His +chin dropped on his breast, and a cloud like a fog on the coast of +Gaspe settled round him. Yet even as his head drooped, something else +happened--one of those trivial things which yet may be the pivot of +great things. A cock crowed--almost in his very ear, it seemed. He +lifted his head quickly, and a superstitious look flashed into his face. +His eyes fastened on the burnished head of the Cock among the ruins. +To his excited imagination it was as though the ancient symbol of +the Barbilles had spoken to him in its own language of good cheer and +defiance. Yes, there it was, half covered by the ruins, but its head was +erect in the midst of fire and disaster. Brought low, it was still alert +above the wreckage. The child, the dreamer, the optimist, the egoist, +and the man alive in Jean Jacques sprang into vigour again. It was as +though the Cock of Beaugard had really summoned him to action, and the +crowing had not been that of a barnyard bantam not a hundred feet away +from him. Jean Jacques’ head went up too. + +“Me--I am what I always was, nothing can change me,” he exclaimed +defiantly. “I will sell the Barbille farm and build the mill again.” + +So it was that by hook or by crook, and because the Big Financier had +more heart than he even acknowledged to his own wife, Jean Jacques +did sell the Barbille farm, and got in cash--in good hard cash-eight +thousand dollars after the mortgage was paid. M. Mornay was even willing +to take the inadequate indemnity of the insurance policy on the mill, +and lose the rest, in order that Jean Jacques should have the eight +thousand dollars to rebuild. This he did because Jean Jacques showed +such amazing courage after the burning of the mill, and spread himself +out in a greater activity than his career had yet shown. He shaved +through this financial crisis, in spite of the blow he had received by +the loss of his lawsuits, the flitting of his cousin, Auguste Charron, +and the farm debts of this same cousin. It all meant a series of +manipulations made possible by the apparent confidence reposed in him by +M. Mornay. + +On the day he sold his farm he was by no means out of danger of absolute +insolvency--he was in fact ruined; but he was not yet the victim of +those processes which would make him legally insolvent. The vultures +were hovering, but they had not yet swooped, and there was the Manor +saw-mill going night and day; for by the strangest good luck Jean +Jacques received an order for M. Mornay’s new railway (Judge Carcasson +was behind that) which would keep his saw-mill working twenty-four hours +in the day for six months. + +“I like his pluck, but still, ten to one, he loses,” remarked M. Mornay +to Judge Carcasson. “He is an unlucky man, and I agree with Napoleon +that you oughtn’t to be partner with an unlucky man.” + +“Yet you have had to do with Monsieur Jean Jacques,” responded the aged +Judge. + +M. Mornay nodded indulgently. + +“Yes, without risk, up to the burning of the mill. Now I take my +chances, simply because I’m a fool too, in spite of all the wisdom I see +in history and in life’s experiences. I ought to have closed him up, but +I’ve let him go on, you see.” + +“You will not regret it,” remarked the Judge. “He really is worth it.” + +“But I think I will regret it financially. I think that this is the +last flare of the ambition and energy of your Jean Jacques. That often +happens--a man summons up all his reserves for one last effort. It’s +partly pride, partly the undefeated thing in him, partly the gambling +spirit which seizes men when nothing is left but one great spectacular +success or else be blotted out. That’s the case with your philosopher; +and I’m not sure that I won’t lose twenty thousand dollars by him yet.” + +“You’ve lost more with less justification,” retorted the Judge, who, in +his ninetieth year, was still as alive as his friend at sixty. + +M. Mornay waved a hand in acknowledgment, and rolled his cigar from +corner to corner of his mouth. “Oh, I’ve lost a lot more in my +time, Judge, but with a squint in my eye! But I’m doing this with no +astigmatism. I’ve got the focus.” + +The aged Judge gave a conciliatory murmur-he had a fine persuasive +voice. “You would never be sorry for what you have done if you had known +his daughter--his Zoe. It’s the thought of her that keeps him going. He +wants the place to be just as she left it when she comes back.” + +“Well, well, let’s hope it will. I’m giving him a chance,” replied M. +Mornay with his wineglass raised. “He’s got eight thousand dollars in +cash to build his mill again; and I hope he’ll keep a tight hand on it +till the mill is up.” + +Keep a tight hand on it? + +That is what Jean Jacques meant to do; but if a man wants to keep a +tight hand on money he should not carry it about in his pocket in cold, +hard cash. It was a foolish whim of Jean Jacques that he must have the +eight thousand dollars in cash--in hundred-dollar bills--and not in the +form of a cheque; but there was something childlike in him. When, as he +thought, he had saved himself from complete ruin, he wanted to keep and +gloat over the trophy of victory, and his trophy was the eight thousand +dollars got from the Barbille farm. He would have to pay out two +thousand dollars in cash to the contractors for the rebuilding of the +mill at once,--they were more than usually cautious--but he would have +six thousand left, which he would put in the bank after he had let +people see that he was well fortified with cash. + +The child in him liked the idea of pulling out of his pocket a few +thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He had always carried a good +deal of money loose in his pocket, and now that his resources were so +limited he would still make a gallant show. After a week or two he would +deposit six thousand dollars in the bank; but he was so eager to begin +building the mill, that he paid over the stipulated two thousand dollars +to the contractors on the very day he received the eight thousand. A few +days later the remaining six thousand were housed in a cupboard with an +iron door in the wall of his office at the Manor Cartier. + +“There, that will keep me in heart and promise,” said Jean Jacques as he +turned the key in the lock. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER + +The day after Jean Jacques had got a new lease of life and become his +own banker, he treated himself to one of those interludes of pleasure +from which he had emerged in the past like a hermit from his cave. He +sat on the hill above his lime-kilns, reading the little hand-book of +philosophy which had played so big a part in his life. Whatever else had +disturbed his mind and diverted him from his course, nothing had weaned +him from this obsession. He still interlarded all his conversation with +quotations from brilliant poseurs like Chateaubriand and Rochefoucauld, +and from missionaries of thought like Hume and Hegel. + +His real joy, however, was in withdrawing for what might be called +a seance of meditation from the world’s business. Some men make +celebration in wine, sport and adventure; but Jean Jacques made it in +flooding his mind with streams of human thought which often tried to run +uphill, which were frequently choked with weeds, but still were like +the pool of Siloam to his vain mind. They bathed that vain mind in the +illusion that it could see into the secret springs of experience. + +So, on as bright a day as ever the New World offered, Jean Jacques sat +reciting to himself a spectacular bit of logic from one of his idols, +wedged between a piece of Aristotle quartz and Plato marble. The sound +of it was good in his ears. He mouthed it as greedily and happily +as though he was not sitting on the edge of a volcano instead of the +moss-grown limestone on a hill above his own manor. + +“The course of events in the life of a man, whatever their gravity or +levity, are only to be valued and measured by the value and measure of +his own soul. Thus, what in its own intrinsic origin and material +should in all outer reason be a tragedy, does not of itself shake the +foundations or make a fissure in the superstructure. Again--” + +Thus his oracle, but Jean Jacques’ voice suddenly died down, for, as +he sat there, the face of a woman made a vivid call of recognition. He +slowly awakened from his self-hypnotism, to hear a woman speaking to +him; to see two dark eyes looking at him from under heavy black brows +with bright, intent friendliness. + +“They said at the Manor you had come this way, so I thought I’d not have +my drive for nothing, and here I am. I wanted to say something to you, +M’sieu’ Jean Jacques.” + +It was the widow of Palass Poucette. She looked very fresh and friendly +indeed, and she was the very acme of neatness. If she was not handsome, +she certainly had a true and sweet comeliness of her own, due to the +deep rose-colour of her cheeks, the ivory whiteness round the lustrous +brown eyes, the regular shining teeth which showed so much when she +smiled, and the look half laughing, half sentimental which dominated +all. + +Before she had finished speaking Jean Jacques was on his feet with +his hat off. Somehow she seemed to be a part of that abstraction, +that intoxication, in which he had just been drowning his accumulated +anxieties. Not that Virginie Poucette was logical or philosophical, or +a child of thought, for she was wholly the opposite-practical, sensuous, +emotional, a child of nature and of Eve. But neither was Jean Jacques +a real child of thought, though he made unconscious pretence of it. He +also was a child of nature--and Adam. He thought he had the courage +of his convictions, but it was only the courage of his emotions. His +philosophy was but the bent or inclination of a mind with a capacity +to feel things rather than to think them. He had feeling, the first +essential of the philosopher, but there he stayed, an undeveloped +chrysalis. + +His look was abstracted still as he took the hand of the widow of Palass +Poucette; but he spoke cheerfully. “It is a pleasure, madame, to welcome +you among my friends,” he said. + +He made a little flourish with the book which had so long been his bosom +friend, and added: “But I hope you are in no trouble that you come to +me--so many come to me in their troubles,” he continued with an air of +satisfaction. + +“Come to you--why, you have enough troubles of your own!” she made +answer. “It’s because you have your own troubles that I’m here.” + +“Why you are here,” he remarked vaguely. + +There was something very direct and childlike in Virginie Poucette. She +could not pretend; she wore her heart on her sleeve. She travelled a +long distance in a little while. + +“I’ve got no trouble myself,” she responded. “But, yes, I have,” she +added. “I’ve got one trouble--it’s yours. It’s that you’ve been having +hard times--the flour-mill, your cousin Auguste Charron, the lawsuits, +and all the rest. They say at Vilray that you have all you can do to +keep out of the Bankruptcy Court, and that--” + +Jean Jacques started, flushed, and seemed about to get angry; but she +put things right at once. + +“People talk more than they know, but there’s always some fire where +there’s smoke,” she hastened to explain. “Besides, your father-in-law +babbles more than is good for him or for you. I thought at first that M. +Dolores was a first-class kind of man, that he had had hard times too, +and I let him come and see me; but I found him out, and that was the end +of it, you may be sure. If you like him, I don’t want to say anything +more, but I’m sure that he’s no real friend to you-or to anybody. If +that man went to confession--but there, that’s not what I’ve come for. +I’ve come to say to you that I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life +as I do for you. I cried all night after your beautiful mill was burned +down. You were coming to see me next day--you remember what you said in +M. Fille’s office--but of course you couldn’t. Of course, there was no +reason why you should come to see me really--I’ve ‘only got two hundred +acres and the house. It’s a good house, though--Palass saw to that--and +it’s insured; but still I know you’d have come just the same if I’d +had only two acres. I know. There’s hosts of people you’ve been good +to here, and they’re sorry for you; and I’m sorrier than any, for I’m +alone, and you’re alone, too, except for the old Dolores, and he’s no +good to either of us--mark my words, no good to you! I’m sorry for you, +M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, and I’ve come to say that I’m ready to lend you +two thousand dollars, if that’s any help. I could make it more if I had +time; but sometimes money on the spot is worth a lot more than what’s +just crawling to you--snailing along while you eat your heart out. Two +thousand dollars is two thousand dollars--I know what it’s worth to me, +though it mayn’t be much to you; but I didn’t earn it. It belonged to +a first-class man, and he worked for it, and he died and left it to +me. It’s not come easy, go easy with me. I like to feel I’ve got two +thousand cash without having to mortgage for it. But it belonged to +a number-one man, a man of brains--I’ve got no brains, only some +sense--and I want another good man to use it and make the world easier +for himself.” + +It was a long speech, and she delivered it in little gasps of oratory +which were brightened by her wonderfully kind smile and the heart--not +to say sentiment--which showed in her face. The sentiment, however, +did not prejudice Jean Jacques against her, for he was a sentimentalist +himself. His feelings were very quick, and before she had spoken fifty +words the underglow of his eyes was flooded by something which might +have been mistaken for tears. It was, however, only the moisture of +gratitude and the soul’s good feeling. + +“Well there, well there,” he said when she had finished, “I’ve never had +anything like this in my life before. It’s the biggest thing in the +art of being a neighbour I’ve ever seen. You’ve only been in the parish +three years, and yet you’ve shown me a confidence immense, inspiring! It +is as the Greek philosopher said, ‘To conceive the human mind aright is +the greatest gift from the gods.’ And to you, who never read a line of +philosophy, without doubt, you have done the thing that is greatest. It +says, ‘I teach neighbourliness and life’s exchange.’ Madame, your house +ought to be called Neighbourhood House. It is the epitome of the spirit, +it is the shrine of--” + +He was working himself up to a point where he could forget all the +things that trouble humanity, in the inebriation of an idealistic soul +which had a casing of passion, but the passion of the mind and not of +the body; for Jean Jacques had not a sensual drift in his organism. If +there had been a sensual drift, probably Carmen would still have been +the lady of his manor, and he would still have been a magnate and not a +potential bankrupt; for in her way Carmen had been a kind of balance to +his judgment in the business of life, in spite of her own material and +(at the very last) sensual strain. It was a godsend to Jean Jacques to +have such an inspiration as Virginie Poucette had given him. He could +not in these days, somehow, get the fires of his soul lighted, as he was +wont to do in the old times, and he loved talking--how he loved talking +of great things! He was really going hard, galloping strong, when +Virginie interrupted him, first by an exclamation, then, as insistently +he repeated the words, “It is the epitome of the spirit, the shrine +of--” + +She put out a hand, interrupting him, and said: “Yes, yes, M’sieu’ +Jean Jacques, that’s as good as Moliere, I s’pose, or the Archbishop at +Quebec, but are you going to take it, the two thousand dollars? I made +a long speech, I know, but that was to tell you why I come with the +money”--she drew out a pocketbook--“with the order on my lawyer to hand +the cash over to you. As a woman I had to explain to you, there being +lots of ideas about what a woman should do and what she shouldn’t do; +but there’s nothing at all for you to explain, and Mere Langlois and a +lot of others would think I’m vain enough now without your compliments. +I’m a neighbour if you like, and I offer you a loan. Will you take +it--that’s all?” + +He held out his hand in silence and took the paper from her. Putting his +head a little on one side, he read it. At first he seemed hardly to get +the formal language clear in his mind; however, or maybe his mind was +still away in that abstraction into which he had whisked it when he +began his reply to her fine offer; but he read it out aloud, first +quickly, then very slowly, and he looked at the signature with a deeply +meditative air. + +“Virginie Poucette--that’s a good name,” he remarked; “and also good for +two thousand dollars!” He paused to smile contentedly over his own joke. +“And good for a great deal more than that too,” he added with a nod. + +“Yes, ten times as much as that,” she responded quickly, her eyes fixed +on his face. She scarcely knew herself what she was thinking when +she said it; but most people who read this history will think she was +hinting that her assets might be united with his, and so enable him to +wipe out his liabilities and do a good deal more besides. Yet, how could +that be, since Carmen Dolores was still his wife if she was alive; and +also they both were Catholics, and Catholics did not recognize divorce! + +Truth is, Virginie Poucette’s mind did not define her feelings at all +clearly, or express exactly what she wanted. Her actions said one thing +certainly; but if the question had been put to her, whether she was +doing this thing because of a wish to take the place of Carmen Dolores +in Jean Jacques’ life she would have said no at once. She had not come +to that--yet. She was simply moved by a sentiment of pity for Jean +Jacques, and as she had no child, or husband, or sister, or brother, or +father, or mother, but only relatives who tried to impose upon her, she +needed an objective for the emotions of her nature, for the overflow of +her unused affection and her unsatisfied maternal spirit. Here, then, +was the most obvious opportunity--a man in trouble who had not deserved +the bitter bad luck which had come to him. Even old Mere Langlois in the +market-place at Vilray had admitted that, and had said the same later on +in Virginie’s home. + +For an instant Jean Jacques was fascinated by the sudden prospect which +opened out before him. If he asked her, this woman would probably loan +him five thousand dollars--and she had mentioned nothing about security! + +“What security do you want?” he asked in a husky voice. + +“Security? I don’t understand about that,” she replied. “I’d not offer +you the money if I didn’t think you were an honest man, and an honest +man would pay me back. A dishonest man wouldn’t pay me back, security or +no security.” + +“He’d have to pay you back if the security was right to start with,” + Jean Jacques insisted. “But you don’t want security, because you think +I’m an honest man! Well, for sure you’re right. I am honest. I never +took a cent that wasn’t mine; but that’s not everything. If you lend +you ought to have security. I’ve lost a good deal from not having +enough security at the start. You are willing to lend me money without +security--that’s enough to make me feel thirty again, and I’m fifty--I’m +fifty,” he added, as though with an attempt to show her that she +could not think of him in any emotional way; though the day when his +flour-mill was burned he had felt the touch of her fingers comforting +and thrilling. + +“You think Jean Jacques Barbille’s word as good as his bond?” he +continued. “So it is; but I’m going to pull this thing through alone. +That’s what I said to you and Maitre Fille at his office. I meant it +too--help of God, it is the truth!” + +He had forgotten that if M. Mornay had not made it easy for him, and +had not refrained from insisting on his pound of flesh, he would now be +insolvent and with no roof over him. Like many another man Jean Jacques +was the occasional slave of formula, and also the victim of phases of +his own temperament. In truth he had not realized how big a thing M. +Mornay had done for him. He had accepted the chance given him as the +tribute to his own courage and enterprise and integrity, and as though +it was to the advantage of his greatest creditor to give him another +start; though in reality it had made no difference to the Big Financier, +who knew his man and, with wide-open eyes, did what he had done. + +Virginie was not subtle. She did not understand, was never satisfied +with allusions, and she had no gift for catching the drift of things. +She could endure no peradventure in her conversation. She wanted plain +speaking and to be literally sure. + +“Are you going to take it?” she asked abruptly. + +He could not bear to be checked in his course. He waved a hand and +smiled at her. Then his eyes seemed to travel away into the distance, +the look of the dreamer in them; but behind all was that strange, ruddy +underglow of revelation which kept emerging from shadows, retreating and +emerging, yet always there now, in much or in little, since the burning +of the mill. + +“I’ve lent a good deal of money without security in my time,” he +reflected, “but the only people who ever paid me back were a deaf and +dumb man and a flyaway--a woman that was tired of selling herself, and +started straight and right with the money I lent her. She had been +the wife of a man who studied with me at Laval. She paid me back every +penny, too, year by year for five years. The rest I lent money to never +paid; but they paid, the dummy and the harlot that was, they paid! But +they paid for the rest also! If I had refused these two because of the +others, I’d not be fit to visit at Neighbourhood House where Virginie +Poucette lives.” + +He looked closely at the order she had given him again, as though to let +it sink in his mind and be registered for ever. “I’m going to do without +any further use of your two thousand dollars,” he continued cheer fully. +“It has done its work. You’ve lent it to me, I’ve used it”--he put +the hand holding it on his breast--“and I’m paying it back to you, but +without interest.” He gave the order to her. + +“I don’t see what you mean,” she said helplessly, and she looked at the +paper, as though it had undergone some change while it was in his hand. + +“That you would lend it me is worth ten times two thousand to me, +Virginie Poucette,” he explained. “It gives me, not a kick from +behind--I’ve not had much else lately--but it holds a light in front of +me. It calls me. It says, ‘March on, Jean Jacques--climb the mountain.’ +It summons me to dispose my forces for the campaign which will restore +the Manor Cartier to what it has ever been since the days of the Baron +of Beaugard. It quickens the blood at my heart. It restores--” + +Virginie would not allow him to go on. “You won’t let me help you? +Suppose I do lose the money--I didn’t earn it; it was earned by Palass +Poucette, and he’d understand, if he knew. I can live without the money, +if I have to, but you would pay it back, I know. You oughtn’t to take +any extra risks. If your daughter should come back and not find you +here, if she returned to the Manor Cartier, and--” + +He made an insistent gesture. “Hush! Be still, my friend--as good a +friend as a man could have. If my Zoe came back I’d like to feel--I’d +like to feel that I had saved things alone; that no woman’s money made +me safe. If Zoe or if--” + +He was going to say, “If Carmen came back,” for his mind was moving in +past scenes; but he stopped short and looked around helplessly. Then +presently, as though by an effort, he added with a bravura note in his +voice: + +“The world has been full of trouble for a long time, but there have +always been men to say to trouble, ‘I am master, I have the mind to get +above it all.’ Well, I am one of them.” + +There was no note of vanity or bombast in his voice as he said this, +and in his eyes that new underglow deepened and shone. Perhaps in this +instant he saw more of his future than he would speak of to anyone on +earth. Perhaps prevision was given him, and it was as the Big Financier +had said to Maitre Fille, that his philosophy was now, at the last, to +be of use to him. When his wife had betrayed him, and his wife and child +had left him, he had said, “Moi je suis philosophe!” but he was a man +of wealth in those days, and money soothes hurts of that kind in rare +degree. Would he still say, whatever was yet to come, that he was a +philosopher? + +“Well, I’ve done what I thought would help you, and I can’t say more +than that,” Virginie remarked with a sigh, and there was despondency +in her eyes. Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; she +looked at him as she had done in Maitre Fille’s office, and a wave +of feeling passed over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, in +response to her look, the thrill of his fingers in her palm. His face +now flushed also, and he had an impulse to ask her to sit down beside +him. He put it away from him, however, for the present, at any rate-who +could tell what to-morrow might bring forth!--and then he held out his +hand to her. His voice shook a little when he spoke; but it cleared, and +began to ring, before he had said a dozen words. + +“I’ll never forget what you’ve said and done this morning, Virginie +Poucette,” he declared; “and if I break the back of the trouble that’s +in my way, and come out cock o’ the walk again”--the gold Cock of +Beaugard in the ruins near and the clarion of the bantam of his barnyard +were in his mind and ears--“it’ll be partly because of you. I hug that +thought to me.” + +“I could do a good deal more than that,” she ventured, with a tremulous +voice, and then she took her warm hand from his nervous grasp, and +turned sharply into the path which led back towards the Manor. She did +not turn around, and she walked quickly away. + +There was confusion in her eyes and in her mind. It would take some time +to make the confusion into order, and she was now hot, now cold, in all +her frame, when at last she climbed into her wagon. + +This physical unrest imparted itself to all she did that day. First her +horses were driven almost at a gallop; then they were held down to a +slow walk; then they were stopped altogether, and she sat in the shade +of the trees on the road to her home, pondering--whispering to herself +and pondering. + +As her horses were at a standstill she saw a wagon approaching. +Instantly she touched her pair with the whip, and moved on. Before +the approaching wagon came alongside, she knew from the grey and the +darkbrown horses who was driving them, and she made a strong effort for +composure. She succeeded indifferently, but her friend, Mere Langlois, +did not notice this fact as her wagon drew near. There was excitement in +Mere Langlois’ face. + +“There’s been a shindy at the ‘Red Eagle’ tavern,” she said. “That +father-in-law of M’sieu’ Jean Jacques and Rocque Valescure, the +landlord, they got at each other’s throats. Dolores hit Valescure on the +head with a bottle.” + +“He didn’t kill Valescure, did he?” + +“Not that--no. But Valescure is hurt bad--as bad. It was six to one and +half a dozen to the other--both no good at all. But of course they’ll +arrest the old man--your great friend! He’ll not give you any more +fur-robes, that’s sure. He got away from the tavern, though, and he’s +hiding somewhere. M’sieu’ Jean Jacques can’t protect him now; he isn’t +what he once was in the parish. He’s done for, and old Dolores will have +to go to trial. They’ll make it hot for him when they catch him. No +more fur-robes from your Spanish friend, Virginie! You’ll have to look +somewhere else for your beaux, though to be sure there are enough that’d +be glad to get you with that farm of yours, and your thrifty ways, if +you keep your character.” + +Virginie was quite quiet now. The asperity and suggestiveness of the +other’s speech produced a cooling effect upon her. + +“Better hurry, Mere Langlois, or everybody won’t hear your story before +sundown. If your throat gets tired, there’s Brown’s Bronchial Troches--” + She pointed to an advertisement on the fence near by. “M. Fille’s cook +says they cure a rasping throat.” + +With that shot, Virginie Poucette whipped up her horses and drove on. +She did not hear what Mere Langlois called after her, for Mere Langlois +had been slow to recover from the unexpected violence dealt by one whom +she had always bullied. + +“Poor Jean Jacques!” said Virginie Poucette to herself as her horses +ate up the ground. “That’s another bit of bad luck. He’ll not sleep +to-night. Ah, the poor Jean Jacques--and all alone--not a hand to hold; +no one to rumple that shaggy head of his or pat him on the back! His +wife and Ma’m’selle Zoe, they didn’t know a good thing when they had it. +No, he’ll not sleep to-night-ah, my dear Jean Jacques!” + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP + +But Jean Jacques did sleep well that night; though it would have been +better for him if he had not done so. The contractor’s workmen had +arrived in the early afternoon, he had seen the first ton of debris +removed from the ruins of the historic mill, and it was crowned by the +gold Cock of Beaugard, all grimy with the fire, but jaunty as of yore. +The cheerfulness of the workmen, who sang gaily an old chanson of +mill-life as they tugged at the timbers and stones, gave a fillip to the +spirits of Jean Jacques, to whom had come a red-letter day. + +Like Mirza on the high hill of Bagdad he had had his philosophic +meditations; his good talk with Virginie Poucette had followed; and the +woman of her lingered in the feeling of his hand all day, as something +kind and homelike and true. Also in the evening had come M. Fille, who +brought him a message from Judge Carcasson, that he must make the world +sing for himself again. + +Contrary to what Mere Langlois had thought, he had not been perturbed by +the parish noise about the savage incident at “The Red Eagle,” and the +desperate affair which would cause the arrest of his father-in-law. He +was at last well inclined to be rid of Sebastian Dolores, who had ceased +to be a comfort to him, and who brought him hateful and not kindly +memories of his lost women, and the happy hours of the past they +represented. + +M. Fille had come to the Manor in much alarm, lest the news of the +miserable episode at “The Red Eagle” should bring Jean Jacques down +again to the depths. He was infinitely relieved, however, to find that +the lord of the Manor Cartier seemed only to be grateful that Sebastian +Dolores did not return, and nodded emphatically when M. Fille remarked +that perhaps it would be just as well if he never did return. + +As M. Fille sat with his host at the table in the sunset light, Jean +Jacques seemed quieter and steadier of body and mind than he had been +for a long, long time. He even drank three glasses of the cordial which +Mere Langlois had left for him, with the idea that it might comfort him +when he got the bad news about Sebastian Dolores; and parting with M. +Fille at the door, he waved a hand and said: “Well, good-night, master +of the laws. Safe journey! I’m off to bed, and I’ll sleep without +rocking, that’s very sure and sweet.” + +He stood and waved his hand several times to M. Fille--till he was +out of sight indeed; and the Clerk of the Court smiled to himself long +afterwards, recalling Jean Jacques’ cheerful face as he had seen it at +their parting in the gathering dusk. As for Jean Jacques, when he locked +up the house at ten o’clock, with Dolores still absent, he had the air +of a man from whose shoulders great weights had fallen. + +“Now I’ve shut the door on him, it’ll stay shut,” he said firmly. “Let +him go back to work. He’s no good here to me, to himself, or to anyone. +And that business of the fur-robe and Virginie Poucette--ah, that!” + +He shook his head angrily, then seeing the bottle of cordial still +uncorked on the sideboard, he poured some out and drank it very slowly, +till his eyes were on the ceiling above him and every drop had gone +home. Presently, with the bedroom lamp in his hand, he went upstairs, +humming to himself the chanson the workmen had sung that afternoon as +they raised again the walls of the mill: + + “Distaff of flax flowing behind her + Margatton goes to the mill + On the old grey ass she goes, + The flour of love it will blind her + Ah, the grist the devil will grind her, + When Margatton goes to the mill! + On the old grey ass she goes, + And the old grey ass, he knows!” + +He liked the sound of his own voice this night of his Reconstruction +Period--or such it seemed to him; and he thought that no one heard +his singing save himself. There, however, he was mistaken. Someone was +hidden in the house--in the big kitchen-bunk which served as a bed or +a seat, as needed. This someone had stolen in while Jean Jacques and M. +Fille were at supper. His name was Dolores, and he had a horse just over +the hill near by, to serve him when his work was done, and he could get +away. + +The constables of Vilray had twice visited the Manor to arrest him that +day, but they had been led in another direction by a clue which he had +provided; and afterwards in the dusk he had doubled back and hid himself +under Jean Jacques’ roof. He had very important business at the Manor +Cartier. + +Jean Jacques’ voice ceased one song, and then, after a silence, it took +up another, not so melodious. Sebastian Dolores had impatiently waited +for this later “musicale” to begin--he had heard it often before; and +when it was at last a regular succession of nasal explosions, he crawled +out and began to do the business which had brought him to the Manor +Cartier. + +He did it all alone and with much skill; for when he was an anarchist in +Spain, those long years ago, he had learned how to use tools with expert +understanding. Of late, Spain had been much in his mind. He wanted to go +back there. Nostalgia had possessed him ever since he had come again to +the Manor Cartier after Zoe had left. He thought much of Spain, and but +little of his daughter. Memory of her was only poignant, in so far as it +was associated with the days preceding the wreck of the Antoine. He +had had far more than enough of the respectable working life of the New +World; but there never was sufficient money to take him back to Europe, +even were it safe to go. Of late, however, he felt sure that he might +venture, if he could only get cash for the journey. He wanted to drift +back to the idleness and adventure and the “easy money” of the old +anarchist days in Cadiz and Madrid. He was sick for the patio and the +plaza, for the bull-fight, for the siesta in the sun, for the lazy +glamour of the gardens and the red wine of Valladolid, for the redolent +cigarette of the roadside tavern. This cold iron land had spoiled him, +and he would strive to get himself home again before it was too late. +In Spain there would always be some woman whom he could cajole; some +comrade whom he could betray; some priest whom he could deceive, +whose pocket he could empty by the recital of his troubles. But if, +peradventure, he returned to Spain with money to spare in his pocket, +how easy indeed it would all be, and how happy he would find himself +amid old surroundings and old friends! + +The way had suddenly opened up to him when Jean Jacques had brought home +in hard cash, and had locked away in the iron-doored cupboard in +the officewall, his last, his cherished, eight thousand dollars. Six +thousand of that eight were still left, and it was concern for this six +thousand which had brought Dolores to the Manor this night when Jean +Jacques snored so loudly. The events of the day at “The Red Eagle” had +brought things to a crisis in the affairs of Carmen’s father. It was a +foolish business that at the tavern--so, at any rate, he thought, when +it was all over, and he was awake to the fact that he must fly or go to +jail. From the time he had, with a bottle of gin, laid Valescure low, +Spain was the word which went ringing through his head, and the way to +Spain was by the Six Thousand Dollar Route, the New World terminal of +which was the cupboard in the wall at the Manor Cartier. + +Little cared Sebastian Dolores that the theft of the money would mean +the end of all things for Jean Jacques Barbille-for his own daughter’s +husband. He was thinking of himself, as he had always done. + +He worked for two whole hours before he succeeded in quietly forcing +open the iron door in the wall; but it was done at last. Curiously +enough, Jean Jacques’ snoring stopped on the instant that Sebastian +Dolores’ fingers clutched the money; but it began cheerfully again when +the door in the wall closed once more. + +Five minutes after Dolores had thrust the six thousand dollars into his +pocket, his horse was galloping away over the hills towards the River +St. Lawrence. If he had luck, he would reach it by the morning. As it +happened, he had the luck. Behind him, in the Manor Cartier, the man +who had had no luck and much philosophy, snored on till morning in +unconscious content. + +It was a whole day before Jean Jacques discovered his loss. When he had +finished his lonely supper the next evening, he went to the cupboard in +his office to cheer himself with the sight of the six thousand dollars. +He felt that he must revive his spirits. They had been drooping all day, +he knew not why. + +When he saw the empty pigeon-hole in the cupboard, his sight swam. It +was some time before it cleared, but, when it did, and he knew beyond +peradventure the crushing, everlasting truth, not a sound escaped him. +His heart stood still. His face filled with a panic confusion. He seemed +like one bereft of understanding. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. “AU ‘VOIR, M’SIEU’ JEAN JACQUES” + +It is seldom that Justice travels as swiftly as Crime, and it is also +seldom that the luck is more with the law than with the criminal. It +took the parish of St. Saviour’s so long to make up its mind who stole +Jean Jacques’ six thousand dollars, that when the hounds got the scent +at last the quarry had reached the water--in other words, Sebastian +Dolores had achieved the St. Lawrence. The criminal had had near a day’s +start before a telegram was sent to the police at Montreal, Quebec, and +other places to look out for the picaroon who had left his mark on the +parish of St. Saviour’s. The telegram would not even then have been sent +had it not been for M. Fille, who, suspecting Sebastian Dolores, still +refrained from instant action. This he did because he thought Jean +Jacques would not wish his beloved Zoe’s grandfather sent to prison. But +when other people at last declared that it must have been Dolores, +M. Fille insisted on telegrams being sent by the magistrate at Vilray +without Jean Jacques’ consent. He had even urged the magistrate to +“rush” the wire, because it came home to him with stunning force that, +if the money was not recovered, Jean Jacques would be a beggar. It was +better to jail the father-in-law, than for the little money-master to +take to the road a pauper, or stay on at St. Saviour’s as an underling +where he had been overlord. + +As for Jean Jacques, in his heart of hearts he knew who had robbed him. +He realized that it was one of the radii of the comedy-tragedy which +began on the Antoine, so many years before; and it had settled in his +mind at last that Sebastian Dolores was but part of the dark machinery +of fate, and that what was now had to be. + +For one whole day after the robbery he was like a man +paralysed--dispossessed of active being; but when his creditors began +to swarm, when M. Mornay sent his man of business down to foreclose his +mortgages before others could take action, Jean Jacques waked from his +apathy. He began an imitation of his old restlessness, and made essay +again to pull the strings of his affairs. They were, however, so +confused that a pull at one string tangled them all. + +When the constables and others came to him, and said that they were on +the trail of the robber, and that the rogue would be caught, he nodded +his head encouragingly; but he was sure in his own mind that the flight +of Dolores would be as successful as that of Carmen and Zoe. + +This is the way he put it: “That man--we will just miss finding him, as +I missed Zoe at the railroad junction when she went away, as I missed +catching Carmen at St. Chrisanthine. When you are at the shore, he will +be on the river; when you are getting into the train, he will be getting +out. It is the custom of the family. At Bordeaux, the Spanish detectives +were on the shore gnashing their teeth, when he was a hundred yards away +at sea on the Antoine. They missed him like that; and we’ll miss him +too. What is the good! It was not his fault--that was the way of his +bringing up beyond there at Cadiz, where they think more of a toreador +than of John the Baptist. It was my fault. I ought to have banked the +money. I ought not to have kept it to look at like a gamin with his +marbles. There it was in the wall; and there was Dolores a long way from +home and wanting to get back. He found the way by a gift of the tools; +and I wish I had the same gift now; for I’ve got no other gift that’ll +earn anything for me.” + +These were the last dark or pessimistic words spoken at St. Saviour’s +by Jean Jacques; and they were said to the Clerk of the Court, who +could not deny the truth of them; but he wrung the hand of Jean Jacques +nevertheless, and would not leave him night or day. M. Fille was like a +little cruiser protecting a fort when gunboats swarm near, not daring to +attack till their battleship heaves in sight. The battleship was the +Big Financier, who saw that a wreck was now inevitable, and was only +concerned that there should be a fair distribution of the assets. That +meant, of course, that he should be served first, and then that those +below the salt should get a share. + +Revelation after revelation had been Jean Jacques’ lot of late years, +but the final revelation of his own impotence was overwhelming. When he +began to stir about among his affairs, he was faced by the fact that +the law stood in his way. He realized with inward horror his shattered +egotism and natural vanity; he saw that he might just as well be in +jail; that he had no freedom; that he could do nothing at all in regard +to anything he owned; that he was, in effect, a prisoner of war where he +had been the general commanding an army. + +Yet the old pride intervened, and it was associated with some innate +nobility; for from the hour in which it was known that Sebastian Dolores +had escaped in a steamer bound for France, and could not be overhauled, +and the chances were that he would never have to yield up the six +thousand dollars, Jean Jacques bustled about cheerfully, and as though +he had still great affairs of business to order and regulate. It was a +make-believe which few treated with scorn. Even the workmen at the mill +humoured him, as he came several times every day to inspect the work +of rebuilding; and they took his orders, though they did not carry +them out. No one really carried out any of his orders except Seraphe +Corniche, who, weeping from morning till night, protested that there +never was so good a man as M’sieu’ Jean Jacques; and she cooked his +favourite dishes, giving him no peace until he had eaten them. + +The days, the weeks went on, with Jean Jacques growing thinner and +thinner, but going about with his head up like the gold Cock of +Beaugard, and even crowing now and then, as he had done of yore. He +faced the inevitable with something of his old smiling volubility; +treating nothing of his disaster as though it really existed; signing +off this asset and that; disposing of this thing and that; stripping +himself bare of all the properties on his life’s stage, in such a manner +as might have been his had he been receiving gifts and not yielding up +all he owned. He chatted as his belongings were, figuratively speaking, +being carried away--as though they were mechanical, formal things to +be done as he had done them every day of a fairly long life; as a clerk +would check off the boxes or parcels carried past him by the porters. +M. Fille could hardly bear to see him in this mood, and the New Cure +hovered round him with a mournful and harmlessly deceptive kindness. But +the end had to come, and practically all the parish was present when it +came. That was on the day when the contents of the Manor were sold at +auction by order of the Court. One thing Jean Jacques refused absolutely +and irrevocably to do from the first--refused it at last in anger and +even with an oath: he would not go through the Bankruptcy Court. No +persuasion had any effect. The very suggestion seemed to smirch his +honour. His lawyer pleaded with him, said he would be able to save +something out of the wreck, and that his creditors would be willing that +he should take advantage of the privileges of that court; but he only +said in reply: + +“Thank you, thank you altogether, monsieur, but it is impossible--‘non +possumus, non possumus, my son,’ as the Pope said to Bonaparte. I owe +and I will pay what I can; and what I can’t pay now I will try to pay +in the future, by the cent, by the dollar, till all is paid to the last +copper. It is the way with the Barbilles. They have paid their way and +their debts in honour, and it is in the bond with all the Barbilles of +the past that I do as they do. If I can’t do it, then that I have tried +to do it will be endorsed on the foot of the bill.” + +No one could move him, not even Judge Carcasson, who from his armchair +in Montreal wrote a feeble-handed letter begging him to believe that +it was “well within his rights as a gentleman”--this he put in at +the request of M. Mornay--to take advantage of the privileges of +the Bankruptcy Court. Even then Jean Jacques had only a few moments’ +hesitation. What the Judge said made a deep impression; but he had +determined to drink the cup of his misfortune to the dregs. He was set +upon complete renunciation; on going forth like a pilgrim from the place +of his troubles and sorrows, taking no gifts, no mercies save those +which heaven accorded him. + +When the day of the auction came everything went. Even his best suit +of clothes was sold to a blacksmith, while his fur-coat was bought by a +horse-doctor for fifteen dollars. Things that had been part of his life +for a generation found their way into hands where he would least have +wished them to go--of those who had been envious of him, who had cheated +or deceived him, of people with whom he had had nothing in common. The +red wagon and the pair of little longtailed stallions, which he had +driven for six years, were bought by the owner of a rival flour-mill in +the parish of Vilray; but his best sleigh, with its coon-skin robes, +was bought by the widow of Palass Poucette, who bought also the famous +bearskin which Dolores had given her at Jean Jacques’ expense, and had +been returned by her to its proper owner. The silver fruitdish, once (it +was said) the property of the Baron of Beaugard, which each generation +of Barbilles had displayed with as much ceremony as though it was a +chalice given by the Pope, went to Virginie Poucette. Virginie also +bought the furniture from Zoe’s bedroom as it stood, together with the +little upright piano on which she used to play. The Cure bought Jean +Jacques’ writing-desk, and M. Fille purchased his armchair, in which had +sat at least six Barbilles as owners of the Manor. The beaver-hat which +Jean Jacques wore on state occasions, as his grandfather had done, +together with the bonnet rouge of the habitant, donned by him in his +younger days--they fell to the nod of Mere Langlois, who declared that, +as she was a cousin, she would keep the things in the family. Mere +Langlois would have bought the fruit-dish also if she could have +afforded to bid against Virginie Poucette; but the latter would have had +the dish if it had cost her two hundred dollars. The only time she +had broken bread in Jean Jacques’ house, she had eaten cake from +this fruit-dish; and to her, as to the parish generally, the dish so +beautifully shaped, with its graceful depth and its fine-chased handles, +was symbol of the social caste of the Barbilles, as the gold Cock of +Beaugard was sign of their civic and commercial glory. + +Jean Jacques, who had moved about all day with an almost voluble +affability, seeming not to realize the tragedy going on, or, if he +realized it, rising superior to it, was noticed to stand still suddenly +when the auctioneer put up the fruit-dish for sale. Then the smile left +his face, and the reddish glow in his eyes, which had been there since +the burning of the mill, fled, and a touch of amazement and confusion +took its place. All in a moment he was like a fluttered dweller of the +wilds to whom comes some tremor of danger. + +His mouth opened as though he would forbid the selling of the heirloom; +but it closed again, because he knew he had no right to withhold it from +the hammer; and he took on a look like that which comes to the eyes of a +child when it faces humiliating denial. Quickly as it came, however, it +vanished, for he remembered that he could buy the dish himself. He could +buy it himself and keep it.... Yet what could he do with it? Even so, he +could keep it. It could still be his till better days came. + +The auctioneer’s voice told off the value of the fruitdish--“As an +heirloom, as an antique; as a piece of workmanship impossible of +duplication in these days of no handicraft; as good pure silver, bearing +the head of Louis Quinze--beautiful, marvellous, historic, honourable,” + and Jean Jacques made ready to bid. Then he remembered he had no +money--he who all his life had been able to take a roll of bills from +his pocket as another man took a packet of letters. His glance fell +in shame, and the words died on his lips, even as M. Manotel, the +auctioneer, was about to add another five-dollar bid to the price, which +already was standing at forty dollars. + +It was at this moment Jean Jacques heard a woman’s voice bidding, then +two women’s voices. Looking up he saw that one of the women was Mere +Langlois and the other was Virginie Poucette, who had made the first +bid. For a moment they contended, and then Mere Langlois fell out of +the contest, and Virginie continued it with an ambitious farmer from the +next county, who was about to become a Member of Parliament. Presently +the owner of a river pleasure-steamer entered into the costly emulation +also, but he soon fell away; and Virginie Poucette stubbornly raised +the bidding by five dollars each time, till the silver symbol of the +Barbilles’ pride had reached one hundred dollars. Then she raised the +price by ten dollars, and her rival, seeing that he was face to face +with a woman who would now bid till her last dollar was at stake, +withdrew; and Virginie was left triumphant with the heirloom. + +At the moment when Virginie turned away with the handsome dish from M. +Manotel, and the crowd cheered her gaily, she caught Jean-Jacques’ eye, +and she came straight towards him. She wanted to give the dish to him +then and there; but she knew that this would provide annoying gossip for +many a day, and besides, she thought he would refuse. More than that, +she had in her mind another alternative which might in the end secure +the heirloom to him, in spite of all. As she passed him, she said: + +“At least we keep it in the parish. If you don’t have it, well, then...” + +She paused, for she did not quite know what to say unless she spoke what +was really in her mind, and she dared not do that. + +“But you ought to have an heirloom,” she added, leaving unsaid what was +her real thought and hope. With sudden inspiration, for he saw she was +trying to make it easy for him, he drew the great silver-watch from his +pocket, which the head of the Barbilles had worn for generations, and +said: + +“I have the only heirloom I could carry about with me. It will keep time +for me as long as I’ll last. The Manor clock strikes the time for the +world, and this watch is set by the Manor clock.” + +“Well said--well and truly said, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques,” remarked the +lean watchmaker and so-called jeweller of Vilray, who stood near. “It is +a watch which couldn’t miss the stroke of Judgment Day.” + +It was at that moment, in the sunset hour, when the sale had drawn to a +close, and the people had begun to disperse, that the avocat of Vilray +who represented the Big Financier came to Jean Jacques and said: + +“M’sieu’, I have to say that there is due to you three hundred and fifty +dollars from the settlement, excluding this sale, which will just do +what was expected of it. I am instructed to give it to you from the +creditors. Here it is.” + +He took out a roll of bills and offered it to Jean Jacques. + +“What creditors?” asked Jean Jacques. + +“All the creditors,” responded the other, and he produced a receipt for +Jean Jacques to sign. “A formal statement will be sent you, and if there +is any more due to you, it will be added then. But now--well, there it +is, the creditors think there is no reason for you to wait.” + +Jean Jacques did not yet take the roll of bills. “They come from M. +Mornay?” he asked with an air of resistance, for he did not wish to be +under further obligations to the man who would lose most by him. + +The lawyer was prepared. M. Mornay had foreseen the timidity +and sensitiveness of Jean Jacques, had anticipated his mistaken +chivalry--for how could a man decline to take advantage of the +Bankruptcy Court unless he was another Don Quixote! He had therefore +arranged with all the creditors for them to take responsibility with +‘himself, though he provided the cash which manipulated this settlement. + +“No, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques,” the lawyer replied, “this comes from all the +creditors, as the sum due to you from all the transactions, so far as +can be seen as yet. Further adjustment may be necessary, but this is the +interim settlement.” + +Jean Jacques was far from being ignorant of business, but so bemused was +his judgment and his intelligence now, that he did not see there was +no balance which could possibly be his, since his liabilities vastly +exceeded his assets. Yet with a wave of the hand he accepted the roll of +bills, and signed the receipt with an air which said, “These forms must +be observed, I suppose.” + +What he would have done if the three hundred and fifty dollars had not +been given him, it would be hard to say, for with gentle asperity he +had declined a loan from his friend M. Fille, and he had but one silver +dollar in his pocket, or in the world. Indeed, Jean Jacques was living +in a dream in these dark days--a dream of renunciation and sacrifice, +and in the spirit of one who gives up all to some great cause. He was +not yet even face to face with the fulness of his disaster. Only at +moments had the real significance of it all come to him, and then he had +shivered as before some terror menacing his path. Also, as M. Mornay had +said, his philosophy was now in his bones and marrow rather than in his +words. It had, after all, tinctured his blood and impregnated his mind. +He had babbled and been the egotist, and played cock o’ the walk; and +now at last his philosophy was giving some foundation for his feet. +Yet at this auction-sale he looked a distracted, if smiling, whimsical, +rather bustling figure of misfortune, with a tragic air of exile, of +isolation from all by which he was surrounded. A profound and wayworn +loneliness showed in his figure, in his face, in his eyes. + +The crowd thinned in time, and yet very many lingered to see the last +of this drama of lost fortunes. A few of the riff-raff, who invariably +attend these public scenes, were now rather the worse for drink, +from the indifferent liquor provided by the auctioneer, and they were +inclined to horseplay and coarse chaff. More than one ribald reference +to Jean Jacques had been checked by his chivalrous fellow-citizens; +indeed, M. Fille had almost laid himself open to a charge of assault +in his own court by raising his stick at a loafer, who made insulting +references to Jean Jacques. But as the sale drew to a close, an air of +rollicking humour among the younger men would not be suppressed, and it +looked as though Jean Jacques’ exit would be attended by the elements of +farce and satire. + +In this world, however, things do not happen logically, and Jean Jacques +made his exit in a wholly unexpected manner. He was going away by the +train which left a new railway junction a few miles off, having gently +yet firmly declined M. Fille’s invitation, and also the invitations of +others--including the Cure and Mere Langlois--to spend the night with +them and start off the next day. He elected to go on to Montreal that +very night, and before the sale was quite finished he prepared to start. +His carpet-bag containing a few clothes and necessaries had been sent on +to the junction, and he meant to walk to the station in the cool of the +evening. + +M. Manotel, the auctioneer, hoarse with his heavy day’s work, was +announcing that there were only a few more things to sell, and no doubt +they could be had at a bargain, when Jean Jacques began a tour of +the Manor. There was something inexpressibly mournful in this lonely +pilgrimage of the dismantled mansion. Yet there was no show of cheap +emotion by Jean Jacques; and a wave of the hand prevented any one from +following him in his dry-eyed progress to say farewell to these haunts +of childhood, manhood, family, and home. There was a strange numbness +in his mind and body, and he had a feeling that he moved immense and +reflective among material things. Only tragedy can produce that feeling. +Happiness makes the universe infinite and stupendous, despair makes it +small and even trivial. + +It was when he had reached the little office where he had done the +business of his life--a kind of neutral place where he had ever isolated +himself from the domestic scene--that the final sensation, save one, of +his existence at the Manor came to him. Virginie Poucette had divined +his purpose when he began the tour of the house, and going by a +roundabout way, she had placed herself where she could speak with him +alone before he left the place for ever--if that was to be. She was not +sure that his exit was really inevitable--not yet. + +When Jean Jacques saw Virginie standing beside the table in his office +where he lead worked over so many years, now marked Sold, and waiting to +be taken away by its new owner, he started and drew back, but she held +out her hand and said: + +“But one word, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques; only one word from a friend--indeed +a friend.” + +“A friend of friends,” he answered, still in abstraction, his eyes +having that burnished light which belonged to the night of the fire; but +yet realizing that she was a sympathetic soul who had offered to lend +him money without security. + +“Oh, indeed yes, as good a friend as you can ever have!” she added. + +Something had waked the bigger part of her, which had never been awake +in the days of Palass Poucette. Jean Jacques was much older than she, +but what she felt had nothing to do with age, or place or station. It +had only to do with understanding, with the call of nature and of a +motherhood crying for expression. Her heart ached for him. + +“Well, good-bye, my friend,” he said, and held out his hand. “I must be +going now.” + +“Wait,” she said, and there was something insistent and yet pleading in +her voice. “I’ve got something to say. You must hear it.... Why should +you go? There is my farm--it needs to be worked right. It has got +good chances. It has water-power and wood and the best flax in the +province--they want to start a flax-mill on it--I’ve had letters from +big men in Montreal. Well, why shouldn’t you do it instead? There it is, +the farm, and there am I a woman alone. I need help. I’ve got no head. +I have to work at a sum of figures all night to get it straight.... Ah, +m’sieu’, it is a need both sides! You want someone to look after you; +you want a chance again to do things; but you want someone to look +after you, and it is all waiting there on the farm. Palass Poucette +left behind him seven sound horses, and cows and sheep, and a +threshing-machine and a fanning-mill, and no debts, and two thousand +dollars in the bank. You will never do anything away from here. You must +stay here, where--where I can look after you, Jean Jacques.” + +The light in his eyes flamed up, died down, flamed up again, and +presently it covered all his face, as he grasped what she meant. + +“Wonder of God, do you forget?” he asked. “I am married--married still, +Virginie Poucette. There is no divorce in the Catholic Church--no, none +at all. It is for ever and ever.” + +“I said nothing about marriage,” she said bravely, though her face +suffused. + +“Hand of Heaven, what do you mean? You mean to say you would do that for +me in spite of the Cure and--and everybody and everything?” + +“You ought to be taken care of,” she protested. “You ought to have your +chance again. No one here is free to do it all but me. You are alone. +Your wife that was--maybe she is dead. I am alone, and I’m not afraid of +what the good God will say. I will settle with Him myself. Well, then, +do you think I’d care what--what Mere Langlois or the rest of the world +would say?... I can’t bear to think of you going away with nothing, with +nobody, when here is something and somebody--somebody who would be good +to you. Everybody knows that you’ve been badly used--everybody. I’m +young enough to make things bright and warm in your life, and the place +is big enough for two, even if it isn’t the Manor Cartier.” + +“Figure de Christ, do you think I’d let you do it--me?” declared Jean +Jacques, with lips trembling now and his shoulders heaving. Misfortune +and pain and penalty he could stand, but sacrifice like this and--and +whatever else it was, were too much for him. They brought him back to +the dusty road and everyday life again; they subtracted him from his +big dream, in which he had been detached from the details of his +catastrophe. + +“No, no, no,” he added. “You go look another way, Virginie. Turn your +face to the young spring, not to the dead winter. To-morrow I’ll be gone +to find what I’ve got to find. I’ve finished here, but there’s many a +good man waiting for you--men who’ll bring you something worth while +besides themselves. Make no mistake, I’ve finished. I’ve done my term +of life. I’m only out on ticket-of-leave now--but there, enough, I shall +always want to think of you. I wish I had something to give you--but +yes, here is something.” He drew from his pocket a silver napkin-ring. +“I’ve had that since I was five years old. My uncle Stefan gave it to +me. I’ve always used it. I don’t know why I put it in my pocket this +morning, but I did. Take it. It’s more than money. It’s got something +of Jean Jacques about it. You’ve got the Barbille fruit-dish-that is a +thing I’ll remember. I’m glad you’ve got it, and--” + +“I meant we should both eat from it,” she said helplessly. + +“It would cost too much to eat from it with you, Virginie--” + +He stopped short, choked, then his face cleared, and his eyes became +steady. + +“Well then, good-bye, Virginie,” he said, holding out his hand. + +“You don’t think I’d say to any other living man what I’ve said to you?” + she asked. + +He nodded understandingly. “That’s the best part of it. It was for me +of all the world,” he answered. “When I look back, I’ll see the light +in your window--the light you lit for the lost one--for Jean Jacques +Barbille.” + +Suddenly, with eyes that did not see and hands held out before him, he +turned, felt for the door and left the room. + +She leaned helplessly against the table. “The poor Jean Jacques--the +poor Jean Jacques!” she murmured. “Cure or no Cure, I’d have done it,” + she declared, with a ring to her voice. “Ah, but Jean Jacques, come with +me!” she added with a hungry and compassionate gesture, speaking into +space. “I could make life worth while for us both.” + +A moment later Virginie was outside, watching the last act in the career +of Jean Jacques in the parish of St. Saviour’s. + +This was what she saw. + +The auctioneer was holding up a bird-cage containing a canary-Carmen’s +bird-cage, and Zoe’s canary which had remained to be a vocal memory of +her in her old home. + +“Here,” said the rhetorical, inflammable auctioneer, “here is the +choicest lot left to the last. I put it away in the bakery, meaning to +sell it at noon, when everybody was eating-food for the soul and food +for the body. I forgot it. But here it is, worth anything you like to +anybody that loves the beautiful, the good, and the harmonious. What do +I hear for this lovely saffron singer from the Elysian fields? What did +the immortal poet of France say of the bird in his garret, in ‘L’Oiseau +de Mon Crenier’? What did he say: + + ‘Sing me a song of the bygone hour, + A song of the stream and the sun; + Sing of my love in her bosky bower, + When my heart it was twenty-one.’ + +“Come now, who will renew his age or regale her youth with the divine +notes of nature’s minstrel? Who will make me an offer for this vestal +virgin of song--the joy of the morning and the benediction of the +evening? What do I hear? The best of the wine to the last of the feast! +What do I hear?--five dollars--seven dollars--nine dollars--going at +nine dollars--ten dollars--Well, ladies and gentlemen, the bird can +sing--ah, voila!” + +He stopped short for a moment, for as the evening sun swept its veil +of rainbow radiance over the scene, the bird began to sing. Its little +throat swelled, it chirruped, it trilled, it called, it soared, it lost +itself in a flood of ecstasy. In the applausive silence, the emotional +recess of the sale, as it were, the man to whom the bird and the song +meant most, pushed his way up to the stand where M. Manotel stood. When +the people saw who it was, they fell back, for there was that in his +face which needed no interpretation. It filled them with a kind of awe. + +He reached up a brown, eager, affectionate hand--it had always been +that--fat and small, but rather fine and certainly emotional, though not +material or sensual. + +“Go on with your bidding,” he said. + +He was going to buy the thing which had belonged to his daughter, was +beloved by her--the living oracle of the morning, the muezzin of his +mosque of home. It had been to the girl who had gone as another such a +bird had been to the mother of the girl, the voice that sang, “Praise +God,” in the short summer of that bygone happiness of his. Even this +cage and its homebird were not his; they belonged to the creditors. + +“Go on. I buy--I bid,” Jean Jacques said in a voice that rang. It had +no blur of emotion. It had resonance. The hammer that struck the bell of +his voice was the hammer of memory, and if it was plaintive it also was +clear, and it was also vibrant with the silver of lost hopes. + +M. Manotel humoured him, while the bird still sang. “Four dollars--five +dollars: do I hear no more than five dollars?--going once, going twice, +going three times--gone!” he cried, for no one had made a further bid; +and indeed M. Manotel would not have heard another voice than Jean +Jacques’ if it had been as loud as the falls of the Saguenay. He was a +kind of poet in his way, was M. Manotel. He had been married four times, +and he would be married again if he had the chance; also he wrote verses +for tombstones in the churchyard at St. Saviour’s, and couplets for +fetes and weddings. + +He handed the cage to Jean Jacques, who put it down on the ground at his +feet, and in an instant had handed up five dollars for one of the idols +of his own altar. Anyone else than M. Manotel, or perhaps M. Fille or +the New Cure, would have hesitated to take the five dollars, or, if they +had done so, would have handed it back; but they had souls to +understand this Jean Jacques, and they would not deny him his insistent +independence. And so, in a moment, he was making his way out of the +crowd with the cage in his hand, the bird silent now. + +As he went, some one touched his arm and slipped a book into his hand. +It was M. Fille, and the book was his little compendium of philosophy +which his friend had retrieved from his bedroom in the early morning. + +“You weren’t going to forget it, Jean Jacques?” M. Fille said +reproachfully. “It is an old friend. It would not be happy with any one +else.” + +Jean Jacques looked M. Fille in the eyes. “Moi--je suis philosophe,” he +said without any of the old insistence and pride and egotism, but as one +would make an affirmation or repeat a creed. + +“Yes, yes, to be sure, always, as of old,” answered M. Fille firmly; +for, from that formula might come strength, when it was most needed, +in a sense other and deeper far than it had been or was now. “You will +remember that you will always know where to find us--eh?” added the +little Clerk of the Court. + +The going of Jean Jacques was inevitable; all persuasion had failed to +induce him to stay--even that of Virginie; and M. Fille now treated +it as though it was the beginning of a new career for Jean Jacques, +whatever that career might be. It might be he would come back some day, +but not to things as they were, not ever again, nor as the same man. + +“You will move on with the world outside there,” continued M. Fille, +“but we shall be turning on the same swivel here always; and whenever +you come--there, you understand. With us it is semper fidelis, always +the same.” + +Jean Jacques looked at M. Fille again as though to ask him a question, +but presently he shook his head in negation to his thought. + +“Well, good-bye,” he said cheerfully--“A la bonne heure!” + +By that M. Fille knew that Jean Jacques did not wish for company as he +went--not even the company of his old friend who had loved the bright +whimsical emotional Zoe; who had hovered around his life like a +protecting spirit. + +“A bi’tot,” responded M. Fille, declining upon the homely patois. + +But as Jean Jacques walked away with his little book of philosophy in +his pocket, and the bird-cage in his hand, someone sobbed. M. Fille +turned and saw. It was Virginie Poucette. Fortunately for Virginie other +women did the same, not for the same reason, but out of a sympathy which +was part of the scene. + +It had been the intention of some friends of Jean Jacques to give him +a cheer when he left, and even his sullen local creditors, now that +the worst had come, were disposed to give him a good send-off; but the +incident of the canary in its cage gave a turn to the feeling of the +crowd which could not be resisted. They were not a people who could cut +and dry their sentiments; they were all impulse and simplicity, with an +obvious cocksure shrewdness too, like that of Jean Jacques--of the old +Jean Jacques. He had been the epitome of all their faults and all their +virtues. + +No one cheered. Only one person called, “Au ‘voir, M’sieu’ Jean +Jacques!” and no one followed him--a curious, assertive, feebly-brisk, +shock-headed figure in the brown velveteen jacket, which he had bought +in Paris on his Grand Tour. + +“What a ridiculous little man!” said a woman from Chalfonte over the +water, who had been buying freely all day for her new “Manor,” her +husband being a member of the provincial legislature. + +The words were no sooner out of her mouth than two women faced her +threateningly. + +“For two pins I’d slap your face,” said old Mere Langlois, her great +breast heaving. “Popinjay--you, that ought to be in a cage like his +canary.” + +But Virginie Poucette also was there in front of the offender, and she +also had come from Chalfonte--was born in that parish; and she knew what +she was facing. + +“Better carry a bird-cage and a book than carry swill to swine,” she +said; and madame from Chalfonte turned white, for it had been said that +her father was once a swine-herd, and that she had tried her best to +forget it when, with her coarse beauty, she married the well-to-do +farmer who was now in the legislature. + +“Hold your tongues, all of you, and look at that,” said M. Manotel, who +had joined the agitated group. He was pointing towards the departing +Jean Jacques, who was now away upon his road. + +Jean Jacques had raised the cage on a level with his face, and was +evidently speaking to the bird in the way birds love--that soft kissing +sound to which they reply with song. + +Presently there came a chirp or two, and then the bird thrust up +its head, and out came the full blessedness of its song, exultant, +home-like, intimate. + +Jean Jacques walked on, the bird singing by his side; and he did not +look back. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME + +Nothing stops when we stop for a time, or for all time, except +ourselves. Everything else goes on--not in the same way; but it does go +on. Life did not stop at St. Saviour’s after Jean Jacques made his exit. +Slowly the ruined mill rose up again, and very slowly indeed the widow +of Palass Poucette recovered her spirits, though she remained a widow +in spite of all appeals; but M. Fille and his sister never were the same +after they lost their friend. They had great comfort in the dog +which Jean Jacques had given to them, and they roused themselves to a +malicious pleasure when Bobon, as he had been called by Zoe, rushed out +at the heels of an importunate local creditor who had greatly worried +Jean Jacques at the last. They waited in vain for a letter from Jean +Jacques, but none came; nor did they hear anything from him, or of him, +for a long, long time. + +Jean Jacques did not mean that they should. When he went away with his +book of philosophy and his canary he had but one thing in his mind, and +that was to find Zoe and make her understand that he knew he had been +in the wrong. He had illusions about starting life again, in which he +probably did not believe; but the make-believe was good for him. Long +before the crash came, in Zoe’s name--not his own--he had bought from +the Government three hundred and twenty acres of land out near the +Rockies and had spent five hundred dollars in improvements on it. + +There it was in the West, one remaining asset still his own--or rather +Zoe’s--but worth little if he or she did not develop it. As he left St. +Saviour’s, however, he kept fixing his mind on that “last domain,” as he +called it to himself. If this was done intentionally, that he might be +saved from distraction and despair, it was well done; if it was a real +illusion--the old self-deception which had been his bane so often in the +past--it still could only do him good at the present. It prevented him +from noticing the attention he attracted on the railway journey from St. +Saviour’s to Montreal, cherishing his canary and his book as he went. + +He was not so self-conscious now as in the days when he was surprised +that Paris did not stop to say, “Bless us, here is that fine fellow, +Jean Jacques Barbille of St. Saviour’s!” He could concentrate himself +more now on things that did not concern the impression he was making on +the world. At present he could only think of Zoe and of her future. + +When a patronizing and aggressive commercial traveller in the little +hotel on a side-street where he had taken a room in Montreal said to +him, “Bien, mon vieux” (which is to say, “Well, old cock”), “aren’t +you a long way from home?” something of a new dignity came into Jean +Jacques’ bearing, very different from the assurance of the old days, and +in reply he said: + +“Not so far that I need be careless about my company.” This made the +landlady of the little hotel laugh quite hard, for she did not like the +braggart “drummer” who had treated her with great condescension for a +number of years. Also Madame Glozel liked Jean Jacques because of his +canary. She thought there must be some sentimental reason for a man of +fifty or more carrying a bird about with him; and she did not rest +until she had drawn from Jean Jacques that he was taking the bird to his +daughter in the West. There, however, madame was stayed in her search +for information. Jean Jacques closed up, and did but smile when she +adroitly set traps for him, and at last asked him outright where his +daughter was. + +Why he waited in Montreal it would be hard to say, save that it was a +kind of middle place between the old life and the new, and also because +he must decide what was to be his plan of search. First the West--first +Winnipeg, but where after that? He had at last secured information of +where Zoe and Gerard Fynes had stayed while in Montreal; and now he +followed clues which would bring him in touch with folk who knew them. +He came to know one or two people who were with Zoe and Gerard in the +last days they spent in the metropolis, and he turned over and over in +his mind every word said about his girl, as a child turns a sweetmeat in +its mouth. This made him eager to be off; but on the very day he decided +to start at once for the West, something strange happened. + +It was towards the late afternoon of a Saturday, when the streets were +full of people going to and from the shops in a marketing quarter, that +Madame Glozel came to him and said: + +“M’sieu’, I have an idea, and you will not think it strange, for you +have a kind heart. There is a woman--look you, it is a sad, sad story +hers. She is ill and dying in a room a little way down the street. But +yes, I am sure she is dying--of heart disease it is. She came here first +when the illness took her, but she could not afford to stay. She went to +those cheaper lodgings down the street. She used to be on the stage over +in the States, and then she came back here, and there was a man--married +to him or not I do not know, and I will not think. Well, the man--the +brute--he left her when she got ill--but yes, forsook her absolutely! He +was a land-agent or something like that, and all very fine to your face, +to promise and to pretend--just make-believe. When her sickness got +worse, off he went with ‘Au revoir, my dear--I will be back to supper.’ +Supper! If she’d waited for her supper till he came back, she’d have +waited as long as I’ve done for the fortune the gipsy promised me forty +years ago. Away he went, the rogue, without a thought of her, and with +another woman. That’s what hurt her most of all. Straight from her that +could hardly drag herself about--ah, yes, and has been as handsome a +woman as ever was!--straight from her he went to a slut. She was a slut, +m’sieu’--did I not know her? Did Ma’m’selle Slut not wait at table in +this house and lead the men a dance here night and day-day and night +till I found it out! Well, off he went with the slut, and left the lady +behind.... You men, you treat women so.” + +Jean Jacques put out a hand as though to argue with her. “Sometimes it +is the other way,” he retorted. “Most of us have seen it like that.” + +“Well, for sure, you’re right enough there, m’sieu’,” was the response. +“I’ve got nothing to say to that, except that it’s a man that runs away +with a woman, or that gets her to leave her husband when she does go. +There’s always a man that says, ‘Come along, I’m the better chap for +you.’” + +Jean Jacques wearily turned his head away towards the cage where his +canary was beginning to pipe its evening lay. + +“It all comes to the same thing in the end,” he said pensively; and then +he who had been so quiet since he came to the little hotel--Glozel’s, it +was called--began to move about the room excitedly, running his fingers +through his still bushy hair, which, to his credit, was always as clean +as could be, burnished and shiny even at his mid-century period. He +began murmuring to himself, and a frown settled on his fore head. Mme. +Glozel saw that she had perturbed him, and that no doubt she had roused +some memories which made sombre the sunny little room where the canary +sang; where, to ravish the eyes of the pessimist, was a picture of Louis +XVI. going to heaven in the arms of St. Peter. + +When started, however, the good woman could no more “slow down” than her +French pony would stop when its head was turned homewards from market. +So she kept on with the history of the woman down the street. + +“Heart disease,” she said, nodding with assurance and finality; “and we +know what that is--a start, a shock, a fall, a strain, and pht! off the +poor thing goes. Yes, heart disease, and sometimes with such awful pain. +But so; and yesterday she told me she had only a hundred dollars left. +‘Enough to last me through,’ she said to me. Poor thing, she lifted up +her eyes with a way she has, as if looking for something she couldn’t +find, and she says, as simple as though she was asking about the price +of a bed-tick, ‘It won’t cost more than fifty dollars to bury me, I +s’pose?’ Well, that made me squeamish, for the poor dear’s plight came +home to me so clear, and she young enough yet to get plenty out of life, +if she had the chance. So I asked her again about her people--whether I +couldn’t send for someone belonging to her. ‘There’s none that belongs +to me,’ she says, ‘and there’s no one I belong to.’ + +“I thought very likely she didn’t want to tell me about herself; perhaps +because she had done wrong, and her family had not been good to her. +Yet it was right I should try and get her folks to come, if she had any +folks. So I said to her, ‘Where was your home?’ And now, what do you +think she answered, m’sieu’?’ ‘Look there,’ she said to me, with her +big eyes standing out of her head almost--for that’s what comes to her +sometimes when she is in pain, and she looks more handsome then than at +any other time--‘Look there,’ she said to me, ‘it was in heaven, that’s +where--my home was; but I didn’t know it. I hadn’t been taught to know +the place when I saw it.’ + +“Well, I felt my skin go goosey, for I saw what was going on in her +mind, and how she was remembering what had happened to her some time, +somewhere; but there wasn’t a tear in her eyes, and I never saw her +cry-never once, m’sieu’--well, but as brave as brave. Her eyes are +always dry--burning. They’re like two furnaces scorching up her face. So +I never found out her history, and she won’t have the priest. I believe +that’s because she wants to die unknown, and doesn’t want to confess. I +never saw a woman I was sorrier for, though I think she wasn’t married +to the man that left her. But whatever she was, there’s good in her--I +haven’t known hundreds of women and had seven sisters for nothing. Well, +there she is--not a friend near her at the last; for it’s coming soon, +the end--no one to speak to her, except the woman she pays to come in +and look after her and nurse her a bit. Of course there’s the landlady +too, Madame Popincourt, a kind enough little cricket of a woman, but +with no sense and no head for business. And so the poor sick thing has +not a single pleasure in the world. She can’t read, because it makes her +head ache, she says; and she never writes to any one. One day she tried +to sing a little, but it seemed to hurt her, and she stopped before she +had begun almost. Yes, m’sieu’, there she is without a single pleasure +in the long hours when she doesn’t sleep.” + +“There’s my canary--that would cheer her up,” eagerly said Jean Jacques, +who, as the story of the chirruping landlady continued, became master of +his agitation, and listened as though to the tale of some life for which +he had concern. “Yes, take my canary to her, madame. It picked me up +when I was down. It’ll help her--such a bird it is! It’s the best singer +in the world. It’s got in its throat the music of Malibran and Jenny +Lind and Grisi, and all the stars in heaven that sang together. Also, +to be sure, it doesn’t charge anything, but just as long as there’s +daylight it sings and sings, as you know.” + +“M’sieu’--oh, m’sieu’, it was what I wanted to ask you, and I didn’t +dare!” gushingly declared madame. “I never heard a bird sing like +that--just as if it knew how much good it was doing, and with all the +airs of a grand seigneur. It’s a prince of birds, that. If you mean it, +m’sieu’, you’ll do as good a thing as you have ever done.” + +“It would have to be much better, or it wouldn’t be any use,” remarked +Jean Jacques. + +The woman made a motion of friendliness with both hands. “I don’t +believe that. You may be queer, but you’ve got a kind eye. It won’t be +for long she’ll need the canary, and it will cheer her. There certainly +was never a bird so little tied to one note. Now this note, now that, +and so amusing. At times it’s as though he was laughing at you.” + +“That’s because, with me for his master, he has had good reason to +laugh,” remarked Jean Jacques, who had come at last to take a despondent +view of himself. + +“That’s bosh,” rejoined Mme. Glozel; “I’ve seen several people odder +than you.” + +She went over to the cage eagerly, and was about to take it away. +“Excuse me,” interposed Jean Jacques, “I will carry 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 armchair, so pale yet +so splendid in her death-beauty, raised herself up. With eyes that +Francesca might have turned to the vision of her fate, she looked at the +opening door, as though to learn if he who came was one she had wished +to see through long, relentless days. + +“Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!” she cried out presently +in a voice like a wisp of sound, for she had little breath; and then +with a smile she sank back, too late to hear, but not too late to know, +what Jean Jacques said to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY + +However far Jean Jacques went, however long the day since leaving the +Manor Cartier, he could not escape the signals from his past. He heard +more than once the bells of memory ringing at the touch of the invisible +hand of Destiny which accepts no philosophy save its own. At Montreal, +for one hallowed instant, he had regained his lost Carmen, but he had +turned from her grave--the only mourners being himself, Mme. Glozel and +Mme. Popincourt, together with a barber who had coiffed her wonderful +hair once a week--with a strange burning at his heart. That iceberg +which most mourners carry in their breasts was not his, as he walked +down the mountainside from Carmen’s grave. Behind him trotted Mme. +Glozel and Mme. Popincourt, like little magpies, attendants on +this eagle of sorrow whose life-love had been laid to rest, her +heart-troubles over. Passion or ennui would no more vex her. + +She had had a soul, had Carmen Dolores, though she had never known it +till her days closed in on her, and from the dusk she looked out of the +casements of life to such a glowing as Jean Jacques had seen when his +burning mill beatified the evening sky. She had known passion and vivid +life in the days when she went hand-in-hand with Carvillho Gonzales +through the gardens of Granada; she had known the smothering +home-sickness which does not alone mean being sick for a distant home, +but a sickness of the home that is; and she had known what George Masson +gave her for one thrilling hour, and then--then the man who left her in +her death-year, taking not only the last thread of hope which held her +to life. This vulture had taken also little things dear to her daily +life, such as the ring Carvillho Gonzales had given her long ago in +Cadiz, also another ring, a gift of Jean Jacques, and things less +valuable to her, such as money, for which she knew surely she would have +no long use. + +As she lay waiting for the day when she must go from the garish scene, +she unconsciously took stock of life in her own way. There intruded on +her sight the stages of the theatres where she had played and danced, +and she heard again the music of the paloma and those other Spanish airs +which had made the world dance under her girl’s feet long ago. At +first she kept seeing the faces of thousands looking up at her from the +stalls, down at her from the gallery, over at her from the boxes; and +the hot breath of that excitement smote her face with a drunken odour +that sent her mad. Then, alas! somehow, as disease took hold of her, +there were the colder lights, the colder breath from the few who +applauded so little. And always the man who had left her in her day of +direst need; who had had the last warm fires of her life, the last brief +outrush of her soul, eager as it was for a joy which would prove she +had not lost all when she fled from the Manor Cartier--a joy which would +make her forget! + +What she really did feel in this last adventure of passion only made her +remember the more when she was alone now, her life at the Manor +Cartier. She was wont to wake up suddenly in the morning--the very early +morning--with the imagined sound of the gold Cock of Beaugard crowing in +her ears. Memory, memory, memory--yet never a word, and never a hearsay +of what had happened at the Manor Cartier since she had left it! Then +there came a time when she longed intensely to see Jean Jacques before +she died, though she could not bring herself to send word to him. She +dreaded what the answer might be--not Jean Jacques’ answer, but the +answer of Life. Jean Jacques and her child, her Zoe--more his than hers +in years gone by--one or both might be dead! She dared not write, but +she cherished a desire long denied. Then one day she saw everything in +her life more clearly than she had ever done. She found an old book of +French verse, once belonging to Mme. Popincourt’s husband, who had been +a professor. Some lines therein opened up a chamber of her being never +before unlocked. At first only the feeling of the thing came, then +slowly the spiritual meaning possessed her. She learnt it by heart and +let it sing to her as she lay half-sleeping and half-waking, half-living +and half-dying: + + “There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o’er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home. + + “A land that triumphs over shame and pain, + Penitence and passion and the parting breath, + Over the former and the latter rain, + The birth-morn fire and the frost of death. + + “From its safe shores the white boats ride away, + Salving the wreckage of the portless ships + The light desires of the amorous day, + The wayward, wanton wastage of the lips. + + “Star-mist and music and the pensive moon + These when I harboured at that perfumed shore; + And then, how soon! the radiance of noon, + And faces of dear children at the door. + + “Land of the Greater Love--men call it this; + No light-o’-love sets here an ambuscade; + No tender torture of the secret kiss + Makes sick the spirit and the soul afraid. + + “Bright bowers and the anthems of the free, + The lovers absolute--ah, hear the call! + Beyond the long island and the sheltering sea, + That World I found which holds my world in thrall. + + “There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o’er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home.” + +At last the inner thought of it got into her heart, and then it was in +reply to Mme. Glozel, who asked her where her home was, she said: “In +Heaven, but I did not know it!” And thus it was, too, that at the +very last, when Jean Jacques followed the singing bird into her +death-chamber, she cried out, “Ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!” + +And because Jean Jacques knew that, at the last, she had been his, soul +and body, he went down from the mountain-side, the two black magpies +fluttering mournfully and yet hopefully behind him, with more warmth at +his heart than he had known for years. It never occurred to him that the +two elderly magpies would jointly or severally have given the rest of +their lives and their scant fortunes to have him with them either as +husband, or as one who honourably hires a home at so much a day. + +Though Jean Jacques did not know this last fact, when he fared forth +again he left behind his canary with Mme. Glozel; also all Carmen’s +clothes, except the dress she died in, he gave to Mme. Popincourt, on +condition that she did not wear them till he had gone. The dress in +which Carmen died he wrapped up carefully, with her few jewels and her +wedding-ring, and gave the parcel to Mme. Glozel to care for till he +should send for it or come again. + +“The bird--take him on my birthday to sing at her grave,” he said to +Mme. Glozel just before he went West. “It is in summer, my birthday, and +you shall hear how he will sing there,” he added in a low voice at the +very door. Then he took out a ten-dollar bill, and would have given it +to her to do this thing for him; but she would have none of his money. +She only wiped her eyes and deplored his going, and said that if ever +he wanted a home, and she was alive, he would know where to find it. +It sounded and looked sentimental, yet Jean Jacques was never less +sentimental in a very sentimental life. This particular morning he was +very quiet and grave, and not in the least agitated; he spoke like one +from a friendly, sun-bright distance to Mme. Glozel, and also to Mme. +Popincourt as he passed her at the door of her house. + +Jean Jacques had no elation as he took the Western trail; there was not +much hope in his voice; but there was purpose and there was a little +stream of peace flowing through his being--and also, mark, a stream of +anger tumbling over rough places. He had read two letters addressed to +Carmen by the man--Hugo Stolphe--who had left her to her fate; and there +was a grim devouring thing in him which would break loose, if ever the +man crossed his path. He would not go hunting him, but if he passed +him or met him on the way--! Still he would go hunting--to find his +Carmencita, his little Carmen, his Zoe whom he had unwittingly, God +knew! driven forth into the far world of the millions of acres--a wide, +wide hunting-ground in good sooth. + +So he left his beloved province where he no longer had a home, and +though no letters came to him from St. Saviour’s, from Vilray or the +Manor Cartier, yet he heard the bells of memory when the Hand Invisible +arrested his footsteps. One day these bells rang so loud that he would +have heard them were he sunk in the world’s deepest well of shame; but, +as it was, he now marched on hills far higher than the passes through +the mountains which his patchwork philosophy had ever provided. + +It was in the town of Shilah on the Watloon River that the bells boomed +out--not because he had encountered one he had ever known far down by +the Beau Cheval, or in his glorious province, not because he had +found his Zoe, but because a man, the man--not George Masson, but the +other--met him in the way. + +Shilah was a place to which, almost unconsciously, he had deviated his +course, because once Virginie Poucette had read him a letter from there. +That was in the office of the little Clerk of the Court at Vilray. The +letter was from Virginie’s sister at Shilah, and told him that Zoe and +her husband had gone away into farther fields of homelessness. Thus it +was that Shilah ever seemed to him, as he worked West, a goal in his +quest--not the last goal perhaps, but a goal. + +He had been far past it by another route, up, up and out into the more +scattered settlements, and now at last he had come to it again, having +completed a kind of circle. As he entered it, the past crowded on to him +with a hundred pictures. Shilah--it was where Virginie Poucette’s sister +lived; and Virginie had been a part of the great revelation of his life +at St. Saviour’s. + +As he was walking by the riverside at Shilah, a woman spoke to him, +touching his arm as she did so. He was in a deep dream as she spoke, +but there certainly was a look in her face that reminded him of someone +belonging to the old life. For an instant he could not remember. For a +moment he did not even realize that he was at Shilah. His meditation +had almost been a trance, and it took him time to adjust himself to +the knowledge of the conscious mind. His subconsciousness was very +powerfully alive in these days. There was not the same ceaselessly +active eye, nor the vibration of the impatient body which belonged to +the money-master and miller of the Manor Cartier. Yet the eye had more +depth and force, and the body was more powerful and vigorous than it had +ever been. The long tramping, the everlasting trail on false scents, the +mental battling with troubles past and present, had given a fortitude +and vigour to the body beyond what it had ever known. In spite of +his homelessness and pilgrim equipment he looked as though he had a +home--far off. The eyes did not smile; but the lips showed the goodness +of his heart--and its hardness too. Hardness had never been there in +the old days. It was, however, the hardness of resentment, and not +of cruelty. It was not his wife’s or his daughter’s flight that he +resented, nor yet the loss of all he had, nor the injury done him by +Sebastian Dolores. No, his resentment was against one he had never seen, +but was now soon to see. As his mind came back from the far places where +it had been, and his eyes returned to the concrete world, he saw what +the woman recalled to him. It was--yes, it was Virginie Poucette--the +kind and beautiful Virginie--for her goodness had made him remember +her as beautiful, though indeed she was but comely, like this woman who +stayed him as he walked by the river. + +“You are M’sieu’ Jean Jacques Barbille?” she said questioningly. + +“How did you know?” he asked.... “Is Virginie Poucette here?” + +“Ah, you knew me from her?” she asked. + +“There was something about her--and you have it also--and the look in +the eyes, and then the lips!” he replied. + +Certainly they were quite wonderful, luxurious lips, and so shapely +too--like those of Virginie. + +“But how did you know I was Jean Jacques Barbille?” he repeated. + +“Well, then it is quite easy,” she replied with a laugh almost like a +giggle, for she was quite as simple and primitive as her sister. “There +is a photographer at Vilray, and Virginie got one of your pictures +there, and sent, it to me. ‘He may come your way,’ said Virginie to me, +‘and if he does, do not forget that he is my friend.’” + +“That she is my friend,” corrected Jean Jacques. “And what a +friend--merci, what a friend!” Suddenly he caught the woman’s arm. “You +once wrote to your sister about my Zoe, my daughter, that married and +ran away--” + +“That ran away and got married,” she interrupted. + +“Is there any more news--tell me, do you know-?” + +But Virginie’s sister shook her head. “Only once since I wrote Virginie +have I heard, and then the two poor children--but how helpless they +were, clinging to each other so! Well, then, once I heard from Faragay, +but that was much more than a year ago. Nothing since, and they were +going on--on to Fort Providence to spend the winter--for his health--his +lungs.” + +“What to do--on what to live?” moaned Jean Jacques. + +“His grandmother sent him a thousand dollars, so your Madame Zoe wrote +me.” + +Jean Jacques raised a hand with a gesture of emotion. “Ah, the blessed +woman! May there be no purgatory for her, but Heaven at once and +always!” + +“Come home with me--where are your things?” she asked. + +“I have only a knapsack,” he replied. “It is not far from here. But I +cannot stay with you. I have no claim. No, I will not, for--” + +“As to that, we keep a tavern,” she returned. “You can come the same +as the rest of the world. The company is mixed, but there it is. You +needn’t eat off the same plate, as they say in Quebec.” + +Quebec! He looked at her with the face of one who saw a vision. How like +Virginie Poucette--the brave, generous Virginie--how like she was! + +In silence now he went with her, and seeing his mood she did not talk to +him. People stared as they walked along, for his dress was curious and +his head was bare, and his hair like the coat of a young lion. Besides, +this woman was, in her way, as brave and as generous as Virginie +Poucette. In the very doorway of the tavern by the river a man jostled +them. He did not apologize. He only leered. It made his foreign-looking, +coarsely handsome face detestable. + +“Pig!” exclaimed Virginie Poucette’s sister. “That’s a man--well, look +out! There’s trouble brewing for him. If he only knew! If suspicion +comes out right and it’s proved--well, there, he’ll jostle the door-jamb +of a jail.” + +Jean Jacques stared after the man, and somehow every nerve in his +body became angry. He had all at once a sense of hatred. He shook the +shoulder against which the man had collided. He remembered the leer on +the insolent, handsome face. + +“I’d like to see him thrown into the river,” said Virginie Poucette’s +sister. “We have a nice girl here--come from Ireland--as good as can be. +Well, last night--but there, she oughtn’t to have let him speak to her. +‘A kiss is nothing,’ he said. Well, if he kissed me I would kill him--if +I didn’t vomit myself to death first. He’s a mongrel--a South American +mongrel with nigger blood.” + +Jean Jacques kept looking after the man. “Why don’t you turn him out?” + he asked sharply. + +“He’s going away to-morrow anyhow,” she replied. “Besides, the girl, +she’s so ashamed--and she doesn’t want anyone to know. ‘Who’d want to +kiss me after him’ she said, and so he stays till to-morrow. He’s not in +the tavern itself, but in the little annex next door-there, where he’s +going now. He’s only had his meals here, though the annex belongs to us +as well. He’s alone there on his dung-hill.” + +She brought Jean Jacques into a room that overlooked the river--which, +indeed, hung on its very brink. From the steps at its river-door, a +little ferry-boat took people to the other side of the Watloon, and very +near--just a few hand-breadths away--was the annex where was the man who +had jostled Jean Jacques. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO + +A single lighted lamp, turned low, was suspended from the ceiling of the +raftered room, and through the open doorway which gave on to a little +wooden piazza with a slight railing and small, shaky gate came the swish +of the Watloon River. No moon was visible, but the stars were radiant +and alive--trembling with life. There was something soothing, something +endlessly soothing in the sound of the river. It suggested the ceaseless +movement of life to the final fulness thereof. + +So still was the room that it might have seemed to be without life, were +it not for a faint sound of breathing. The bed, however, was empty, +and no chair was occupied; but on a settle in a corner beside an unused +fireplace sat a man, now with hands clasped between his knees, again +with arms folded across his breast; but with his head always in a +listening attitude. The whole figure suggested suspense, vigilance and +preparedness. The man had taken off his boots and stockings, and his +bare feet seemed to grip the floor; also the sleeves of his jacket were +rolled up a little. It was not a figure you would wish to see in +your room at midnight unasked. Once or twice he sighed heavily, as he +listened to the river slishing past and looked out to the sparkle of the +skies. It was as though the infinite had drawn near to the man, or else +that the man had drawn near to the infinite. Now and again he brought +his fists down on his knees with a savage, though noiseless, force. The +peace of the river and the night could not contend successfully against +a dark spirit working in him. When, during his vigil, he shook his +shaggy head and his lips opened on his set teeth, he seemed like one who +would take toll at a gateway of forbidden things. + +He started to his feet at last, hearing footsteps outside upon the +stairs. Then he settled back again, drawing near to the chimney-wall, +so that he should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently there +was the click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smoke +invaded the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspended +oil-lamp and twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, there +was a slight noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, the +man under the lamp saw at the door the man who had been sitting in +the corner. The man had a key in his hand. Exit now could only be had +through the door opening on to the river. + +“Who are you? What the hell do you want here?” asked the fellow under +the lamp, his swarthy face drawn with fear and yet frowning with anger. + +“Me--I am Jean Jacques Barbille,” said the other in French, putting +the key of the door in his pocket. The other replied in French, with +a Spanish-English accent. “Barbille--Carmen’s husband! Well, who would +have thought--!” + +He ended with a laugh not pleasant to hear, for it was coarse with +sardonic mirth; yet it had also an unreasonable apprehension; for why +should he fear the husband of the woman who had done that husband such +an injury! + +“She treated you pretty bad, didn’t she--not much heart, had Carmen!” he +added. + +“Sit down. I want to talk to you,” said Jean Jacques, motioning to two +chairs by a table at the side of the room. This table was in the middle +of the room when the man under the lamp-Hugo Stolphe was his name--had +left it last. Why had the table been moved? + +“Why should I sit down, and what are you doing here?--I want to know +that,” Stolphe demanded. Jean Jacques’ hands were opening and shutting. +“Because I want to talk to you. If you don’t sit down, I’ll give you no +chance at all.... Sit down!” Jean Jacques was smaller than Stolphe, +but he was all whipcord and leather; the other was sleek and soft, but +powerful too; and he had one of those savage natures which go blind with +hatred, and which fight like beasts. He glanced swiftly round the room. + +“There is no weapon here,” said Jean Jacques, nodding. “I have put +everything away--so you could not hurt me if you wanted.... Sit down!” + +To gain time Stolphe sat down, for he had a fear that Jean Jacques was +armed, and might be a madman armed--there were his feet bare on the +brown painted boards. They looked so strange, so uncanny. He surely must +be a madman if he wanted to do harm to Hugo Stolphe; for Hugo Stolphe +had only “kept” the woman who had left her husband, not because of +himself, but because of another man altogether--one George Masson. Had +not Carmen herself told him that before she and he lived together? What +grudge could Carmen’s husband have against Hugo Stolphe? + +Jean Jacques sat down also, and, leaning on the table said: “Once I was +a fool and let the other man escape-George Masson it was. Because of +what he did, my wife left me.” + +His voice became husky, but he shook his throat, as it were, cleared it, +and went on. “I won’t let you go. I was going to kill George Masson--I +had him like that!” He opened and shut his hand with a gesture of +fierce possession. “But I did not kill him. I let him go. He was so +clever--cleverer than you will know how to be. She said to me--my wife +said to me, when she thought I had killed him, ‘Why did you not +fight him? Any man would have fought him.’ That was her view. She was +right--not to kill without fighting. That is why I did not kill you at +once when I knew.” + +“When you knew what?” Stolphe was staring at the madman. + +“When I knew you were you. First I saw that ring--that ring on your +hand. It was my wife’s. I gave it to her the first New Year after we +married. I saw it on your hand when you were drinking at the bar next +door. Then I asked them your name. I knew it. I had read your letters to +my wife--” + +“Your wife once on a time!” + +Jean Jacques’ eyes swam red. “My wife always and always--and at the last +there in my arms.” Stolphe temporized. “I never knew you. She did not +leave you because of me. She came to me because--because I was there +for her to come to, and you weren’t there. Why do you want to do me any +harm?” He still must be careful, for undoubtedly the man was mad--his +eyes were too bright. + +“You were the death of her,” answered Jean Jacques, leaning forward. +“She was most ill-ah, who would not have been sorry for her! She was +poor. She had been to you--but to live with a woman day by day, but to +be by her side when the days are done, and then one morning to say, ‘Au +revoir till supper’ and then go and never come back, and to take money +and rings that belonged to her!... That was her death--that was the end +of Carmen Barbille; and it was your fault.” + +“You would do me harm and not hurt her! Look how she treated you--and +others.” + +Jean Jacques half rose from his seat in sudden rage, but he restrained +himself, and sat down again. “She had one husband--only one. It was Jean +Jacques Barbille. She could only treat one as she treated me--me, her +husband. But you, what had you to do with that! You used her--so!” + He made a motion as though to stamp out an insect with his foot. +“Beautiful, a genius, sick and alone--no husband, no child, and you used +her so! That is why I shall kill you to-night. We will fight for it.” + +Yes, but surely the man was mad, and the thing to do was to humour +him, to gain time. To humour a madman--that is what one always advised, +therefore Stolphe would make the pourparler, as the French say. + +“Well, that’s all right,” he rejoined, “but how is it going to be done? +Have you got a pistol?” He thought he was very clever, and that he would +now see whether Jean Jacques Barbille was armed. If he was not armed, +well, then, there would be the chances in his favour; it wasn’t easy to +kill with hands alone. + +Jean Jacques ignored the question, however. He waved a hand impatiently, +as though to dismiss it. “She was beautiful and splendid; she had been +a queen down there in Quebec. You lied to her, and she was blind at +first--I can see it all. She believed so easily--but yes, always! There +she was what she was, and you were what you are, not a Frenchman, not +Catholic, and an American--no, not an American--a South American. But +no, not quite a South American, for there was the Portuguese nigger in +you--Sit down!” + +Jean Jacques was on his feet bending over the enraged mongrel. He had +spoken the truth, and Carmen’s last lover had been stung as though a +serpent’s tooth was in his flesh. Of all things that could be said about +him, that which Jean Jacques said was the worst--that he was not all +white, that he had nigger blood! Yet it was true; and he realized that +Jean Jacques must have got his information in Shilah itself where he +had been charged with it. Yet, raging as he was, and ready to take the +Johnny Crapaud--that is the name by which he had always called Carmen’s +husband--by the throat, he was not yet sure that Jean Jacques was +unarmed. He sat still under an anger greater than his own, for there was +in it that fanaticism which only the love or hate of a woman could breed +in a man’s mind. + +Suddenly Stolphe laughed outright, a crackling, mirthless, ironical +laugh; for it really was absurdity made sublime that this man, who +had been abandoned by his wife, should now want to kill one who had +abandoned her! This outdid Don Quixote over and over. + +“Well, what do you want?” he asked. + +“I want you to fight,” said Jean Jacques. “That is the way. That was +Carmen’s view. You shall have your chance to live, but I shall throw you +in the river, and you can then fight the river. The current is swift, +the banks are steep and high as a house down below there. Now, I am +ready...!” + +He had need to be, for Stolphe was quick, kicking the chair from beneath +him, and throwing himself heavily on Jean Jacques. He had had his day at +that in South America, and as Jean Jacques Barbille had said, the water +was swift and deep, and the banks of the Watloon high and steep! + +But Jean Jacques was unconscious of everything save a debt to be +collected for a woman he had loved, a compensation which must be taken +in flesh and blood. Perhaps at the moment, as Stolphe had said to +himself, he was a little mad, for all his past, all his plundered, +squandered, spoiled life was crying out at him like a hundred ghosts, +and he was fighting with beasts at Ephesus. An exaltation possessed +him. Not since the day when his hand was on the lever of the flume with +George Masson below; not since the day he had turned his back for ever +on the Manor Cartier had he been so young and so much his old self-an +egotist, with all the blind confidence of his kind; a dreamer inflamed +into action with all a mad dreamer’s wild power. He was not fifty-two +years of age, but thirty-two at this moment, and all the knowledge got +of the wrestling river-drivers of his boyhood, when he had spent hours +by the river struggling with river-champions, came back to him. It was +a relief to his sick soul to wrench and strain, and propel and twist +and force onward, step by step, to the door opening on the river, this +creature who had left his Carmen to die alone. + +“No, you don’t--not yet. The jail before the river!” called a cool, +sharp, sour voice; and on the edge of the trembling platform overhanging +the river, Hugo Stolphe was dragged back from the plunge downward he was +about to take, with Jean Jacques’ hand at his throat. + +Stolphe had heard the door of the bedroom forced, but Jean Jacques had +not heard it; he was only conscious of hands dragging him back just at +the moment of Stolphe’s deadly peril. + +“What is it?” asked Jean Jacques, seeing Stolphe in the hands of two +men, and hearing the snap of steel. “Wanted for firing a house for +insurance--wanted for falsifying the accounts of a Land Company--wanted +for his own good, Mr. Hugo Stolphe, C.O.D.--collect on delivery!” said +the officer of the law. “And collected just in time!” + +“We didn’t mean to take him till to-morrow,” the officer added, “but out +on the river one of us saw this gladiator business here in the red-light +zone, and there wasn’t any time to lose.... I don’t know what your +business with him was,” the long-moustached detective said to Jean +Jacques, “but whatever the grudge is, if you don’t want to appear in +court in the morning, the walking’s good out of town night or day--so +long!” + +He hustled his prisoner out. + +Jean Jacques did not want to appear in court, and as the walking was +officially good at dawn, he said good-bye to Virginie Poucette’s sister +through the crack of a door, and was gone before she could restrain him. + +“Well, things happen that way,” he said, as he turned back to look at +Shilah before it disappeared from view. + +“Ah, the poor, handsome vaurien!” the woman at the tavern kept saying to +her husband all that day; and she could not rest till she had written to +Virginie how Jean Jacques came to Shilah in the evening, and went with +the dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED + +The Young Doctor of Askatoon had a good heart, and he was exercising it +honourably one winter’s day near three years after Jean Jacques had left +St. Saviour’s. + +“There are many French Canadians working on the railway now, and a +good many habitant farmers live hereabouts, and they have plenty of +children--why not stay here and teach school? You are a Catholic, of +course, monsieur?” + +This is what the Young Doctor said to one who had been under his anxious +care for a few, vivid days. The little brown-bearded man with the +grey-brown hair nodded in reply, but his gaze was on the billowing waste +of snow, which stretched as far as eye could see to the pine-hills in +the far distance. He nodded assent, but it was plain to be seen that the +Young Doctor’s suggestion was not in tune with his thought. His nod only +acknowledged the reasonableness of the proposal. In his eyes, however, +was the wanderlust which had possessed him for three long years, in +which he had been searching for what to him was more than Eldorado, for +it was hope and home. Hope was all he had left of the assets which had +made him so great a figure--as he once thought--in his native parish of +St. Saviour’s. It was his fixed idea--une idee fixe, as he himself said. +Lands, mills, manor, lime-kilns, factories, store, all were gone, +and his wife Carmen also was gone. He had buried her with simple +magnificence in Montreal--Mme. Glozel had said to her neighbours +afterwards that the funeral cost over seventy-five dollars--and had set +up a stone to her memory on which was carved, “Chez nous autrefois, et +chez Dieu maintenant”--which was to say, “Our home once, and God’s Home +now.” + +That done, with a sorrow which still had the peace of finality in his +mind, he had turned his face to the West. His long, long sojourning had +brought him to Shilah where a new chapter of his life was closed, and +at last to Askatoon, where another chapter still closed an epoch in +his life, and gave finality to all. There he had been taken down with +congestion of the lungs, and, fainting at the door of a drug-store, had +been taken possession of by the Young Doctor, who would not send him to +the hospital. He would not send him there because he found inside the +waistcoat of this cleanest tramp--if he was a tramp--that he had ever +seen, a book of philosophy, the daguerreotype photo of a beautiful +foreign-looking woman, and some verses in a child’s handwriting. The +book of philosophy was underlined and interlined on every page, and +every margin had comment which showed a mind of the most singular +simplicity, searching wisdom, and hopeless confusion, all in one. + +The Young Doctor was a man of decision, and he had whisked the little +brown-grey sufferer to his own home, and tended him there like a brother +till the danger disappeared; and behold he was rewarded for his +humanity by as quaint an experience as he had ever known. He had not +succeeded--though he tried hard--in getting at the history of his +patient’s life; but he did succeed in reading the fascinating story of a +mind; for Jean Jacques, if not so voluble as of yore, had still moments +when he seemed to hypnotize himself, and his thoughts were alive in an +atmosphere of intellectual passion ill in accord with his condition. + +Presently the little brown man withdrew his eyes from the window of the +Young Doctor’s office and the snowy waste beyond. They had a curious red +underglow which had first come to them an evening long ago, when they +caught from the sky the reflection of a burning mill. There was distance +and the far thing in that underglow of his eyes. It had to do with the +horizon, not with the place where his feet were. It said, “Out there, +beyond, is what I go to seek, what I must find, what will be home to +me.” + +“Well, I must be getting on,” he said in a low voice to the Young +Doctor, ignoring the question which had been asked. + +“If you want work, there’s work to be had here, as I said,” responded +the Young Doctor. “You are a man of education--” + +“How do you know that?” asked Jean Jacques. + +“I hear you speak,” answered the other, and then Jean Jacques drew +himself up and threw back his head. He had ever loved appreciation, not +to say flattery, and he had had very little of it lately. + +“I was at Laval,” he remarked with a flash of pride. “No degree, but a +year there, and travel abroad--the Grand Tour, and in good style, with +plenty to do it with. Oh, certainly, no thought for sous, hardly for +francs! It was gold louis abroad and silver dollars at home--that was +the standard.” + +“The dollars are much scarcer now, eh?” asked the Young Doctor +quizzically. + +“I should think I had just enough to pay you,” said the other, bridling +up suddenly; for it seemed to him the Young Doctor had become ironical +and mocking; and though he had been mocked much in his day, there were +times when it was not easy to endure it. + +The truth is the Young Doctor was somewhat of an expert in human nature, +and he deeply wanted to know the history of this wandering habitant, +because he had a great compassionate liking for him. If he could get the +little man excited, he might be able to find out what he wanted. During +the days in which the wanderer had been in his house, he had been far +from silent, for he joked at his own suffering and kept the housekeeper +laughing at his whimsical remarks; while he won her heart by the +extraordinary cleanliness of his threadbare clothes, and the perfect +order of his scantily-furnished knapsack. It had the exactness of one +who was set upon a far course and would carry it out on scientific +calculation. He had been full of mocking quips and sallies at himself, +but from first to last he never talked. The things he said were nothing +more than surface sounds, as it were--the ejaculations of a mind, not +its language or its meanings. + +“He’s had some strange history, this queer little man,” said the +housekeeper to the Young Doctor; “and I’d like to know what it is. Why, +we don’t even know his name.” + +“So would I,” rejoined the Young Doctor, “and I’ll have a good try for +it.” + +He had had his try more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps a +little torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rather +tactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look was +incredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to pay the +fee. + +“When you searched me you forgot to look in the right place,” continued +Jean Jacques; and he drew from the lining of the hat he held in his hand +a little bundle of ten-dollar bills. “Here--take your pay from them,” he +said, and held out the roll of bills. “I suppose it won’t be more than +four dollars a day; and there’s enough, I think. I can’t pay you for +your kindness to me, and I don’t want to. I’d like to owe you that; and +it’s a good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness. He remembers +it when he gets older. It helps him to forgive himself more or less for +what he’s sorry for in life. I’ve enough in this bunch to pay for board +and professional attendance, or else the price has gone up since I had a +doctor before.” + +He laughed now, and the laugh was half-ironical, half-protesting. It +seemed to come from the well of a hidden past; and no past that is +hidden has ever been a happy past. + +The Young Doctor took the bills, looked at them as though they were +curios, and then returned them with the remark that they were of a kind +and denomination of no use to him. There was a twinkle in his eye as he +said it. Then he added: + +“I agree with you that it’s a good thing for a man to lay up a little +credit of kindness here and there for his old age. Well, anything I did +for you was meant for kindness and nothing else. You weren’t a bit of +trouble, and it was simply your good constitution and a warm room and a +few fly-blisters that pulled you through. It wasn’t any skill of mine. +Go and thank my housekeeper if you like. She did it all.” + +“I did my best to thank her,” answered Jean Jacques. “I said she +reminded me of Virginie Palass Poucette, and I could say nothing better +than that, except one thing; and I’m not saying that to anybody.” + +The Young Doctor had a thrill. Here was a very unusual man, with mystery +and tragedy, and yet something above both, in his eyes. + +“Who was Virginie Palass Poucette?” he asked. Jean Jacques threw out a +hand as though to say, “Attend--here is a great thing,” and he began, +“Virginie Poucette--ah, there...!” + +Then he paused, for suddenly there spread out before him that past, now +so far away, in which he had lived--and died. Strange that when he had +mentioned Virginie’s name to the housekeeper he had no such feeling as +possessed him now. It had been on the surface, and he had used her name +without any deep stir of the waters far down in his soul. But the Young +Doctor was fingering the doors of his inner life--all at once this +conviction came to him--and the past rushed upon him with all its +disarray and ignominy, its sorrow, joy, elation and loss. Not since he +had left the scene of his defeat, not since the farewell to his dead +Carmen, that sweet summer day when he had put the lovely, ruined being +away with her words, “Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques,” + ringing in his ears, had he ever told anyone his story. He had had a +feeling that, as Carmen had been restored to him without his crying out, +or vexing others with his sad history, so would Zoe also come back to +him. Patience and silence was his motto. + +Yet how was it that here and now there came an overpowering feeling, +that he must tell this healer of sick bodies the story of an invalid +soul? This man with the piercing dark-blue eyes before him, who looked +so resolute, who had the air of one who could say, + +“This is the way to go,” because he knew and was sure; he was not to be +denied. + +“Who was Virginie Poucette?” repeated the Young Doctor insistently, yet +ever so gently. “Was she such a prize among women? What did she do?” + +A flood of feeling passed over Jean Jacques’ face. He looked at his hat +and his knapsack lying in a chair, with a desire to seize them and fly +from the inquisitor; then a sense of fatalism came upon him. As though +he had received an order from within his soul, he said helplessly: + +“Well, if it must be, it must.” + +Then he swept the knapsack and his hat from the chair to the floor, and +sat down. + +“I will begin at the beginning,” he said with his eyes fixed on those +of the Young Doctor, yet looking beyond him to far-off things. “I will +start from the time when I used to watch the gold Cock of Beaugard +turning on the mill, when I sat in the doorway of the Manor Cartier +in my pinafore. I don’t know why I tell you, but maybe it was meant +I should. I obey conviction. While you are able to keep logic and +conviction hand in hand then everything is all right. I have found that +out. Logic, philosophy are the props of life, but still you must obey +the impulse of the soul--oh, absolutely! You must--” + +He stopped short. “But it will seem strange to you,” he added after a +moment, in which the Young Doctor gestured to him to proceed, “to hear +me talk like this--a wayfarer--a vagabond you may think. But in other +days I was in places--” + +The Young Doctor interjected with abrupt friendliness that there was no +need to say he had been in high places. It would still be apparent, if +he were in rags. + +“Then, there, I will speak freely,” rejoined Jean Jacques, and he took +the cherry-brandy which the other offered him, and drank it off with +gusto. + +“Ah, that--that,” he said, “is like the cordials Mere Langlois used to +sell at Vilray. She and Virginie Poucette had a place together on the +market--none better than Mere Langlois except Virginie Poucette, and she +was like a drink of water in the desert.... Well, there, I will begin. +Now my father was--” + +It was lucky there were no calls for the Young Doctor that particular +early morning, else the course of Jean Jacques’ life might have been +greatly different from what it became. He was able to tell his story +from the very first to the last. Had it been interrupted or unfinished +one name might not have been mentioned. When Jean Jacques used it, the +Young Doctor sat up and leaned forward eagerly, while a light came into +his face-a light of surprise, of revelation and understanding. + +When Jean Jacques came to that portion of his life when manifest +tragedy began--it began of course on the Antoine, but then it was not +manifest--when his Carmen left him after the terrible scene with George +Masson, he paused and said: “I don’t know why I tell you this, for it +is not easy to tell; but you saved my life, and you have a right to know +what it is you have saved, no matter how hard it is to put it all before +you.” + +It was at this point that he mentioned Zoe’s name--he had hitherto only +spoken of her as “my daughter”; and here it was the Young Doctor showed +startled interest, and repeated the name after Jean Jacques. “Zoe! +Zoe!--ah!” he said, and became silent again. + +Jean Jacques had not noticed the Young Doctor’s pregnant interruption, +he was so busy with his own memories of the past; and he brought the +tale to the day when he turned his face to the West to look for Zoe. +Then he paused. + +“And then?” the Young Doctor asked. “There is more--there is the search +for Zoe ever since.” + +“What is there to say?” continued Jean Jacques. “I have searched till +now, and have not found.” + +“How have you lived?” asked the other. + +“Keeping books in shops and factories, collecting accounts for +storekeepers, when they saw they could trust me, working at threshings +and harvests, teaching school here and there. Once I made fifty dollars +at a railway camp telling French Canadian tales and singing chansons +Canadiennes. I have been insurance agent, sold lightning-rods, and been +foreman of a gang building a mill--but I could not bear that. Every time +I looked up I could see the Cock of Beaugard where the roof should be. +And so on, so on, first one thing and then another till now--till I came +to Askatoon and fell down by the drug-store, and you played the good +Samaritan. So it goes, and I step on from here again, looking--looking.” + +“Wait till spring,” said the Young Doctor. “What is the good of going on +now! You can only tramp to the next town, and--” + +“And the next,” interposed Jean Jacques. “But so it is my orders.” He +put his hand on his heart, and gathered up his hat and knapsack. + +“But you haven’t searched here at Askatoon.” + +“Ah?... Ah-well, surely that is so,” answered Jean Jacques wistfully. “I +had forgotten that. Perhaps you can tell me, you who know all. Have you +any news about my Zoe for me? Do you know--was she ever here? Madame +Gerard Fynes would be her name. My name is Jean Jacques Barbille.” + +“Madame Zoe was here, but she has gone,” quietly answered the Young +Doctor. + +Jean Jacques dropped the hat and the knapsack. His eyes had a glad, yet +staring and frightened look, for the Young Doctor’s face was not the +bearer of good tidings. + +“Zoe--my Zoe! You are sure?... When was she here?” he added huskily. + +“A month ago.” + +“When did she go?” Jean Jacques’ voice was almost a whisper. + +“A month ago.” + +“Where did she go?” asked Jean Jacques, holding himself steady, for he +had a strange dreadful premonition. + +“Out of all care at last,” answered the Young Doctor, and took a step +towards the little man, who staggered, then recovered himself. + +“She--my Zoe is dead! How?” questioned Jean Jacques in a ghostly sort of +voice, but there was a steadiness and control unlike what he had shown +in other tragic moments. + +“It was a blizzard. She was bringing her husband’s body in a sleigh to +the railway here. He had died of consumption. She and the driver of the +sleigh went down in the blizzard. Her body covered the child and saved +it. The driver was lost also.” + +“Her child--Zoe’s child?” quavered Jean Jacques. “A little girl--Zoe. +The name was on her clothes. There were letters. One to her father--to +you. Your name is Jean Jacques Barbille, is it not? I have that letter +to you. We buried her and her husband in the graveyard yonder.” He +pointed. “Everybody was there--even when they knew it was to be a +Catholic funeral.” + +“Ah! she was buried a Catholic?” Jean Jacques’ voice was not quite so +blurred now. + +“Yes. Her husband had become Catholic too. A priest who had met them in +the Peace River Country was here at the time.” + +At that, with a moan, Jean Jacques collapsed. He shed no tears, but he +sat with his hands between his knees, whispering his child’s name. + +The Young Doctor laid a hand on his shoulder gently, but presently +went out, shutting the door after him. As he left the room, however, he +turned and said, “Courage, Monsieur Jean Jacques! Courage!” + +When the Young Doctor came back a half-hour later he had in his hand the +letters found in Zoe’s pocket. “Monsieur Jean Jacques,” he said gently +to the bowed figure still sitting as he left him. + +Jean Jacques got up slowly and looked at him as though scarce +understanding where he was. + +“The child--the child--where is my Zoe’s child? Where is Zoe’s Zoe?” he +asked in agitation. His whole body seemed to palpitate. His eyes were +all red fire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE? + +The Young Doctor did not answer Jean Jacques at once. As he looked at +this wayworn fugitive he knew that another, and perhaps the final crisis +of his life, was come to Jean Jacques Barbille, and the human pity in +him shrank from the possible end to it all. It was an old-world figure +this, with the face of a peasant troubadour and the carriage of an +aboriginal--or an aristocrat. Indeed, the ruin, the lonely wandering +which had been Jean Jacques’ portion, had given him that dignity which +often comes to those who defy destiny and the blows of angry fate. Once +there had been in his carriage something jaunty. This was merely life +and energy and a little vain confidence; now there was the look of +courage which awaits the worst the world can do. The life which, +according to the world’s logic, should have made Jean Jacques a +miserable figure, an ill-nourished vagabond, had given him a physical +grace never before possessed by him. The face, however, showed the +ravages which loss and sorrow had made. It was lined and shadowed with +dark reflection, yet the forehead had a strange smoothness and serenity +little in accord with the rest of the countenance. It was like the +snow-summit of a mountain below which are the ragged escarpments of +trees and rocks, making a look of storm and warfare. + +“Where is she--the child of my Zoe?” Jean Jacques repeated with an +almost angry emphasis; as though the Young Doctor were hiding her from +him. + +“She is with the wife of Nolan Doyle, my partner in horse-breeding, not +very far from here. Norah Doyle was married five years, and she had no +child. This was a grief to her, even more than to Nolan, who, like her, +came of a stock that was prolific. It was Nolan who found your daughter +on the prairie--the driver dead, but she just alive when found. To give +her ease of mind, Nolan said he would make the child his own. When he +said that, she smiled and tried to speak, but it was too late, and she +was gone.” + +In sudden agony Jean Jacques threw up his hands. “So young and so soon +to be gone!” he exclaimed. “But a child she was and had scarce tasted +the world. The mercy of God--what is it!” + +“You can’t take time as the measure of life,” rejoined the Young +Doctor with a compassionate gesture. “Perhaps she had her share of +happiness--as much as most of us get, maybe, in a longer course.” + +“Share! She was worth a hundred years of happiness!” bitterly retorted +Jean Jacques. + +“Perhaps she knew her child would have it?” gently remarked the Young +Doctor. + +“Ah, that--that!... Do you think that possible, m’sieu’? Tell me, do you +think that was in her mind--to have loved, and been a mother, and given +her life for the child, and then the bosom of God. Answer that to me, +m’sieu’?” + +There was intense, poignant inquiry in Jean Jacques’ face, and a light +seemed to play over it. The Young Doctor heeded the look and all that +was in the face. It was his mission to heal, and he knew that to heal +the mind was often more necessary than to heal the body. Here he would +try to heal the mind, if only in a little. + +“That might well have been in her thought,” he answered. “I saw her +face. It had a wonderful look of peace, and a smile that would reconcile +anyone she loved to her going. I thought of that when I looked at her. I +recall it now. It was the smile of understanding.” + +He had said the only thing which could have comforted Jean Jacques +at that moment. Perhaps it was meant to be that Zoe’s child should +represent to him all that he had lost--home, fortune, place, Carmen and +Zoe. Perhaps she would be home again for him and all that home should +mean--be the promise of a day when home would again include that fled +from Carmen, and himself, and Carmen’s child. Maybe it was sentiment in +him, maybe it was sentimentality--and maybe it was not. + +“Come, m’sieu’,” Jean Jacques said impatiently: “let us go to the house +of that M’sieu’ Doyle. But first, mark this: I have in the West here +some land--three hundred and twenty acres. It may yet be to me a home, +where I shall begin once more with my Zoe’s child--with my Zoe of +Zoe--the home-life I lost down by the Beau Cheval.... Let us go at +once.” + +“Yes, at once,” answered the Young Doctor. Yet his feet were laggard, +for he was not so sure that there would be another home for Jean Jacques +with his grandchild as its star. He was thinking of Norah, to whom a +waif of the prairie had made home what home should be for herself and +Nolan Doyle. + +“Read these letters first,” he said, and he put the letters found on Zoe +in Jean Jacques’ eager hands. + +A half-hour later, at the horse-breeding ranch, the Young Doctor +introduced Jean Jacques to Norah Doyle, and instantly left the house. He +had no wish to hear the interview which must take place between the two. +Nolan Doyle was not at home, but in the room where they were shown to +Norah was a cradle. Norah was rocking it with one foot while, standing +by the table, she busied herself with sewing. + +The introduction was of the briefest. “Monsieur Barbille wishes a +word with you, Mrs. Doyle,” said the Young Doctor. “It’s a matter that +doesn’t need me. Monsieur has been in my care, as you know.... Well, +there, I hope Nolan is all right. Tell him I’d like to see him to-morrow +about the bay stallion and the roans. I’ve had an offer for them. +Good-bye--good-bye, Mrs. Doyle”--he was at the door--“I hope you +and Monsieur Barbille will decide what’s best for the child without +difficulty.” + +The door opened quickly and shut again, and Jean Jacques was alone with +the woman and the child. “What’s best for the child!” + +That was what the Young Doctor had said. Norah stopped rocking the +cradle and stared at the closed door. What had this man before her, this +tramp habitant of whom she had heard, of course, to do with little +Zoe in the cradle--her little Zoe who had come just when she was most +needed; who had brought her man and herself close together again after +an estrangement which neither had seemed able to prevent. + +“What’s best for the child!” How did the child in the cradle concern +this man? Then suddenly his name almost shrieked in her brain. +Barbille--that was the name on the letter found on the body of the woman +who died and left Zoe behind--M. Jean Jacques Barbille. + +Yes, that was the name. What was going to happen? Did the man intend to +try and take Zoe from her? + +“What is your name--all of it?” she asked sharply. She had a very fine +set of teeth, as Jean Jacques saw mechanically; and subconsciously +he said to himself that they seemed cruel, they were so white and +regular--and cruel. The cruelty was evident to him as she bit in two +the thread for the waistcoat she was mending, and then plied her needle +again. Also the needle in her fingers might have been intended to sew +up his shroud, so angry did it appear at the moment. But her teeth had +something almost savage about them. If he had seen them when she was +smiling, he would have thought them merely beautiful and rare, atoning +for her plain face and flat breast--not so flat as it had been; for +since the child had come into her life, her figure, strangely enough, +had rounded out, and lines never before seen in her contour appeared. + +He braced himself for the contest he knew was at hand, and replied to +her. “My name is Jean Jacques Barbille. I was of the Manor Cartier, in +St. Saviour’s parish, Quebec. The mother of the child Zoe, there, was +born at the Manor Cartier. I was her father. I am the grandfather of +this Zoe.” He motioned towards the cradle. + +Then, with an impulse he could not check and did not seek to check--why +should he? was not the child his own by every right?--he went to the +cradle and looked down at the tiny face on its white pillow. There +could be no mistake about it; here was the face of his lost Zoe, with +something, too, of Carmen, and also the forehead of the Barbilles. As +though the child knew, it opened its eyes wide-big, brown eyes like +those of Carmen Dolores. + +“Ah, the beautiful, beloved thing!” he exclaimed in a low-voice, ere +Norah stepped between and almost pushed him back. An outstretched arm in +front of her prevented him from stooping to kiss the child. “Stand back. +The child must not be waked,” she said. “It must sleep another hour. +It has its milk at twelve o’clock. Stand aside. I won’t have my child +disturbed.” + +“Have my child disturbed”--that was what she had said, and Jean Jacques +realized what he had to overbear. Here was the thing which must be +fought out at once. + +“The child is not yours, but mine,” he declared. “Here is proof--the +letter found on my Zoe when she died--addressed to me. The doctor knew. +There is no mistake.” + +He held out the letter for her to see. “As you can read here, my +daughter was on her way back to the Manor Cartier, to her old home at +St. Saviour’s. She was on her way back when she died. If she had lived +I should have had them both; but one is left, according to the will of +God. And so I will take her--this flower of the prairie--and begin life +again.” + +The face Norah turned on him had that look which is in the face of +an animal, when its young is being forced from it--fierce, hungering, +furtive, vicious. + +“The child is mine,” she exclaimed--“mine and no other’s. The prairie +gave it to me. It came to me out of the storm. ‘Tis mine-mine only. I +was barren and wantin’, and my man was slippin’ from me, because there +was only two of us in our home. I was older than him, and yonder was a +girl with hair like a sheaf of wheat in the sun, and she kept lookin’ at +him, and he kept goin’ to her. ‘Twas a man she wanted, ‘twas a child +he wanted, and there they were wantin’, and me atin’ my heart out with +passion and pride and shame and sorrow. There was he wantin’ a child, +and the girl wantin’ a man, and I only wantin’ what God should grant all +women that give themselves to a man’s arms after the priest has blessed +them. And whin all was at the worst, and it looked as if he was away +with her--the girl yonder--then two things happened. A man--he was me +own brother and a millionaire if I do say it--he took her and married +her; and then, too, Heaven’s will sent this child’s mother to her last +end and the child itself to my Nolan’s arms. To my husband’s arms first +it came, you understand; and he give the child to me, as it should be, +and said he, ‘We’ll make believe it is our own.’ But I said to him, +‘There’s no make-believe. ‘Tis mine. ‘Tis mine. It came to me out of the +storm from the hand of God.’ And so it was and is; and all’s well here +in the home, praise be to God. And listen to me: you’ll not come here +to take the child away from me. It can’t be done. I’ll not have it. Yes, +you can let that sink down into you--I’ll not have it.” + +During her passionate and defiant appeal Jean Jacques was restless with +the old unrest of years ago, and his face twitched with emotion; but +before she had finished he had himself in some sort of control. + +“You--madame, you are only thinking of yourself in this. You are only +thinking what you want, what you and your man need. But it’s not to be +looked at that way only, and--” + +“Well, then it isn’t to be looked at that way only,” she interrupted. +“As you say, it isn’t Nolan and me alone to be considered. There’s--” + +“There’s me,” he interrupted sharply. “The child is bone of my bone. It +is bone of all the Barbilles back to the time of Louis XI.”--he had said +that long ago to Zoe first, and it was now becoming a fact in his mind. +“It is linked up in the chain of the history of the Barbilles. It is one +with the generations of noblesse and honour and virtue. It is--” + +“It’s one with Abel the son of Adam, if it comes to that, and so am I,” + Norah bitingly interjected, while her eyes flashed fire, and she rocked +the cradle more swiftly than was good for the child’s sleep. + +Jean Jacques flared up. “There were sons and daughters of the family of +Adam that had names, but there were plenty others you whistled to as you +would to a four-footer, and they’d come. The Barbilles had names--always +names of their own back to Adam. The child is a Barbille--Don’t rock the +cradle so fast,” he suddenly added with an irritable gesture, breaking +off from his argument. “Don’t you know better than that when a child’s +asleep? Do you want it to wake up and cry?” + +She flushed to the roots of her hair, for he had said something for +which she had no reply. She had undoubtedly disturbed the child. It +stirred in its sleep, then opened its eyes, and at once began to cry. + +“There,” said Jean Jacques, “what did I tell you? Any one that had ever +had children would know better than that.” + +Norah paid no attention to his mocking words, to the undoubted-truth +of his complaint. Stooping over, she gently lifted the child up. With +hungry tenderness she laid it against her breast and pressed its cheek +to her own, murmuring and crooning to it. + +“Acushla! Acushla! Ah, the pretty bird--mother’s sweet--mother’s angel!” + she said softly. + +She rocked backwards and forwards. Her eyes, though looking at Jean +Jacques as she crooned and coaxed and made lullaby, apparently did not +see him. She was as concentrated as though it were a matter of life and +death. She was like some ancient nurse of a sovereign-child, plainly +dressed, while the dainty white clothes of the babe in her arms--ah, +hadn’t she raided the hoard she had begun when first married, in the +hope of a child of her own, to provide this orphan with clothes good +enough for a royal princess! + +The flow of the long, white dress of the waif on the dark blue of +Norah’s gown, which so matched the deep sapphire of her eyes, caught +Jean Jacques’ glance, allured his mind. It was the symbol of youth and +innocence and home. Suddenly he had a vision of the day when his own Zoe +had been given to the cradle for the first time, and he had done exactly +what Norah had done--rocked too fast and too hard, and waked his little +one; and Carmen had taken her up in her long white draperies, and had +rocked to and fro, just like this, singing a lullaby. That lullaby +he had himself sung often afterwards; and now, with his grandchild in +Norah’s arms there before him--with this other Zoe--the refrain of it +kept lilting in his brain. In the pause ensuing, when Norah stooped +to put the pacified child again in its nest, he also stooped over the +cradle and began to hum the words of the lullaby: + + “Sing, little bird, of the whispering leaves, + Sing a song of the harvest sheaves; + Sing a song to my Fanchonette, + Sing a song to my Fanchonette! + Over her eyes, over her eyes, over her eyes of violet, + See the web that the weaver weaves, + The web of sleep that the weaver weaves-- + Weaves, weaves, weaves! + Over those eyes of violet, + Over those eyes of my Fanchonette, + Weaves, weaves, weaves-- + See the web that the weaver weaves!” + +For quite two minutes Jean Jacques and Norah Doyle stooped over +the cradle, looking at Zoe’s rosy, healthy, pretty face, as though +unconscious of each other, and only conscious of the child. When Jean +Jacques had finished the long first verse of the chanson, and would have +begun another, Norah made a protesting gesture. + +“She’s asleep, and there’s no more need,” she said. “Wasn’t it a good +lullaby, madame?” Jean Jacques asked. + +“So, so,” she replied, on her defence again. + +“It was good enough for her mother,” he replied, pointing to the cradle. + +“It’s French and fanciful,” she retorted--“both music and words.” + +“The child’s French--what would you have?” asked Jean Jacques +indignantly. + +“The child’s father was English, and she’s goin’ to be English, the +darlin’, from now on and on and on. That’s settled. There’s manny an +English and Irish lullaby that’ll be sung to her hence and onward; and +there’s manny an English song she’ll sing when she’s got her voice, and +is big enough. Well, I think she’ll sing like a canary.” + +“Do the birds sing in English?” exclaimed Jean Jacques, with anger in +his face now. Was there ever any vanity like the vanity of these people +who had made the conquest of Quebec, when sixteen Barbilles lost their +lives, one of them being aide-de-camp to M. Vaudreuil, the governor! + +“All the canaries I ever heard sung in English,” she returned +stubbornly. + +“How do Frenchmen understand their singing, then?” irritably questioned +Jean Jacques. + +“Well, in translation only,” she retorted, and with her sharp white +teeth she again bit the black thread of her needle, tied the end into a +little knot, and began to mend the waistcoat which she had laid down in +the first moments of the interview. + +“I want the child,” Jean Jacques insisted abruptly. “I’ll wait till she +wakes, and then I’ll wrap her up and take her away.” + +“Didn’t you hear me say she was to be brought up English?” asked Norah, +with a slowness which clothed her fiercest impulses. + +“Name of God, do you think I’ll let you have her!” returned Jean Jacques +with asperity and decision. “You say you are alone, you and your M’sieu’ +Nolan. Well, I am alone--all alone in the world, and I need her--Mother +of God, I need her more than I ever needed anything in my life! You have +each other, but I have only myself, and it is not good company. Besides, +the child is mine, a Barbille of Barbilles, une legitime--a rightful +child of marriage. But if it was a love-child only it would still be +mine, being my daughter’s child. Look you, it is no such thing. It is of +those who can claim inheritance back to Louis XI. She will be to me the +gift of God in return for the robbery of death.” + +He leaned over the cradle, and his look was like that of one who had +found a treasure in the earth. + +Now she struck hard. Yet very subtly too did she attack him. “You--you +are thinking of yourself, m’sieu’, only of yourself. Aren’t you going to +think of the child at all? It isn’t yourself that counts so much. You’ve +had your day, or the part of it that matters most. But her time is +not yet even begun. It’s all--all--before her. You say you’ll take her +away--well, to what? To what will you take her? What have you got to +give her? What--” + +“I have the three hundred and twenty acres out there”--he pointed +westward--“and I will make a home and begin again with her.” + +“Three hundred and twenty acres--‘out there’!” she exclaimed in scorn. +“Any one can have a farm here for the askin’. What is that? Is it a +home? What have you got to start a home with? Do you deny you are no +better than a tramp? Have you got a hundred dollars in the world? Have +you got a roof over your head? Have you got a trade? You’ll take her +where--to what? Even if you had a home, what then? You would have to get +someone to look after her--some old crone, a wench maybe, who’d be as +fit to bring up a child as I would be to--” she paused and looked round +in helpless quest for a simile, when, in despair, she caught sight of +Jean Jacques’ watch-chain--“as I would be to make a watch!” she added. + +Instinctively Jean Jacques drew out the ancient timepiece he had worn +on the Grand Tour; which had gone down with the Antoine and come up with +himself. It gave him courage to make the fight for his own. + +“The good God would see that--” he began. + +“The good God doesn’t interfere in bringing up babies,” she retorted. +“That’s the work for the fathers and mothers, or godfathers and +godmothers.” + +“You are neither,” exclaimed Jean Jacques. “You have no rights at all.” + +“I have no rights--eh? I have no rights! Look at the child. Look at the +way she’s clothed. Look at the cradle in which it lies. It cost fifteen +dollars; and the clothes--what they cost would keep a family half a +year. I have no rights, is it?--I who stepped in and took the child +without question, without bein’ asked, and made it my own, and treated +it as if it was me own. No, by the love of God, I treated it far, far +better than if it had been me own. Because a child was denied me, the +hunger of the years made me love the child as a mother would on a desert +island with one child at her knees.” + +“You can get another-one not your own, as this isn’t,” argued Jean +Jacques fiercely. + +She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly. She chose her +own course to convince. “Nolan loves this child as if it was his,” she +declared, her eyes all afire, “but he mightn’t love another--men are +queer creatures. Then where would I be? and what would the home be but +what it was before--as cold, as cold and bitter! It was the hand of God +brought the child to the door of two people who had no child and who +prayed for one. Do you deny it was the hand of God that brought your +daughter here away, that put the child in my arms? Not its mother, am +I not? But I love her better than twenty mothers could. It’s the +hunger--the hunger--the hunger in me. She’s made a woman of me. She has +a home where everything is hers--everything. To see Nolan play with her, +tossin’ her up and down in his arms as if he’d done it all his life--as +natural as natural! To take her away from that--all the comfort here +where she can have anything she wants! With my old mother to care for +her, if so be I was away to market or whereabouts--one that brought up +six children, a millionaire among them, praise be to God as my mother +did--to take this delicate little thing away from here, what a sin and +crime ‘twould be! She herself ‘d never forgive you for it, if ever she +grew up--though that’s not likely, things bein’ as they are with you, +and you bein’ what you are. Ah, there--there she is awake and smilin’, +and kickin’ up her pretty toes this minute! There she is, the lovely +little Zoe, with eyes like black pearls.... See now--see now which +she’ll come to--to you or me, m’sieu’. There, put out your arms to +her, and I’ll put out mine, and see which she’ll take. I’ll stand by +that--I’ll stand by that. Let the child decide. Hold out your arms, and +so will I.” + +With an impassioned word Jean Jacques reached down his arms to the +child, which lay laughing up at them and kicking its pink toes into the +air, and Norah Doyle did the same, murmuring an Irish love-name for a +child. Jean Jacques was silent, but in his face was the longing of a +soul sick for home, of one who desires the end of a toilsome road. + +The laughing child crooned and spluttered and shook its head, as though +it was playing some happy game. It looked first at Norah, then at +Jean Jacques, then at Norah again, and then, with a little gurgle of +pleasure, stretched out its arms to her and half-raised itself from +the pillow. With a glad cry Norah gathered it to her bosom, and triumph +shone in her face. + +“Ah, there, you see!” she said, as she lifted her face from the blossom +at her breast. + +“There it is,” said Jean Jacques with shaking voice. + +“You have nothing to give her--I have everything,” she urged. “My rights +are that I would die for the child--oh, fifty times!... What are you +going to do, m’sieu’?” + +Jean Jacques slowly turned and picked up his hat. He moved with the +dignity of a hero who marches towards a wall to meet the bullets of a +firing-squad. + +“You are going?” Norah whispered, and in her eyes was a great relief and +the light of victory. The golden link binding Nolan and herself was in +her arms, over her heart. + +Jean Jacques did not speak a word in reply, though his lips moved. She +held out the little one to him for a good-bye, but he shook his head. +If he did that--if he once held her in his arms--he would not be able to +give her up. Gravely and solemnly, however, he stooped over and kissed +the lips of the child lying against Norah’s breast. As he did so, with a +quick, mothering instinct Norah impulsively kissed his shaggy head, and +her eyes filled with tears. She smiled too, and Jean Jacques saw how +beautiful her teeth were--cruel no longer. + +He moved away slowly. At the door he turned, and looked back at the +two--a long, lingering look he gave. Then he faced away from them again. + +“Moi je suis philosophe,” he said gently, and opened the door and +stepped out and away into the frozen world. + + + + +EPILOGUE. + +Change might lay its hand on the parish of St. Saviour’s, and it did +so on the beautiful sentient living thing, as on the thing material and +man-made; but there was no change in the sheltering friendship of Mont +Violet or the flow of the illustrious Beau Cheval. The autumns also +changed not at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scene +which Jean Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom. + +One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but a +rainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring, +a traveller came back to St. Saviour’s after a long journey. He came by +boat to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train to +the railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles to +Vilray. At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of the +days of Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which covered +the hands but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meek +crinoline. + +“Ah, Fille--ah, dear Fille!” said the little fragment of an antique day, +as the Clerk of the Court--rather, he that had been for so many years +Clerk of the Court--stepped from the boat. “I can scarce believe that +you are here once more. Have you good news?” + +“It was to come back with good news that I went,” her brother answered +smiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation. + +“Dear, dear Fille!” She always called him that now, and not by his +Christian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since the +Government had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honoured +him with the degree of doctor of laws. + +She was leading him to the pony-carriage in which she had come to meet +him, when he said: + +“Do you think you could walk the distance, my dear?... It would be like +old times,” he added gently. + +“I could walk twice as far to-day,” she answered, and at once gave +directions for the young coachman to put “His Honour’s” bag into the +carriage. In spite of Fille’s reproofs she insisted in calling him that +to the servants. They had two servants now, thanks to the legacy left +them by the late Judge Carcasson. Presently M. Fille took her by the +hand. “Before we start--one look yonder,” he murmured, pointing towards +the mill which had once belonged to Jean Jacques, now rebuilt and +looking almost as of old. “I promised Jean Jacques that I would come and +salute it in his name, before I did aught else, and so now I do salute +it.” + +He waved a hand and made a bow to the gold Cock of Beaugard, the pride +of all the vanished Barbilles. “Jean Jacques Barbille says that his +head is up like yours, M. le Coq, and he wishes you many, many winds to +come,” he recited quite seriously, and as though it was not out of tune +with the modern world. + +The gold Cock of Beaugard seemed to understand, for it swung to the +left, and now a little to the right, and then stood still, as if looking +at the little pair of exiles from an ancient world--of which the only +vestiges remaining may be found in old Quebec. + +This ceremony over, they walked towards Mont Violet, averting their +heads as they passed the Manor Cartier, in a kind of tribute to its +departed master--as a Stuart Legitimist might pass the big palace at +the end of the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister’s +hand. + +“I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear,” he said. “There +they are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie--that best of best women.” + +“To think--married to Virginie Poucette--to think of that!” His sister’s +voice fluttered as she spoke. “But entirely. There was nothing in the +way--and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame her, for +at bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him ‘That dear +fool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all,’ and our Judge +was always right--but yes, nearly always right.” + +After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. “Well, when Virginie +sold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah in +the West, she said, ‘If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the land +which was Zoe’s, which he bought for her. If he is alive--then!’ So +it was, and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like +Virginie, who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they +met on that three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of +Jean Jacques to have done that one right thing which would save him in +the end--a thing which came out of his love for his child--the emotion +of an hour. Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his +salvation after he learned of Zoe’s death, and the other little Zoe, his +grandchild, was denied to him--to close his heart against what seemed +that last hope, was it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward of +his own soul--a home at last once more.” + +“With Virginie Poucette--Fille, Fille, how things come round!” exclaimed +the little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings. + +“More than Virginie came round,” he replied almost oracularly. “Who, +think you, brought him the news that coal was found on his acres--who +but the husband of Virginie’s sister! Then came Virginie. On the day +Jean Jacques saw her again, he said to her, ‘What you would have given +me at such cost, now let me pay for with the rest of my life. It is the +great thought which was in your heart that I will pay for with the days +left to me.’” + +A flickering smile brightened the sensitive ascetic face, and humour was +in the eyes. “What do you think Virginie said to that? Her sister told +me. Virginie said to that, ‘You will have more days left, Jean Jacques, +if you have a better cook. What do you like best for supper?’ And Jean +Jacques laughed much at that. Years ago he would have made a speech at +it!” + +“Then he is no more a philosopher?” + +“Oh always, always, but in his heart, and not with his tongue. I cried, +and so did he, when we met and when we parted. I think I am getting old, +for indeed I could not help it: yet there was peace in his eyes--peace.” + +“His eyes used to rustle so.” + +“Rustle--that is the word. Now, that is what, he has learned in +life--the way to peace. When I left him, it was with Virginie close +beside him, and when I said to him, ‘Will you come back to us one day, +Jean Jacques?’ he said, ‘But no, Fille, my friend; it is too far. I see +it--it is a million miles away--too great a journey to go with the feet, +but with the soul I will visit it. The soul is a great traveller. I see +it always--the clouds and the burnings and the pitfalls gone--out +of sight--in memory as it was when I was a child. Well, there it is, +everything has changed, except the child-memory. I have had, and I have +had not; and there it is. I am not the same man--but yes, in my love +just the same, with all the rest--’ He did not go on, so I said, ‘If not +the same, then what are you, Jean Jacques?’” + +“Ah, Fille, in the old days he would have said that he was a +philosopher”--said his sister interrupting. “Yes, yes, one knows--he +said it often enough and had need enough to say it. Well, said he to me, +‘Me, I am a’--then he stopped, shook his head, and so I could scarcely +hear him, murmured, ‘Me--I am a man who has been a long journey with a +pack on his back, and has got home again.’ Then he took Virginie’s hand +in his.” + +The old man’s fingers touched the corner of his eye as though to find +something there; then continued. “‘Ah, a pedlar!’ said I to him, to hear +what he would answer. ‘Follies to sell for sous of wisdom,’ he answered. +Then he put his arm around Virginie, and she gave him his pipe.” + +“I wish M. Carcasson knew,” the little grey lady remarked. + +“But of course he knows,” said the Clerk of the Court, with his face +turned to the sunset. + + + ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: + + Air of certainty and universal comprehension + Always calling to something, for something outside ourselves + Being generous with other people’s money + Came of a race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers + Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit often + Courage which awaits the worst the world can do + Enjoy his own generosity + Good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness + Grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter + Grow more intense, more convinced, more thorough, as they talk + Had the slight flavour of the superior and the paternal + He had only made of his wife an incident in his life + He was in fact not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist + He was not always sorry when his teasing hurt + He admired, yet he wished to be admired + He hated irony in anyone else + I had to listen to him, and he had to pay me for listening + I can’t pay you for your kindness to me, and I don’t want to + I said I was not falling in love--I am in love + If you have a good thought, act on it + Inclined to resent his own insignificance + Lacks a balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough + Law. It is expensive whether you win or lose + Lyrical in his enthusiasms + Man who tells the story in a new way, that is genius + Missed being a genius by an inch + No past that is hidden has ever been a happy past + No man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced + Not content to do even the smallest thing ill + Of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with self-creation + Philosophers are often stupid in human affairs + Protest that it is right when it knows that it is wrong + She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly + Spurting out little geysers of other people’s cheap wisdom + That iceberg which most mourners carry in their breasts + The beginning of the end of things was come for him + The soul is a great traveller + Untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life + You can’t take time as the measure of life + You went north towards heaven and south towards hell + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Money Master, Complete, by Gilbert Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 6280-0.txt or 6280-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/8/6280/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/6280-0.zip b/6280-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..484e1cf --- /dev/null +++ b/6280-0.zip diff --git a/6280-h.zip b/6280-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1320d3d --- /dev/null +++ b/6280-h.zip diff --git a/6280-h/6280-h.htm b/6280-h/6280-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d8e094 --- /dev/null +++ b/6280-h/6280-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11209 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Money Master, Complete, by Gilbert Parker + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Money Master, Complete, by Gilbert Parker + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Money Master, Complete + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6280] +Last Updated: August 27, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <h1> + THE MONEY MASTER + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Gilbert Parker + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a> THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN + JACQUES BARBILLE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a> "THE + REST OF THE STORY TO-MORROW” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER + III. </a> "TO-MORROW” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> + CHAPTER IV. </a> THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER; CLERK OF THE COURT + TELLS A STORY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a> THE + CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> + CHAPTER VI. </a> JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY <br /><br /> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. </a> JEAN JACQUES + AWAKES FROM SLEEP <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. </a> THE + GATE IN THE WALL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a> "MOI-JE + SUIS PHILOSOPHE” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a> "QUIEN + SABE”—WHO KNOWS! <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. + </a> THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. </a> THE MASTER-CARPENTER + HAS A PROBLEM <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a> THE + MAN FROM OUTSIDE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a> "I + DO NOT WANT TO GO” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a> BON + MARCHE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a> MISFORTUNES + COME NOT SINGLY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a> HIS + GREATEST ASSET <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. </a> JEAN + JACQUES HAS AN OFFER <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. + </a> SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP <br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a> "AU ‘VOIR, M’SIEU’ + JEAN JACQUES” <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a> IF + SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII. + </a> BELLS OF MEMORY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0023"> + CHAPTER XXIII. </a> JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK + TO DO <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV. </a> JEAN + JACQUES ENCAMPED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV. </a> WHAT + WOULD YOU HAVE DONE? <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_EPIL"> EPILOGUE. </a> + <br /><br /> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + INTRODUCTION + </h2> + <p> + This book is in a place by itself among the novels I have written. Many + critics said that it was a welcome return to Canada, where I had made my + first success in the field of fiction. This statement was only meagrely + accurate, because since ‘The Right of Way’ was published in 1901 I had + written, and given to the public, ‘Northern Lights’, a book of short + stories, ‘You Never Know Your Luck’, a short novel, and ‘The World for + Sale’, though all of these dealt with life in Western Canada, and not with + the life of the French Canadians, in which field I had made my first firm + impression upon the public. In any case, The Money Master was favourably + received by the press and public both in England and America, and my + friends were justified in thinking, and in saying, that I was at home in + French Canada and gave the impression of mastery of my material. If + mastery of material means a knowledge of the life, and a sympathy with it, + then my friends are justified; for I have always had an intense sympathy + with, and admiration for, French Canadian life. I think the French + Canadian one of the most individual, original, and distinctive beings of + the modern world. He has kept his place, with his own customs, his own + Gallic views of life, and his religious habits, with an assiduity and + firmness none too common. He is essentially a man of the home, of the + soil, and of the stream; he has by nature instinctive philosophy and + temperamental logic. As a lover of the soil of Canada he is not surpassed + by any of the other citizens of the country, English or otherwise. + </p> + <p> + It would almost seem as though the pageantry of past French Canadian + history, and the beauty and vigour of the topographical surroundings of + French Canadian life, had produced an hereditary pride and exaltation—perhaps + an excessive pride and a strenuous exaltation, but, in any case, there it + was, and is. The French Canadian lives a more secluded life on the whole + than any other citizen of Canada, though the native, adventurous spirit + has sent him to the Eastern States of the American Union for work in the + mills and factories, or up to the farthest reaches of the St. Lawrence, + Ottawa, and their tributaries in the wood and timber trade. + </p> + <p> + Domestically he is perhaps the most productive son of the North American + continent. Families of twenty, or even twenty-five, are not unknown, and, + when a man has had more than one wife, it has even exceeded that. Life + itself is full of camaraderie and good spirit, marked by religious traits + and sacerdotal influence. + </p> + <p> + The French Canadian is on the whole sober and industrious; but when he + breaks away from sobriety and industry he becomes a vicious element in the + general organism. Yet his vices are of the surface, and do not destroy the + foundations of his social and domestic scheme. A French Canadian pony used + to be considered the most virile and lasting stock on the continent, and + it is fair to say that the French Canadians themselves are genuinely + hardy, long-lived, virile, and enduring. + </p> + <p> + It was among such people that the hero of The Money Master, Jean Jacques + Barbille, lived. He was the symbol or pattern of their virtues and of + their weaknesses. By nature a poet, a philosopher, a farmer and an + adventurer, his life was a sacrifice to prepossession and race instinct; + to temperament more powerful than logic or common sense, though he was + almost professionally the exponent of both. + </p> + <p> + There is no man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced as the + French Canadian. He is at once modest and vain; he is even lyrical in his + enthusiasms; he is a child in the intrigues and inventions of life; but he + has imagination, he has a heart, he has a love of tradition, and is the + slave of legend. To him domestic life is the summum bonum of being. His + four walls are the best thing which the world has to offer, except the + cheerful and sacred communion of the Mass, and his dismissal from life + itself under the blessing of his priest and with the promise of a good + immortality. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques Barbille had the French Canadian life of pageant, pomp, and + place extraordinarily developed. His love of history and tradition was + abnormal. A genius, he was, within an inch, a tragedy to the last button. + Probably the adventurous spirit of his forefathers played a greater part + in his development and in the story of his days than anything else. He was + wide-eyed, and he had a big soul. He trained himself to believe in himself + and to follow his own judgment; therefore, he invited loss upon loss, he + made mistake upon mistake, he heaped financial adventure upon financial + adventure, he ran great risks; and it is possible that his vast belief in + himself kept him going when other men would have dropped by the wayside. + He loved his wife and daughter, and he lost them both. He loved his farms, + his mills and his manor, and they disappeared from his control. + </p> + <p> + It must be remembered that the story of The Money Master really runs for a + generation, and it says something for Jean Jacques Barbille that he could + travel through scenes, many of them depressing, for long years, and still, + in the end, provoke no disparagement, by marrying the woman who had once + out of the goodness of her heart offered him everything—herself, her + home, her honour; and it was to Jean Jacques’s credit that he took neither + until the death of his wife made him free; but the tremendous gift offered + him produced a powerful impression upon his mind and heart. + </p> + <p> + One of the most distinguished men of the world to-day wrote me in praise + and protest concerning The Money Master. He declared that the first half + of the book was as good as anything that had been done by anybody, and + then he bemoaned the fact, which he believed, that the author had + sacrificed his two heroines without real cause and because he was tired of + them. There he was wrong. In the author’s mind the story was planned + exactly as it worked out. He was never tired; he was resolute. He was + intent to produce, if possible, a figure which would breed and develop its + own disasters, which would suffer profoundly for its own mistakes; but + which, in the end, would triumph over the disasters of life and time. It + was all deliberate in the main intention and plan. Any failures that exist + in the book are due to the faults of the author, and to nothing else. + </p> + <p> + Some critics have been good enough to call ‘The Money Master’ a beautiful + book, and there are many who said that it was real, true, and faithful. + Personally I think it is real and true, and as time goes on, and we get + older, that is what seems to matter to those who love life and wish to see + it well harvested. + </p> + <p> + I do not know what the future of the book may be; what the future of any + work of mine will be; but I can say this, that no one has had the pleasure + in reading my books which I have had in making them. They have been ground + out of the raw material of the soul. I have a hope that they will outlast + my brief day, but, in any case, it will not matter. They have given me a + chance of showing to the world life as I have seen it, and indirectly, and + perhaps indistinctly, my own ideas of that life. ‘The Money Master’ is a + vivid and somewhat emotional part of it. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE + </h2> + <p> + “Peace and plenty, peace and plenty”—that was the phrase M. Jean + Jacques Barbille, miller and moneymaster, applied to his home-scene, when + he was at the height of his career. Both winter and summer the place had a + look of content and comfort, even a kind of opulence. There is nothing + like a grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter and an air of + coolness in summer, so does the slightest breeze make the pine-needles + swish like the freshening sea. But to this scene, where pines made a + friendly background, there were added oak, ash, and hickory trees, though + in less quantity on the side of the river where were Jean Jacques + Barbille’s house and mills. They flourished chiefly on the opposite side + of the Beau Cheval, whose waters flowed so waywardly—now with a + rush, now silently away through long reaches of country. Here the land was + rugged and bold, while farther on it became gentle and spacious, and was + flecked or striped with farms on which low, white houses with + dormer-windows and big stoops flashed to the passer-by the message of the + pioneer, “It is mine. I triumph.” + </p> + <p> + At the Manor Cartier, not far from the town of Vilray, where Jean Jacques + was master, and above it and below it, there had been battles and the + ravages of war. At the time of the Conquest the stubborn habitants, + refusing to accept the yielding of Quebec as the end of French power in + their proud province, had remained in arms and active, and had only + yielded when the musket and the torch had done their work, and smoking + ruins marked the places where homes had been. They took their fortune with + something of the heroic calm of men to whom an idea was more than aught + else. Jean Jacques’ father, grandfather, and great-great-grandfather had + lived here, no one of them rising far, but none worthless or unnoticeable. + They all had had “a way of their own,” as their neighbours said, and had + been provident on the whole. Thus it was that when Jean Jacques’ father + died, and he came into his own, he found himself at thirty a man of + substance, unmarried, who “could have had the pick of the province.” This + was what the Old Cure said in despair, when Jean Jacques did the + incomprehensible thing, and married l’Espagnole, or “the Spanische,” as + the lady was always called in the English of the habitant. + </p> + <p> + When she came it was spring-time, and all the world was budding, exuding + joy and hope, with the sun dancing over all. It was the time between the + sowing and the hay-time, and there was a feeling of alertness in + everything that had life, while even the rocks and solid earth seemed to + stir. The air was filled with the long happy drone of the mill-stones as + they ground the grain; and from farther away came the soft, stinging cry + of a saw-mill. Its keen buzzing complaint was harmonious with the grumble + of the mill-stones, as though a supreme maker of music had tuned it. So + said a master-musician and his friend, a philosopher from Nantes, who came + to St. Saviour’s in the summer just before the marriage, and lodged with + Jean Jacques. Jean Jacques, having spent a year at Laval University at + Quebec, had almost a gift of thought, or thinking; and he never ceased to + ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questions which he + proceeded to answer himself before they could do so; his quaint, + sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening while they amused + his guests. They saddened the musician more than the other because he knew + life, while the philosopher only thought it and saw it. + </p> + <p> + But even the musician would probably have smiled in hope that day when the + young “Spanische” came driving up the river-road from the + steamboat-landing miles away. She arrived just when the clock struck noon + in the big living-room of the Manor. As she reached the open doorway and + the wide windows of the house which gaped with shady coolness, she heard + the bell summoning the workers in the mills and on the farm—yes, M. + Barbille was a farmer, too—for the welcome home to “M’sieu’ Jean + Jacques,” as he was called by everyone. + </p> + <p> + That the wedding had taken place far down in Gaspe and not in St. + Saviour’s was a reproach and almost a scandal; and certainly it was + unpatriotic. It was bad enough to marry the Spanische, but to marry + outside one’s own parish, and so deprive that parish and its young people + of the week’s gaiety, which a wedding and the consequent procession and + tour through the parish brings, was little less than treason. But there it + was; and Jean Jacques was a man who had power to hurt, to hinder, or to + help; for the miller and the baker are nearer to the hearthstone of every + man than any other, and credit is a good thing when the oven is empty and + hard times are abroad. The wedding in Gaspe had not been attended by the + usual functions, for it had all been hurriedly arranged, as the romantic + circumstances of the wooing required. Romance indeed it was; so remarkable + that the master-musician might easily have found a theme for a comedy—or + tragedy—and the philosopher would have shaken his head at the + defiance it offered to the logic of things. + </p> + <p> + Now this is the true narrative, though in the parish of St. Saviour’s it + is more highly decorated and has many legends hanging to it like tassels + to a curtain. Even the Cure of to-day, who ought to know all the truth, + finds it hard to present it in its bare elements; for the history of Jean + Jacques Barbille affected the history of many a man in St. Saviour’s; and + all that befel him, whether of good or evil, ran through the parish in a + thousand invisible threads. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ....................... +</pre> + <p> + What had happened was this. After the visit of the musician and the + philosopher, Jean Jacques, to sustain his reputation and to increase it, + had decided to visit that Normandy from which his people had come at the + time of Frontenac. He set forth with much ‘eclat’ and a little innocent + posturing and ritual, in which a cornet and a violin figured, together + with a farewell oration by the Cure. + </p> + <p> + In Paris Jean Jacques had found himself bewildered and engulfed. He had no + idea that life could be so overbearing, and he was inclined to resent his + own insignificance. However, in Normandy, when he read the names on the + tombstones and saw the records in the baptismal register of other Jean + Jacques Barbilles, who had come and gone generations before, his + self-respect was somewhat restored. This pleasure was dashed, however, by + the quizzical attitude of the natives of his ancestral parish, who walked + round about inspecting him as though he were a zoological specimen, and + who criticized his accent—he who had been at Laval for one whole + term; who had had special instruction before that time from the Old Cure + and a Jesuit brother; and who had been the friend of musicians and + philosophers! + </p> + <p> + His cheerful, kindly self-assurance stood the test with difficulty, but it + became a kind of ceremonial with him, whenever he was discomfited, to read + some pages of a little dun-coloured book of philosophy, picked up on the + quay at Quebec just before he sailed, and called, “Meditations in + Philosophy.” He had been warned by the bookseller that the Church had no + love for philosophy; but while at Laval he had met the independent minds + that, at eighteen to twenty-two, frequent academic groves; and he was not + to be put off by the pious bookseller—had he not also had a + philosopher in his house the year before, and was he not going to Nantes + to see this same savant before returning to his beloved St. Saviour’s + parish. + </p> + <p> + But Paris and Nantes and Rouen and Havre abashed and discomfited him, + played havoc with his self-esteem, confused his brain, and vexed him by + formality, and, more than all, by their indifference to himself. He + admired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished all + people and things to be humble with him. When he halted he wanted the + world to halt; when he entered a cathedral—Notre Dame or any other; + or a great building—the Law Courts at Rouen or any other; he simply + wanted people to say, wanted the cathedral, or at least the cloister, to + whisper to itself, “Here comes Jean Jacques Barbille.” + </p> + <p> + That was all he wanted, and that would have sufficed. He would not have + had them whisper about his philosophy and his intellect, or the mills and + the ash-factory which he meant to build, the lime-kilns he had started + even before he left, and the general store he intended to open when he + returned to St. Saviour’s. Not even his modesty was recognized; and, in + his grand tour, no one was impressed by all that he was, except once. An + ancestor, a grandmother of his, had come from the Basque country; and so + down to St. Jean Pied de Port he went; for he came of a race who set great + store by mothers and grandmothers. At St. Jean Pied de Port he was more at + home. He was, in a sense, a foreigner among foreigners there, and the + people were not quizzical, since he was an outsider in any case and not a + native returned, as he had been in Normandy. He learned to play pelota, + the Basque game taken from the Spaniards, and he even allowed himself a + little of that oratory which, as they say, has its habitat chiefly in + Gascony. And because he had found an audience at last, he became a liberal + host, and spent freely of his dollars, as he had never done either in + Normandy, Paris, or elsewhere. So freely did he spend, that when he again + embarked at Bordeaux for Quebec, he had only enough cash left to see him + through the remainder of his journey in the great world. Yet he left + France with his self-respect restored, and he even waved her a fond adieu, + as the creaking Antoine broke heavily into the waters of the Bay of + Biscay, while he cried: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “My little ship, + It bears me far + From lights of home + To alien star. + O vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, dear land, + Provence, adieu.” + </pre> + <p> + Then a further wave of sentiment swept over him, and he was vaguely + conscious of a desire to share the pains of parting which he saw in labour + around him—children from parents, lovers from loved. He could not + imagine the parting from a parent, for both of his were in the bosom of + heaven, having followed his five brothers, all of whom had died in + infancy, to his good fortune, for otherwise his estate would now be only + one-sixth of what it was. But he could imagine a parting with some sweet + daughter of France, and he added another verse to the thrilling of the + heart of Casimir Delavigne: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Beloved Isaure, + Her hand makes sign— + No more, no more, + To rest in mine. + O vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, dear land, + Isaure, adieu!” + </pre> + <p> + As he murmured with limpid eye the last words, he saw in the forecastle + not far from him a girl looking at him. There was unmistakable sadness in + her glance of interest. In truth she was thinking of just such a man as + Jean Jacques, whom she could never see any more, for he had paid with his + life the penalty of the conspiracy in which her father, standing now + behind her on the leaky Antoine, had been a tool, and an evil tool. Here + in Jean Jacques was the same ruddy brown face, black restless eye, and + young, silken, brown beard. Also there was an air of certainty and + universal comprehension, and though assertion and vanity were apparent, + there was no self-consciousness. The girl’s dead and gone conspirator had + not the same honesty of face, the same curve of the ideal in the broad + forehead, the same poetry of rich wavy brown hair, the same goodness of + mind and body so characteristic of Jean Jacques—he was but Jean + Jacques gone wrong at the start; but the girl was of a nature that could + see little difference between things which were alike superficially, and + in the young provincial she only saw one who looked like the man she had + loved. True, his moustaches did not curl upwards at the ends as did those + of Carvillho Gonzales, and he did not look out of the corner of his eyes + and smoke black cigarettes; but there he was, her Carvillho with a + difference—only such a difference that made him to her Carvillho + II., and not the ghost of Carvillho I. + </p> + <p> + She was a maiden who might have been as good as need be for all life, so + far as appearances went. She had a wonderful skin, a smooth, velvety + cheek, where faint red roses came and went, as it might seem at will; with + a deep brown eye; and eh, but she was grandly tall—so Jean Jacques + thought, while he drew himself up to his full five feet, six and a half + with a determined air. Even at his best, however, Jean Jacques could not + reach within three inches of her height. + </p> + <p> + Yet he did not regard her as at all overdone because of that. He thought + her hair very fine, as it waved away from her low forehead in a grace + which reminded him of the pictures of the Empress Eugenie, and of the + sister of that monsieur le duc who had come fishing to St. Saviour’s a few + years before. He thought that if her hair was let down it would probably + reach to her waist, and maybe to her ankles. She had none of the plump, + mellow softness of the beauties he had seen in the Basque country. She was + a slim and long limbed Diana, with fine lines and a bosom of extreme + youth, though she must have been twenty-one her last birthday. The gown + she wore was a dark green well-worn velvet, which seemed of too good a + make and quality for her class; and there was no decoration about her + anywhere, save at the ears, where two drops of gold hung on little links + an inch and a half long. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques Barbille’s eyes took it all in with that observation of which + he was so proud and confident, and rested finally on the drops of gold at + her ears. Instinctively he fingered the heavy gold watch-chain he had + bought in Paris to replace the silver chain with a little crucifix + dangling, which his father and even his great-grandfather had worn before + him. He had kept the watch, however—the great fat-bellied thing + which had never run down in a hundred years. It was his mascot. To lose + that watch would be like losing his share in the promises of the Church. + So his fingers ran along the new gold-fourteen-carat-chain, to the watch + at the end of it; and he took it out a little ostentatiously, since he saw + that the eyes of the girl were on him. Involuntarily he wished to impress + her. + </p> + <p> + He might have saved himself the trouble. She was impressed. It was quite + another matter however, whether he would have been pleased to know that + the impression was due to his resemblance to a Spanish conspirator, whose + object was to destroy the Monarchy and the Church, as had been the object + of the middle-aged conspirator—the girl’s father—who had the + good fortune to escape from justice. It is probable that if Jean Jacques + had known these facts, his story would never have been written, and he + would have died in course of time with twenty children and a seat in the + legislature; for, in spite of his ardent devotion to philosophy and its + accompanying rationalism, he was a devout monarchist and a child of the + Church. + </p> + <p> + Sad enough it was that, as he shifted his glance from the watch, which + ticked loud enough to wake a farmhand in the middle of the day, he found + those Spanish eyes which had been so lost in studying him. In the glow and + glisten of the evening sun setting on the shores of Bordeaux, and flashing + reflected golden light to the girl’s face, he saw that they were shining + with tears, and though looking at him, appeared not to see him. In that + moment the scrutiny of the little man’s mind was volatilized, and the + Spanische, as she was ultimately called, began her career in the life of + the money-master of St. Saviour’s. + </p> + <p> + It began by his immediately resenting the fact that she should be + travelling in the forecastle. His mind imagined misfortune and a lost home + through political troubles, for he quickly came to know that the girl and + her father were Spanish; and to him, Spain was a place of martyrs and + criminals. Criminals these could not be—one had but to look at the + girl’s face; while the face of her worthless father might have been that + of a friend of Philip IV. in the Escorial, so quiet and oppressed it + seemed. Nobility was written on the placid, apathetic countenance, except + when it was not under observation, and then the look of Cain took its + place. Jean Jacques, however, was not likely to see that look; since + Sebastian Dolores—that was his name—had observed from the + first how the master-miller was impressed by his daughter, and he was set + to turn it to account. + </p> + <p> + Not that the father entered into an understanding with the girl. He knew + her too well for that. He had a wholesome respect, not to say fear, of + her; for when all else had failed, it was she who had arranged his escape + from Spain, and who almost saved Carvillho Gonzales from being shot. She + could have saved Gonzales, might have saved him, would have saved him, had + she not been obliged to save her father. In the circumstances she could + not save both. + </p> + <p> + Before the week was out Jean Jacques was possessed of as fine a tale of + political persecution as mind could conceive, and, told as it was by + Sebastian Dolores, his daughter did not seek to alter it, for she had her + own purposes, and they were mixed. These refugees needed a friend, for + they would land in Canada with only a few dollars, and Carmen Dolores + loved her father well enough not to wish to see him again in such distress + as he had endured in Cadiz. Also, Jean Jacques, the young, verdant, + impressionable French Catholic, was like her Carvillho Gonzales, and she + had loved her Carvillho in her own way very passionately, and—this + much to her credit—quite chastely. So that she had no compunction in + drawing the young money-master to her side, and keeping him there by such + arts as such a woman possesses. These are remarkable after their kind. + They are combined of a frankness as to the emotions, and such outer + concessions to physical sensations, as make a painful combination against + a mere man’s caution; even when that caution has a Norman origin. + </p> + <p> + More than once Jean Jacques was moved to tears, as the Ananias of Cadiz + told his stories of persecution. + </p> + <p> + So that one day, in sudden generosity, he paid the captain the necessary + sum to transfer the refugees from the forecastle to his own select portion + of the steamer, where he was so conspicuous a figure among a handful of + lower-level merchant folk and others of little mark who were going to + Quebec. To these latter Jean Jacques was a gift of heaven, for he knew so + much, and seemed to know so much more, and could give them the information + they desired. His importance lured him to pose as a seigneur, though he + had no claim to the title. He did not call himself Seigneur in so many + words, but when others referred to him as the Seigneur, and it came to his + ears, he did not correct it; and when he was addressed as such he did not + reprove. + </p> + <p> + Thus, when he brought the two refugees from the forecastle and assured his + fellow-passengers that they were Spanish folk of good family exiled by + persecution, his generosity was acclaimed, even while all saw he was + enamoured of Carmen. Once among the first-class passengers, father and + daughter maintained reserve, and though there were a few who saw that they + were not very far removed above peasants, still the dress of the girl, + which was good—she had been a maid in a great nobleman’s family—was + evidence in favour of the father’s story. Sebastian Dolores explained his + own workman’s dress as having been necessary for his escape. + </p> + <p> + Only one person gave Jean Jacques any warning. This was the captain of the + Antoine. He was a Basque, he knew the Spanish people well—the types, + the character, the idiosyncrasies; and he was sure that Sebastian Dolores + and his daughter belonged to the lower clerical or higher working class, + and he greatly inclined towards the former. In that he was right, because + Dolores, and his father before him, had been employed in the office of a + great commercial firm in Cadiz, and had repaid much consideration by + stirring up strife and disloyalty in the establishment. But before the + anarchist subtracted himself from his occupation, he had appropriated + certain sums of money, and these had helped to carry him on, when he + attached himself to the revolutionaries. It was on his daughter’s savings + that he was now travelling, with the only thing he had saved from the + downfall, which was his head. It was of sufficient personal value to make + him quite cheerful as the Antoine plunged and shivered on her way to the + country where he could have no steady work as a revolutionist. + </p> + <p> + With reserve and caution the Basque captain felt it his duty to tell Jean + Jacques of his suspicions, warning him that the Spaniards were the + choicest liars in the world, and were not ashamed of it; but had the same + pride in it as had their greatest rivals, the Arabs and the Egyptians. + </p> + <p> + His discreet confidences, however, were of no avail; he was not discreet + enough. If he had challenged the bona fides of Sebastian Dolores only, he + might have been convincing, but he used the word “they” constantly, and + that roused the chivalry of Jean Jacques. That the comely, careful Carmen + should be party to an imposture was intolerable. Everything about her gave + it the lie. Her body was so perfect and complete, so finely contrived and + balanced, so cunningly curved with every line filled in; her eye was so + full of lustre and half-melancholy too; her voice had such a melodious + monotone; her mouth was so ripe and yet so distant in its luxury, that + imposture was out of the question. + </p> + <p> + Ah, but Jean Jacques was a champion worth while! He did nothing by halves. + He was of the breed of men who grow more intense, more convinced, more + thorough, as they talk. One adjective begets another, one warm allusion + gives birth to a warmer, one flashing impulse evokes a brighter + confidence, till the atmosphere is flaming with conviction. If Jean + Jacques started with faint doubt regarding anything, and allowed himself + betimes the flush of a declaration of belief, there could be but one end. + He gathered fire as he moved, impulse expanded into momentum, and momentum + became an Ariel fleeing before the dark. He would start by offering a + finger to be pricked, and would end by presenting his own head on a + charger. He was of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with + self-creation, who flower and bloom without pollen. + </p> + <p> + His rejection of the captain’s confidence even had a dignity. He took out + his watch which represented so many laborious hours of other Barbilles, + and with a decision in which the strong pulse of chivalry was beating + hard, he said: + </p> + <p> + “I can never speak well till I have ate. That is my hobby. Well, so it is. + And I like good company. So that is why I sit beside Senor and Senorita + Dolores at table—the one on the right, the other on the left, myself + between, like this, like that. It is dinner-time now here, and my friends—my + dear friends of Cadiz—they wait me. Have you heard the Senorita sing + the song of Spain, m’sieu’? What it must be with the guitar, I know not; + but with voice alone it is ravishing. I have learned it also. The Senorita + has taught me. It is a song of Aragon. It is sung in high places. It + belongs to the nobility. Ah, then, you have not heard it—but it is + not too late! The Senorita, the unhappy ma’m’selle, driven from her + ancestral home by persecution, she will sing it to you as she has sung it + to me. It is your due. You are the master of the ship. But, yes, she shall + of her kindness and of her grace sing it to you. You do not know how it + runs? Well, it is like this—listen and tell me if it does not speak + of things that belong to the old regime, the ancient noblesse—listen, + m’sieu’ le captainne, how it runs: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Have you not heard of mad Murcie? + Granada gay and And’lousie? + There’s where you’ll see the joyous rout, + When patios pour their beauties out; + Come, children, come, the night gains fast, + And Time’s a jade too fair to last. + My flower of Spain, my Juanetta, + Away, away to gay Jota! + Come forth, my sweet, away, my queen, + Though daybreak scorns, the night’s between. + The Fete’s afoot—ah! ah! ah! ah! + De la Jota Ar’gonesa. + Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! + De la Jota Ar’gonesa.” + </pre> + <p> + Before he had finished, the captain was more than ready to go, for he had + no patience with such credulity, simplicity and sentimentalism. He was + Basque, and to be Basque is to lack sentiment and feel none, to play ever + for the safe thing, to get without giving, and to mind your own business. + It had only been an excessive sense of duty which had made the captain + move in this, for he liked Jean Jacques as everyone aboard his Antoine + did; and he was convinced that the Spaniards would play the “Seigneur” to + the brink of disaster at least, though it would have been hard to detect + any element of intrigue or coquetry in Carmen Dolores. + </p> + <p> + That was due partly to the fact that she was still in grief for her + Gonzales, whose heart had been perforated by almost as many bullets as the + arrows of Cupid had perforated it in his short, gay life of adventure and + anarchy; also partly because there was no coquetry needed to interest Jean + Jacques. If he was interested it was not necessary to interest anyone + else, nor was it expedient to do so, for the biggest fish in the net on + the Antoine was the money-master of St. Saviour’s. + </p> + <p> + Carmen had made up her mind from the first to marry Jean Jacques, and she + deported herself accordingly—with modesty, circumspection and skill. + It would be the easiest way out of all their difficulties. Since her + heart, such as it was, fluttered, a mournful ghost, over the Place + d’Armes, where her Gonzales was shot, it might better go to Jean Jacques + than anyone else; for he was a man of parts, of money, and of looks, and + she loved these all; and to her credit she loved his looks better than all + the rest. She had no real cupidity, and she was not greatly enamoured of + brains. She had some real philosophy of life learned in a hard school; and + it was infinitely better founded than the smattering of conventional + philosophy got by Jean Jacques from his compendium picked up on the quay + at Quebec. + </p> + <p> + Yet Jean Jacques’ cruiser of life was not wholly unarmed. From his Norman + forebears he had, beneath all, a shrewdness and an elementary alertness + not submerged by his vain, kind nature. He was quite a good business man, + and had proved himself so before his father died—very quick to see a + chance, and even quicker to see where the distant, sharp corners in the + road were; though not so quick to see the pitfalls, for his head was ever + in the air. And here on the Antoine, there crossed his mind often the + vision of Carmen Dolores and himself in the parish of St. Saviour’s, with + the daily life of the Beau Cheval revolving about him. Flashes of danger + warned him now and then, just at the beginning of the journey, as it were; + just before he had found it necessary to become her champion against the + captain and his calumnies; but they were of the instant only. But champion + as he became, and worshipping as his manner seemed, it all might easily + have been put down to a warm, chivalrous, and spontaneous nature, which + had not been bitted or bridled, and he might have landed at Quebec without + committing himself, were it not for the fact that he was not to land at + Quebec. + </p> + <p> + That was the fact which controlled his destiny. He had spent many, many + hours with the Dona Dolores, talking, talking, as he loved to talk, and + only saving himself from the betise of boring her by the fact that his + enthusiasm had in it so fresh a quality, and because he was so like her + Gonzales that she could always endure him. Besides, quick of intelligence + as she was, she was by nature more material than she looked, and there was + certainly something physically attractive in him—some curious + magnetism. She had a well of sensuousness which might one day become + sensuality; she had a richness of feeling and a contour in harmony with + it, which might expand into voluptuousness, if given too much sun, or if + untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life. There was an + earthquake zone in her being which might shake down the whole structure of + her existence. She was unsafe, not because she was deceiving Jean Jacques + now as to her origin and as to her feelings for him; she was unsafe + because of the natural strain of the light of love in her, joined to a + passion for comfort and warmth and to a natural self-indulgence. She was + determined to make Jean Jacques offer himself before they landed at + Quebec. + </p> + <p> + But they did not land at Quebec. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. “THE REST OF THE STORY TO-MORROW” + </h2> + <p> + The journey wore on to the coast of Canada. Gaspe was not far off when, + still held back by the constitutional tendency of the Norman not to close + a bargain till compelled to do so, Jean Jacques sat with Carmen far + forward on the deck, where the groaning Antoine broke the waters into + sullen foam. There they silently watched the sunset, golden, purple and + splendid—and ominous, as the captain knew. + </p> + <p> + “Look, the end of life—like that!” said Jean Jacques oratorically + with a wave of the hand towards the prismatic radiance. + </p> + <p> + “All the way round, the whole circle—no, it would be too much,” + Carmen replied sadly. “Better to go at noon—or soon after. Then the + only memory of life would be of the gallop. No crawling into the night for + me, if I can help it. Mother of Heaven, no! Let me go at the top of the + flight.” + </p> + <p> + “It is all the same to me,” responded Jean Jacques, “I want to know it all—to + gallop, to trot, to walk, to crawl. Me, I’m a philosopher. I wait.” + </p> + <p> + “But I thought you were a Catholic,” she replied, with a kindly, lurking + smile, which might easily have hardened into scoffing. + </p> + <p> + “First and last,” he answered firmly. + </p> + <p> + “A Catholic and a philosopher—together in one?” She shrugged a + shoulder to incite him to argument, for he was interesting when excited; + when spurting out little geysers of other people’s cheap wisdom and + philosophy, poured through the kind distortion of his own intelligence. + </p> + <p> + He gave a toss of his head. “Ah, that is my hobby—I reconcile, I + unite, I adapt! It is all the nature of the mind, the far-look, the + all-round sight of the man. I have it all. I see.” + </p> + <p> + He gazed eloquently into the sunset, he swept the horizon with his hand. + “I have the all-round look. I say the Man of Calvary, He is before all, + the sun; but I say Socrates, Plato, Jean Jacques—that is my name, + and it is not for nothing, that—Jean Jacques Rousseau, Descartes, + Locke, they are stars that go round the sun. It is the same light, but not + the same sound. I reconcile. In me all comes together like the spokes to + the hub of a wheel. Me—I am a Christian, I am philosophe, also. In + St. Saviour’s, my home in Quebec, if the crops are good, what do men say? + ‘C’est le bon Dieu—it is the good God,’ that is what they say. If + the crops are bad, what do they say? ‘It is the good God’—that is + what they say. It is the good God that makes crops good or bad, and it is + the good God that makes men say, ‘C’est le bon Dieu.’ The good God makes + the philosophy. It is all one.” + </p> + <p> + She appeared to grow agitated, and her voice shook as she spoke. “Tsh, it + is only a fool that says the good God does it, when the thing that is done + breaks you or that which you love all to pieces. No, no, no, it is not + religion, it is not philosophy that makes one raise the head when the + heart is bowed down, when everything is snatched away that was all in all. + That the good God does it is a lie. Santa Maria, what a lie!” + </p> + <p> + “Why ‘Santa Maria,’ then, if it is a lie?” he asked triumphantly. He did + not observe how her breast was heaving, how her hands were clenched; for + she was really busy with thoughts of her dead Carvillho Gonzales; but for + the moment he could only see the point of an argument. + </p> + <p> + She made a gesture of despair. “So—that’s it. Habit in us is so + strong. It comes through the veins of our mothers to us. We say that God + is a lie one minute, and then the next minute we say, ‘God guard you!’ + Always—always calling to something, for something outside ourselves. + That is why I said Santa Maria, why I ask her to pray for the soul of my + friend, to pray to the God that breaks me and mine, and sends us over the + seas, beggars without a home.” + </p> + <p> + Now she had him back out of the vanities of his philosophy. He was up, + inflamed, looking at her with an excitement on which she depended for her + future. She knew the caution of his nature, she realized how he would take + one step forward and another step back, and maybe get nowhere in the end, + and she wanted him—for a home, for her father’s sake, for what he + could do for them both. She had no compunctions. She thought herself too + good for him, in a way, for in her day men of place and mark had taken + notice of her; and if it had not been for her Gonzales she would no doubt + have listened to one of them sometime or another. She knew she had + ability, even though she was indolent, and she thought she could do as + much for him as any other girl. If she gave him a handsome wife and + handsome children, and made men envious of him, and filled him with good + things, for she could cook more than tortillas-she felt he would have no + right to complain. She meant him to marry her—and Quebec was very + near! + </p> + <p> + “A beggar in a strange land, without a home, without a friend—oh, my + broken life!” she whispered wistfully to the sunset. + </p> + <p> + It was not all acting, for the past reached out and swept over her, + throwing waves of its troubles upon the future. She was that saddest of + human beings, a victim of dual forces which so fought for mastery with + each other that, while the struggle went on, the soul had no firm foothold + anywhere. That, indeed, was why her Carvillho Gonzales, who also had been + dual in nature, said to himself so often, “I am a devil,” and nearly as + often, “I have the heart of an angel.” + </p> + <p> + “Tell me all about your life, my friend,” Jean Jacques said eagerly. Now + his eyes no longer hurried here and there, but fastened on hers and stayed + thereabouts—ah, her face surely was like pictures he had seen in the + Louvre that day when he had ambled through the aisles of great men’s + glories with the feeling that he could not see too much for nothing in an + hour. + </p> + <p> + “My life? Ah, m’sieu’, has not my father told you of it?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + He waved a hand in explanation, he cocked his head quizzically. “Scraps—like + the buttons on a coat here and there—that’s all,” he answered. “Born + in Andalusia, lived in Cadiz, plenty of money, a beautiful home,”—Carmen’s + eyes drooped, and her face flushed slightly—“no brothers or sisters—visits + to Madrid on political business—you at school—then the going + of your mother, and you at home at the head of the house. So much on the + young shoulders, the kitchen, the parlour, the market, the shop, society—and + so on. That is the way it was, so he said, except in the last sad times, + when your father, for the sake of Don Carlos and his rights, near lost his + life—ah, I can understand that: to stand by the thing you have sworn + to! France is a republic, but I would give my life to put a Napoleon or a + Bourbon on the throne. It is my hobby to stand by the old ship, not sign + on to a new captain every port.” + </p> + <p> + She raised her head and looked at him calmly now. The flush had gone from + her face, and a light of determination was in her eyes. To that was added + suddenly a certain tinge of recklessness and abandon in carriage and + manner, as one flings the body loose from the restraints of clothes, and + it expands in a free, careless, defiant joy. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques’ recital of her father’s tale had confused her for a moment, + it was so true yet so untrue, so full of lies and yet so solid in fact. + “The head of the house—visits to Madrid on political business—the + parlour, the market, society—all that!” It suggested the picture of + the life of a child of a great house; it made her a lady, and not a + superior servant as she had been; it adorned her with a credit which was + not hers; and for a moment she was ashamed. Yet from the first she had + lent herself to the general imposture that they had fled from Spain for + political reasons, having lost all and suffered greatly; and it was true + while yet it was a lie. She had suffered, both her father and herself had + suffered; she had been in danger, in agony, in sorrow, in despair—it + was only untrue that they were of good birth and blood, and had had + position and comfort and much money. Well, what harm did that do anybody? + What harm did it do this little brown seigneur from Quebec? Perhaps he too + had made himself out to be more than he was. Perhaps he was no seigneur at + all, she thought. When one is in distant seas and in danger of his life, + one will hoist any flag, sail to any port, pay homage to any king. So + would she. Anyhow, she was as good as this provincial, with his ancient + silver watch, his plump little hands, and his book of philosophy. + </p> + <p> + What did it matter, so all came right in the end! She would justify + herself, if she had the chance. She was sick of conspiracy, and danger, + and chicanery—and blood. She wanted her chance. She had been badly + shaken in the last days in Spain, and she shrank from more worry and + misery. She wanted to have a home and not to wander. And here was a chance—how + good a chance she was not sure; but it was a chance. She would not + hesitate to make it hers. After all, self-preservation was the thing which + mattered. She wanted a bright fire, a good table, a horse, a cow, and all + such simple things. She wanted a roof over her and a warm bed at night. + She wanted a warm bed at night—but a warm bed at night alone. It was + the price she would have to pay for her imposture, that if she had all + these things, she could not be alone in the sleep-time. She had not + thought of this in the days when she looked forward to a home with her + Gonzales. To be near him was everything; but that was all dead and done + for; and now—it was at this point that, shrinking, she suddenly + threw off all restraining thoughts. With abandon of the mind came a + recklessness of body, which gave her, all at once, a voluptuousness more + in keeping with the typical maid of Andalusia. It got into the eyes and + senses of Jean Jacques, in a way which had nothing to do with the + philosophy of Descartes, or Kant, or Aristotle, or Hegel. + </p> + <p> + “It was beautiful in much—my childhood,” she said in a low voice, + dropping her eyes before his ardent gaze, “as my father said. My mother + was lovely to see, but not bigger than I was at twelve—so petite, + and yet so perfect in form—like a lark or a canary. Yes, and she + could sing—anything. Not like me with a voice which has the note of + a drum or an organ—” + </p> + <p> + “Of a flute, bright Senorita,” interposed Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “But high, and with the trills in the skies, and all like a laugh with a + tear in it. When she went to the river to wash—” + </p> + <p> + She was going to say “wash the clothes,” but she stopped in time and said + instead, “wash her spaniel and her pony”—her face was flushed again + with shame, for to lie about one’s mother is a sickening thing, and her + mother never had a spaniel or a pony—“the women on the shore + wringing their clothes, used to beg her to sing. To the hum of the river + she would make the music which they loved—” + </p> + <p> + “La Manola and such?” interjected Jean Jacques eagerly. “That’s a fine + song as you sing it.” + </p> + <p> + “Not La Manola, but others of a different sort—The Love of Isabella, + The Flight of Bobadil, Saragosse, My Little Banderillero, and so on, and + all so sweet that the women used to cry. Always, always she was singing + till the time when my father became a rebel. Then she used to cry too; and + she would sing no more; and when my father was put against a wall to be + shot, and fell in the dust when the rifles rang out, she came at the + moment, and seeing him lying there, she threw up her hands, and fell down + beside him dead—” + </p> + <p> + “The poor little senora, dead too—” + </p> + <p> + “Not dead too—that was the pity of it. You see my father was not + dead. The officer”—she did not say sergeant—“who commanded the + firing squad, he was what is called a compadre of my father—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I understand—a made-brother, sealed with an oath, which binds + closer than a blood-brother. It is that, is it not?” + </p> + <p> + “So—like that. Well, the compadre had put blank cartridges in their + rifles, and my father pretended to fall dead; and the soldiers were + marched away; and my father, with my mother, was carried to his home, + still pretending to be dead. It had been all arranged except the awful + thing, my mother’s death. Who could foresee that? She ought to have been + told; but who could guess that she would hear of it all, and come at the + moment like that? So, that was the way she went, and I was left alone with + my father.” She had told the truth in all, except in conveying that her + mother was not of the lower orders, and that she went to the river to wash + her spaniel and her pony instead of her clothes. + </p> + <p> + “Your father—did they not arrest him again? Did they not know?” + </p> + <p> + She shrugged her shoulders. “That is not the way in Spain. He was shot, as + the orders were, with his back to the wall by a squad of soldiers with + regulation bullets. If he chose to come to life again, that was his own + affair. The Government would take no notice of him after he was dead. He + could bury himself, or he could come alive—it was all the same to + them. So he came alive again.” + </p> + <p> + “That is a story which would make a man’s name if he wrote it down,” said + Jean Jacques eloquently. “And the poor little senora, but my heart bleeds + for her! To go like that in such pain, and not to know—If she had + been my wife I think I would have gone after her to tell her it was all + right, and to be with her—” + </p> + <p> + He paused confused, for that seemed like a reflection on her father’s + chivalry, and for a man who had risked his life for his banished king—what + would he have thought if he had been told that Sebastian Dolores was an + anarchist who loathed kings!—it was an insult to suggest that he did + not know the right thing to do, or, knowing, had not done it. + </p> + <p> + She saw the weakness of his case at once. “There was his duty to the + living,” she said indignantly. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, forgive me—what a fool I am!” Jean Jacques said repentantly at + once. “There was his little girl, his beloved child, his Carmen Dolores, + so beautiful, with the voice like a flute, and—” + </p> + <p> + He drew nearer to her, his hand was outstretched to take hers; his eyes + were full of the passion of the moment; pity was drowning all caution, all + the Norman shrewdness in him, when the Antoine suddenly stopped almost + dead with a sudden jolt and shock, then plunged sideways, jerked, and + trembled. + </p> + <p> + “We’ve struck a sunk iceberg—the rest of the story to-morrow, + Senorita,” he cried, as they both sprang to their feet. + </p> + <p> + “The rest of the story to-morrow,” she repeated, angry at the stroke of + fate which had so interrupted the course of her fortune. She said it with + a voice also charged with fear; for she was by nature a landfarer, not a + sea-farer, though on the rivers of Spain she had lived almost as much as + on land, and she was a good swimmer. + </p> + <p> + “The rest to-morrow,” she repeated, controlling herself. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. “TO-MORROW” + </h2> + <p> + The rest came to-morrow. When the Antoine struck the sunken iceberg she + was not more than one hundred and twenty miles from the coast of Gaspe. + She had not struck it full on, or she would have crumpled up, but had + struck and glanced, mounting the berg, and sliding away with a small + gaping wound in her side, broken internally where she had been weakest. + Her condition was one of extreme danger, and the captain was by no means + sure that he could make the land. If a storm or a heavy sea came on, they + were doomed. + </p> + <p> + As it was, with all hands at the pumps the water gained on her, and she + moaned and creaked and ached her way into the night with no surety that + she would show a funnel to the light of another day. Passengers and crew + alike worked, and the few boats were got ready to lower away when the + worst should come to the worst. Below, with the crew, the little + moneymaster of St. Saviour’s worked with an energy which had behind it + some generations of hardy qualities; and all the time he refused to be + downcast. There was something in his nature or in his philosophy after + all. He had not much of a voice, but it was lusty and full of good + feeling; and when cursing began, when a sailor even dared to curse his + baptism—the crime of crimes to a Catholic mind—Jean Jacques + began to sing a cheery song with which the habitants make vocal their + labours or their playtimes: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “A Saint-Malo, beau port de mer, + Trois gros navir’s sont arrives, + Trois gros navir’s sont arrives + Charges d’avoin’, charges de ble. + Charges d’avoin’, charges de ble: + Trois dam’s s’en vont les marchander.” + </pre> + <p> + And so on through many verses, with a heartiness that was a good antidote + to melancholy, even though it was no specific for a shipwreck. It played + its part, however; and when Jean Jacques finished it, he plunged into that + other outburst of the habitant’s gay spirits, ‘Bal chez Boule’: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule, + The vespers o’er, we’ll away to that; + With our hearts so light, and our feet so gay, + We’ll dance to the tune of ‘The Cardinal’s Hat’ + The better the deed, the better the day + Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule!” + </pre> + <p> + And while Jean Jacques worked “like a little French pony,” as they say in + Canada of every man with the courage to do hard things in him, he did not + stop to think that the scanty life-belts had all been taken, and that he + was a very poor swimmer indeed: for, as a child, he had been subject to + cramp, and so had made the Beau Cheval River less his friend than would + have been useful now. + </p> + <p> + He realized it, however, soon after daybreak, when, within a few hundred + yards of the shores of Gaspe, to which the good Basque captain had been + slowly driving the Antoine all night, there came the cry, “All hands on + deck!” and “Lower the boats!” for the Antoine’s time had come, and within + a hand-reach of shore almost she found the end of her rickety life. Not + more than three-fourths of the passengers and crew were got into the + boats. Jean Jacques was not one of these; but he saw Carmen Dolores and + her father safely bestowed, though in different boats. To the girl’s + appeal to him to come he gave a nod of assent, and said he would get in at + the last moment; but this he did not do, pushing into the boat instead a + crying lad of fifteen, who said he was afraid to die. + </p> + <p> + So it was that Jean Jacques took to the water side by side with the Basque + captain, when the Antoine groaned and shook, and then grew still, and + presently, with some dignity, dipped her nose into the shallow sea and + went down. + </p> + <p> + “The rest of the story to-morrow,” Jean Jacques had said when the vessel + struck the iceberg the night before; and so it was. + </p> + <p> + The boat in which Carmen had been placed was swamped not far from shore, + but she managed to lay hold of a piece of drifting wreckage, and began to + fight steadily and easily landward. Presently she was aware, however, of a + man struggling hard some little distance away to the left of her, and from + the tousled hair shaking in the water she was sure that it was Jean + Jacques. + </p> + <p> + So it proved to be; and thus it was that, at his last gasp almost, when he + felt he could keep up no longer, the wooden seat to which Carmen clung + came to his hand, and a word of cheer from her drew his head up with what + was almost a laugh. + </p> + <p> + “To think of this!” he said presently when he was safe, with her swimming + beside him without support, for the wooden seat would not sustain the + weight of two. “To think that it is you who saves me!” he again declared + eloquently, as they made the shore in comparative ease, for she was a fine + swimmer. + </p> + <p> + “It is the rest of the story,” he said with great cheerfulness and aplomb + as they stood on the shore in the morning sun, shoeless, coatless, but + safe: and she understood. + </p> + <p> + There was nothing else for him to do. The usual process of romance had + been reversed. He had not saved her life, she had saved his. The least + that he could do was to give her shelter at the Manor Cartier yonder at + St. Saviour’s, her and, if need be, her father. Human gratitude must have + play. It was so strong in this case that it alone could have overcome the + Norman caution of Jean Jacques, and all his worldly wisdom (so much in his + own eyes). Added thereto was the thing which had been greatly stirred in + him at the instant the Antoine struck; and now he kept picturing Carmen in + the big living-room and the big bedroom of the house by the mill, where + was the comfortable four-poster which had come from the mansion of the + last Baron of Beaugard down by St. Laurent. + </p> + <p> + Three days after the shipwreck of the Antoine, and as soon as sufficient + finery could be got in Quebec, it was accomplished, the fate of Jean + Jacques. How proud he was to open his cheque-book before the young Spanish + maid, and write in cramped, characteristic hand a cheque for a hundred + dollars or so at a time! A moiety of this money was given to Sebastian + Dolores, who could scarcely believe his good fortune. A situation was got + for him by the help of a good abbe at Quebec, who was touched by the tale + of the wreck of the Antoine, and by the no less wonderful tale of the + refugees of Spain, who naturally belonged to the true faith which “feared + God and honoured the King.” Sebastian Dolores was grateful for the post + offered him, though he would rather have gone to St. Saviour’s with his + daughter, for he had lost the gift of work, and he desired peace after + war. In other words, he had that fatal trait of those who strive to make + the world better by talk and violence, the vice of indolence. + </p> + <p> + But when Jean Jacques and his handsome bride started for St. Saviour’s, + the new father-in-law did not despair of following soon. He would greatly + have enjoyed the festivities which, after all, did follow the home-coming + of Jean Jacques Barbille and his Spanische; for while they lacked + enthusiasm because Carmen was a foreigner, the romance of the story gave + the whole proceedings a spirit and interest which spread into adjoining + parishes: so that people came to mass from forty miles away to see the + pair who had been saved from the sea. + </p> + <p> + And when the Quebec newspapers found their way into the parish, with a + thrilling account of the last hours of the Antoine; and of Jean Jacques’ + chivalrous act in refusing to enter a boat to save himself, though he was + such a bad swimmer and was in danger of cramp; and how he sang Bal chez + Boule while the men worked at the pumps; they permitted the apres noces of + M’sieu’ and Madame Jean Jacques Barbille to be as brilliant as could be, + with the help of lively improvisation. Even speech-making occurred again + in an address of welcome some days later. This was followed by a feast of + Spanish cakes and meats made by the hands of Carmen Dolores, “the lady + saved from the sea”—as they called her; not knowing that she had + saved herself, and saved Jean Jacques as well. It was not quite to Jean + Jacques’ credit that he did not set this error right, and tell the world + the whole exact truth. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A STORY + </h2> + <p> + It was hard to say which was the more important person in the parish, the + New Cure or M’sieu’ Jean Jacques Barbille. When the Old Cure was alive + Jean Jacques was a lesser light, and he accepted his degree of + illumination with content. But when Pere Langon was gathered to his + fathers, and thousands had turned away from the graveyard, where he who + had baptised them, confirmed them, blessed them, comforted them, and + firmly led them was laid to rest, they did not turn at once to his + successor with confidence and affection. The new cure, M. Savry, was + young; the Old Cure had lived to be eighty-five, bearing wherever he went + a lamp of wisdom at which the people lighted their small souls. The New + Cure could command their obedience, but he could not command their love + and confidence until he had earned them. + </p> + <p> + So it was that, for a time, Jean Jacques took the place of the Old Cure in + the human side of the life of the district, though in a vastly lesser + degree. Up to the death of M. Langon, Jean Jacques had done very well in + life, as things go in out-of-the-way places of the world. His mill, which + ground good flour, brought him increasing pence; his saw-mill more than + paid its way; his farms made a small profit, in spite of a cousin who + worked one on halves, but who had a spendthrift wife; the ash-factory + which his own initiative had started made no money, but the loss was only + small; and he had even made profit out of his lime-kilns, although + Sebastian Dolores, Carmen’s father, had at one time mismanaged them—but + of that anon. Jean Jacques himself managed the business of money-lending + and horse-dealing; and he also was agent for fire insurance and a dealer + in lightning rods. + </p> + <p> + In the thirteen years since he married he had been able to keep a good + many irons in the fire, and also keep them more or less hot. Many people + in his and neighbouring parishes were indebted to him, and it was worth + their while to stand well with him. If he insisted on debts being paid, he + was never exacting or cruel. If he lent money, he never demanded more than + eight per cent.; and he never pressed his debtors unduly. His cheerfulness + seldom deserted him, and he was notably kind to the poor. Not seldom in + the winter time a poor man, here and there in the parish, would find + dumped down outside his door in the early morning a half-cord of wood or a + bag of flour. + </p> + <p> + It could not be said that Jean Jacques did not enjoy his own generosity. + His vanity, however, did not come from an increasing admiration of his own + personal appearance, a weakness which often belongs to middle age; but + from the study of his so-called philosophy, which in time became an + obsession with him. In vain the occasional college professors, who spent + summer months at St. Saviour’s, sought to interest him in science and + history, for his philosophy had large areas of boredom; but science + marched over too jagged a road for his tender intellectual feet; the wild + places where it led dismayed him. History also meant numberless dates and + facts. Perhaps he could have managed the dates, for he was quick at + figures, but the facts were like bees in their hive,—he could + scarcely tell one from another by looking at them. + </p> + <p> + So it was that Jean Jacques kept turning his eyes, as he thought, to the + everlasting meaning of things, to “the laws of Life and the decrees of + Destiny.” He was one of those who had found, as he thought, what he could + do, and was sensible enough to do it. Let the poor fellows, who gave + themselves to science, trouble their twisted minds with trigonometry and + the formula of some grotesque chemical combination; let the dull people + rub their noses in the ink of Greek and Latin, which was no use for + everyday consumption; let the heads of historians ache with the warring + facts of the lives of nations; it all made for sleep. But philosophy—ah, + there was a field where a man could always use knowledge got from books or + sorted out of his own experiences! + </p> + <p> + It happened, therefore, that Jean Jacques, who not too vaguely realized + that there was reputation to be got from being thought a philosopher, + always carried about with him his little compendium from the quay at + Quebec, which he had brought ashore inside his redflannel shirt, with the + antique silver watch, when the Antoine went down. + </p> + <p> + Thus also it was that when a lawyer in court at Vilray, four miles from + St. Saviour’s, asked him one day, when he stepped into the witness-box, + what he was, meaning what was his occupation, his reply was, “Moi-je suis + M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosophe—(Me—I am M’sieu’ Jean + Jacques, philosopher).” + </p> + <p> + A little later outside the court-house, the Judge who had tried the case—M. + Carcasson—said to the Clerk of the Court: + </p> + <p> + “A curious, interesting little man, that Monsieur Jean Jacques. What’s his + history?” + </p> + <p> + “A character, a character, monsieur le juge,” was the reply of M. Amand + Fille. “His family has been here since Frontenac’s time. He is a figure in + the district, with a hand in everything. He does enough foolish things to + ruin any man, yet swims along—swims along. He has many kinds of + business—mills, stores, farms, lime-kilns, and all that, and keeps + them all going; and as if he hadn’t enough to do, and wasn’t risking + enough, he’s now organizing a cheese-factory on the co-operative + principle, as in Upper Canada among the English.” + </p> + <p> + “He has a touch of originality, that’s sure,” was the reply of the Judge. + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court nodded and sighed. “Monseigneur Giron of Laval, the + greatest scholar in Quebec, he said to me once that M’sieu’ Jean Jacques + missed being a genius by an inch. But, monsieur le juge, not to have that + inch is worse than to be an ignoramus.” + </p> + <p> + Judge Carcasson nodded. “Ah, surely! Your Jean Jacques lacks a + balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough. He has vision, but it is not + steady; he has argument, but it breaks down just where it should be most + cohesive. He interested me. I took note of every turn of his mind as he + gave evidence. He will go on for a time, pulling his strings, doing this + and doing that, and then, all at once, when he has got a train of + complications, his brain will not be big enough to see the way out. Tell + me, has he a balance-wheel in his home—a sensible wife, perhaps?” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully and seemed to hesitate. + Then he said, “Comme ci, comme ca—but no, I will speak the truth + about it. She is a Spaniard—the Spanische she is called by the + neighbours. I will tell you all about that, and you will wonder that he + has carried on as well as he has, with his vanity and his philosophy.” + </p> + <p> + “He’ll have need of his philosophy before he’s done, or I don’t know human + nature; he’ll get a bad fall one of these days,” responded the Judge. + “‘Moi-je suis M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosophe’—that is what he + said. Bumptious little man, and yet—and yet there’s something in + him. There’s a sense of things which everyone doesn’t have—a glimmer + of life beyond his own orbit, a catching at the biggest elements of being, + a hovering on the confines of deep understanding, as it were. Somehow I + feel almost sorry for him, though he annoyed me while he was in the + witness-box, in spite of myself. He was as the English say, so ‘damn + sure.’” + </p> + <p> + “So damn sure always,” agreed the Clerk of the Court, with a sense of + pleasure that his great man, this wonderful aged little judge, should have + shown himself so human as to use such a phrase. + </p> + <p> + “But, no doubt, the sureness has been a good servant in his business,” + returned the Judge. “Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit + often. But tell me about his wife—the Spanische. Tell me the how and + why, and everything. I’d like to trace our little money-man wise to his + source.” + </p> + <p> + Again M. Fille was sensibly agitated. “She is handsome, and she has great, + good gifts when she likes to use them,” he answered. “She can do as much + in an hour as most women can do in two; but then she will not keep at it. + Her life is but fits and starts. Yet she has a good head for business, + yes, very good. She can see through things. Still, there it is—she + will not hold fast from day to day.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes, but where did she come from? What was the field where she + grew?” + </p> + <p> + “To be sure, monsieur. It was like this,” responded the other. + </p> + <p> + Thereupon M. Fille proceeded to tell the history, musical with legend, of + Jean Jacques’ Grand Tour, of the wreck of the Antoine, of the marriage of + the “seigneur,” the home-coming, and the life that followed, so far as + rumour, observation, and a mind with a gift for narrative, which was not + to be incomplete for lack of imagination, could make it. It was only when + he offered his own reflections on Carmen Dolores, now Carmen Barbille, and + on women generally, that Judge Carcasson pulled him up. + </p> + <p> + “So, so, I see. She has temperament and so on, but she’s unsteady, and + regarded by her neighbours not quite as one that belongs. Bah, the conceit + of every race! They are all the same. The English are the worst—as + though the good God was English. But the child—so beautiful, you + say, and yet more like the father than the mother. He is not handsome, + that Jean Jacques, but I can understand that the little one should be like + him and yet beautiful too. I should like to see the child.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the Clerk of the Court stopped and touched the arm of his + distinguished friend and patron. “That is very easy, monsieur,” he said + eagerly, “for there she is in the red wagon yonder, waiting for her + father. She adores him, and that makes trouble sometimes. Then the mother + gets fits, and makes things hard at the Manor Cartier. It is not all a bed + of roses for our Jean Jacques. But there it is. He is very busy all the + time. Something doing always, never still, except when you will find him + by the road-side, or in a tavern with all the people round him, talking, + jesting, and he himself going into a trance with his book of philosophy. + It is very strange that everlasting going, going, going, and yet that love + of his book. I sometimes think it is all pretence, and that he is all + vanity—or almost so. Heaven forgive me for my want of charity!” + </p> + <p> + The little round judge cocked his head astutely. “But you say he is kind + to the poor, that he does not treat men hardly who are in debt to him, and + that he will take his coat off his back to give to a tramp—is it + so?” + </p> + <p> + “As so, as so, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “Then he is not all vanity, and because of that he will feel the blow when + it comes—alas, so much he will feel it!” + </p> + <p> + “What blow, monsieur le juge?—but ah, look, monsieur!” He pointed + eagerly. “There she is, going to the red wagon—Madame Jean Jacques. + Is she not a figure of a woman? See the walk of her—is it not + distinguished? She is half a hand-breadth taller than Jean Jacques. And + her face, most sure it is a face to see. If Jean Jacques was not so busy + with his farms and his mills and his kilns and his usury, he would see + what a woman he has got. It is his good fortune that she has such sense in + business. When Jean Jacques listens to her, he goes right. She herself did + not want her father to manage the lime-kilns—the old Sebastian + Dolores. She was for him staying at Mirimachi, where he kept the books of + the lumber firm. But no, Jean Jacques said that he could make her happy by + having her father near her, and he would not believe she meant what she + said. He does not understand her; that is the trouble. He knows as much of + women or men as I know of—” + </p> + <p> + “Of the law—hein?” laughed the great man. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur—ah, that is your little joke! I laugh, yes, but I laugh,” + responded the Clerk of the Court a little uncertainly. “Now once when she + told him that the lime-kilns—” + </p> + <p> + The Judge, who had retraced his steps down the street of the town—it + was little more than a large village, but because it had a court-house and + a marketplace it was called a town—that he might have a good look at + Madame Jean Jacques and her child before he passed them, suddenly said: + </p> + <p> + “How is it you know so much about it all, Maitre Fille—as to what + she says and of the inner secrets of the household? Ah, ha, my little + Lothario, I have caught you—a bachelor too, with time on his hands, + and the right side of seventy as well! The evidence you have given of a + close knowledge of the household of our Jean Jacques does not have its + basis in hearsay, but in acute personal observation. Tut-tut! Fie-fie! my + little gay Clerk of the Court. Fie! Fie!” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille was greatly disconcerted. He had never been a Lothario. In forty + years he had never had an episode with one of “the other sex,” but it was + not because he was impervious to the softer emotions. An intolerable + shyness had ever possessed him when in the presence of women, and even + small girl children had frightened him, till he had made friends with + little Zoe Barbille, the daughter of Jean Jacques. Yet even with Zoe, who + was so simple and companionable and the very soul of childish confidence, + he used to blush and falter till she made him talk. Then he became + composed, and his tongue was like a running stream, and on that stream any + craft could sail. On it he became at ease with madame the Spanische, and + he even went so far as to look her full in the eyes on more than one + occasion. + </p> + <p> + “Answer me—ah, you cannot answer!” teasingly added the Judge, who + loved his Clerk of the Court, and had great amusement out of his + discomfiture. “You are convicted. At an age when a man should be settling + down, you are gallivanting with the wife of a philosopher.” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur—monsieur le juge!” protested M. Fille with slowly + heightening colour. “I am innocent, yes, altogether. There is nothing, + believe me. It is the child, the little Zoe—but a maid of charm and + kindness. She brings me cakes and the toffy made by her own hands; and if + I go to the Manor Cartier, as I often do, it is to be polite and + neighbourly. If Madame says things to me, and if I see what I see, and + hear what I hear, it is no crime; it is no misdemeanour; it is within the + law—the perfect law.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly the Judge linked his arm within that of the other, for he also + was little, and he was fat and round and ruddy, and even smaller than M. + Fille, who was thin, angular and pale. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, my little Confucius,” he said gently, “have you seen and heard me so + seldom that you do not know me yet, or what I really think? Of course it + is within the law—the perfect law—to visit at m’sieu’ the + philosopher’s house and talk at length also to m’sieu’ the philosopher’s + wife; while to make the position regular by friendship with the + philosopher’s child is a wisdom which I can only ascribe to”—his + voice was charged with humour and malicious badinage “to an extended + acquaintance with the devices of human nature, as seen in those episodes + of the courts with which you have been long familiar.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, monsieur, dear monsieur!” protested the Clerk of the Court, “you + always make me your butt.” + </p> + <p> + “My friend,” said the Judge, squeezing his arm, “if I could have you no + other way, I would make you my butler!” + </p> + <p> + Then they both laughed at the inexpensive joke, and the Clerk of the Court + was in high spirits, for on either side of the street were people with + whom he lived every day, and they could see the doyen of the Bench, the + great Judge Carcasson, who had refused to be knighted, arm in arm with + him. Aye, and better than all, and more than all, here was Zoe Barbille + drawing her mother’s attention to him almost in the embrace of the + magnificent jurist. + </p> + <p> + The Judge, with his small, round, quizzical eyes which missed nothing, saw + too; and his attention was strangely arrested by the faces of both the + mother and the child. His first glance at the woman’s face made him flash + an inward light on the memory of Jean Jacques’ face in the witness-box, + and a look of reflective irony came into his own. The face of Carmen + Dolores, wife of the philosophic miller and money-master, did not belong + to the world where she was placed—not because she was so unlike the + habitant women, or even the wives of the big farmers, or the sister of the + Cure, or the ladies of the military and commercial exiles who lived in + that portion of the province; but because of an alien something in her + look—a lonely, distant sense of isolation, a something which might + hide a companionship and sympathy of a rare kind, or might be but the mask + of a furtive, soulless nature. In the child’s face was nothing of this. It + was open as the day, bright with the cheerfulness of her father’s + countenance, alive with a humour which that countenance did not possess. + The contour was like that of Jean Jacques, but with a fineness and + delicacy to its fulness absent from his own; and her eyes were a deep and + lustrous brown, under a forehead which had a boldness of gentle dignity + possessed by neither father nor mother. Her hair was thick, brown and very + full, like that of her father, and in all respects, save one, she had an + advantage over both her parents. Her mouth had a sweetness which might not + unfairly be called weakness, though that was balanced by a chin of + commendable strength. + </p> + <p> + But the Judge’s eyes found at once this vulnerable point in her character + as he had found that of her mother. Delightful the child was, and alert + and companionable, with no remarkable gifts, but with a rare charm and + sympathy. Her face was the mirror of her mind, and it had no ulterior + thought. Her mother’s face, the Judge had noted, was the foreground of a + landscape which had lonely shadows. It was a face of some distinction and + suited to surroundings more notable, though the rural life Carmen had led + since the Antoine went down and her fortunes came up, had coarsened her + beauty a very little. + </p> + <p> + “There’s something stirring in the coverts,” said the Judge to himself as + he was introduced to the mother and child. By a hasty gesture Zoe gave a + command to M. Fille to help her down. With a hand on his shoulder she + dropped to the ground. Her object was at once apparent. She made a pretty + old-fashioned curtsey to the Judge, then held out her hand, as though to + reassert her democratic equality. + </p> + <p> + As the Judge looked at Madame Barbille, he was involuntarily, but none the + less industriously, noting her characteristics; and the sum of his + reflections, after a few moments’ talk, was that dangers he had seen ahead + of Jean Jacques, would not be averted by his wife, indeed might easily + have their origin in her. + </p> + <p> + “I wonder it has gone on as long as it has,” he said to himself; though it + seemed unreasonable that his few moments with her, and the story told him + by the Clerk of the Court, should enable him to come to any definite + conclusion. But at eighty-odd Judge Carcasson was a Solon and a Solomon in + one. He had seen life from all angles, and he was not prepared to give any + virtue or the possession of any virtue too much rope; while nothing in + life surprised him. + </p> + <p> + “How would you like to be a judge?” he asked of Zoe, suddenly taking her + hand in his. A kinship had been at once established between them, so + little has age, position, and intellect to do with the natural + gravitations of human nature. + </p> + <p> + She did not answer direct, and that pleased him. “If I were a judge I + should have no jails,” she said. “What would you do with the bad people?” + he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I would put them alone on a desert island, or out at sea in a little + boat, or out on the prairies without a horse, so that they’d have to work + for their lives.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I see! If M. Fille here set fire to a house, you would drop him on + the prairie far away from everything and everybody and let him ‘root hog + or die’?” + </p> + <p> + “Don’t you think it would kill him or cure him?” she asked whimsically. + </p> + <p> + The Judge laughed, his eyes twinkling. “That’s what they did when the + world was young, dear ma’m’selle. There was no time to build jails. Alone + on the prairie—a separate prairie for every criminal—that + would take a lot of space; but the idea is all right. It mightn’t provide + the proper degree of punishment, however. But that is being too + particular. Alone on the prairie for punishment—well, I should like + to see it tried.” + </p> + <p> + He remembered that saying of his long after, while yet he was alive, and a + tale came to him from the prairies which made his eyes turn more intently + towards a land that is far off, where the miserable miscalculations and + mistakes of this world are readjusted. Now he was only conscious of a + primitive imagination looking out of a young girl’s face, and making a + bridge between her understanding and his own. + </p> + <p> + “What else would you do if you were a judge?” he asked presently. + </p> + <p> + “I would make my father be a miller,” she replied. “But he is a miller, I + hear.” + </p> + <p> + “But he is so many other things—so many. If he was only a miller we + should have more of him. He is at home only a little. If I get up early + enough in the morning, or if I am let stay up at night late enough, I see + him; but that is not enough—is it, mother?” she added with a sudden + sense that she had gone too far, that she ought not to say this perhaps. + </p> + <p> + The woman’s face had darkened for an instant, and irritation showed in her + eyes, but by an effort of the will she controlled herself. + </p> + <p> + “Your father knows best what he can do and can’t do,” she said evenly. + </p> + <p> + “But you would not let a man judge for himself, would you, ma’m’selle?” + asked the old inquisitor. “You would judge for the man what was best for + him to do?” + </p> + <p> + “I would judge for my father,” she replied. “He is too good a man to judge + for himself.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, there’s a lot of sense in that, ma’m’selle philosophe,” answered + Judge Carcasson. “You would make the good idle, and make the bad work. The + good you would put in a mill to watch the stones grind, and the bad you + would put on a prairie alone to make the grist for the grinding. + Ma’m’selle, we must be friends—is it not so?” + </p> + <p> + “Haven’t we always been friends?” the young girl asked with the look of a + visionary suddenly springing up in her eyes. + </p> + <p> + Here was temperament indeed. She pleased Judge Carcasson greatly. “But + yes, always, and always, and always,” he replied. Inwardly he said to + himself, “I did not see that at first. It is her father in her. + </p> + <p> + “Zoe!” said her mother reprovingly. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY + </h2> + <p> + A moment afterwards the Judge, as he walked down the street still arm in + arm with the Clerk of the Court, said: “That child must have good luck, or + she will not have her share of happiness. She has depths that are not deep + enough.” Presently he added, “Tell me, my Clerk, the man—Jean + Jacques—he is so much away—has there never been any talk about—about.” + </p> + <p> + “About—monsieur le juge?” asked M. Fille rather stiffly. “For + instance—about what?” + </p> + <p> + “For instance, about a man—not Jean Jacques.” + </p> + <p> + The lips of the Clerk of the Court tightened. “Never at any time—till + now, monsieur le juge.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah—till now!” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court blushed. What he was about to say was difficult, + but he alone of all the world guessed at the tragedy which was hovering + over Jean Jacques’ home. By chance he had seen something on an afternoon + of three days before, and he had fled from it as a child would fly from a + demon. He was a purist at law, but he was a purist in life also, and not + because the flush of youth had gone and his feet were on the path which + leads into the autumn of a man’s days. The thing he had seen had been + terribly on his mind, and he had felt that his own judgment was not + sufficient for the situation, that he ought to tell someone. + </p> + <p> + The Cure was the only person who had come to his mind when he became + troubled to the point of actual mental agony. But the new curb, M. Savry, + was not like the Old Cure, and, besides, was it not stepping between the + woman and her confessional? Yet he felt that something ought to be done. + It never occurred to him to speak to Jean Jacques. That would have seemed + so brutal to the woman. It came to him to speak to Carmen, but he knew + that he dared not do so. He could not say to a woman that which must shame + her before him, she who had kept her head so arrogantly high—not so + much to him, however, as to the rest of the world. He had not the courage; + and yet he had fear lest some awful thing would at any moment now befall + the Manor Cartier. If it did, he would feel himself to blame had he done + nothing to stay the peril. So far he was the only person who could do so, + for he was the only person who knew! + </p> + <p> + The Judge could feel his friend’s arm tremble with emotion, and he said: + “Come, now, my Plato, what is it? A man has come to disturb the peace of + Jean Jacques, our philosophe, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “That is it, monsieur—a man of a kind.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, of course, my bambino, of course, a man ‘of a kind,’ or there would + be no peace disturbed. You want to tell me, I see. Proceed then; there is + no reason why you should not. I am secret. I have seen much. I have no + prejudices. As you will, however; but I can see it would relieve your mind + to tell me. In truth I felt there was something when I saw you look at her + first, when you spoke to her, when she talked with me. She is a fine + figure of a woman, and Jean Jacques, as you say, is much away from home. + In fact he neglects her—is it not so?” + </p> + <p> + “He means it not, but it is so. His life is full of—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes, of stores and ash-factories and debtors and lightning-rods and + lime-kilns, and mortgaged farms, and the price of wheat—but + certainly, I understand it all, my Fille. She is too much alone, and if + she has travelled by the compass all these thirteen years without losing + the track, it is something to the credit of human nature.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, monsieur, a vow before the good God—!” The Judge interrupted + sharply. “Tut, tut—these vows! Do you not know that a vow may be a + thing that ruins past redemption? A vow is sacred. Well, a poor mortal in + one moment of weakness breaks it. Then there is a sense of awful shame of + being lost, of never being able to put right the breaking of the vow, + though the rest can be put right by sorrow and repentance! I would have no + vows. They haunt like ghosts when they are broken, they torture like fire + then. Don’t talk to me of vows. It is not vows that keep the world right, + but the prayer of a man’s soul from day to day.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge’s words sounded almost blasphemous to M. Fille. A vow not keep + the world right! Then why the vows of the Church at baptism, at + confirmation, at marriage? Why the vows of the priests, of the nuns, of + those who had given themselves to eternal service? Monsieur had spoken + terrible things. And yet he had said at the last: “It is not vows that + keep the world right, but the prayer of a man’s soul from day to day.” + That was not heretical, or atheistic, or blasphemous. It sounded logical + and true and good. + </p> + <p> + He was about to say that, to some people, vows were the only way of + keeping them to their duty—and especially women—but the Judge + added gently: “I would not for the world hurt your sensibilities, my + little Clerk, and we are not nearly so far apart as you think at the + minute. Thank God, I keep the faith that is behind all faith—the + speech of a man’s soul with God.... But there, if you can, let us hear + what man it is who disturbs the home of the philosopher. It is not my + Fille, that’s sure.” + </p> + <p> + He could not resist teasing, this judge who had a mind of the most rare + uprightness; and he was not always sorry when his teasing hurt; for, to + his mind, men should be lashed into strength, when they drooped over the + tasks of life; and what so sharp a lash as ridicule or satire! + </p> + <p> + “Proceed, my friend,” he urged brusquely, not waiting for the gasp of + pained surprise of the little Clerk to end. He was glad to see the figure + beside him presently straighten itself, as though to be braced for a task + of difficulty. Indignation and resentment were good things to stiffen a + man’s back. + </p> + <p> + “It was three days ago,” said M. Fille. “I saw it with my own eyes. I had + come to the Manor Cartier by the road, down the hill—Mont Violet—behind + the house. I could see into the windows of the house. There was no reason + why I should not see—there never has been a reason,” he added, as + though to justify himself. + </p> + <p> + “Of course, of course, my friend. One’s eyes are open, and one sees what + one sees, without looking for it. Proceed.” + </p> + <p> + “As I looked down I saw Madame with a man’s arms round her, and his lips + to hers. It was not Jean Jacques.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course, of course. Proceed. What did you do?” + </p> + <p> + “I stopped. I fell back—” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. Behind a tree?” + </p> + <p> + “Behind some elderberry bushes.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. Elderberry bushes—that’s better than a tree. I am very + fond of elderberry wine when it is new. Proceed.” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court shrank. What did it matter whether or no the Judge + liked elderberry wine, when the world was falling down for Jean Jacques + and his Zoe—and his wife. But with a sigh he continued: “There is + nothing more. I stayed there for awhile, and then crept up the hill again, + and came back to my home and locked myself in.” + </p> + <p> + “What had you done that you should lock yourself in?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, monsieur, how can I explain such things? Perhaps I was ashamed that I + had seen things I should not have seen. I do not blush that I wept for the + child, who is—but you saw her, monsieur le juge.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes, the little Zoe, and the little philosopher. Proceed.” + </p> + <p> + “What more is there to tell!” + </p> + <p> + “A trifle perhaps, as you will think,” remarked the Judge ironically, but + as one who, finding a crime, must needs find the criminal too. “I must ask + you to inform the Court who was the too polite friend of Madame.” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur, pardon me. I forgot. It is essential, of course. You must know + that there is a flume, a great wooden channel—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes. I comprehend. Once I had a case of a flume. It was fifteen feet + deep and it let in the water of the river to the mill-wheels. A flume + regulates, concentrates, and controls the water power. I comprehend + perfectly. Well?” + </p> + <p> + “So. This flume for Jean Jacques’ mill was also fifteen feet deep or more. + It was out of repair, and Jean Jacques called in a master-carpenter from + Laplatte, Masson by name—George Masson—to put the flume + right.” + </p> + <p> + “How long ago was that?” + </p> + <p> + “A month ago. But Masson was not here all the time. It was his workmen who + did the repairs, but he came over to see—to superintend. At first he + came twice in the week. Then he came every day.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, then he came every day! How do you know that?” + </p> + <p> + “It was my custom to walk to the mill every day—to watch the work on + the flume. It was only four miles away across the fields and through the + woods, making a walk of much charm—especially in the autumn, when + the colours of the foliage are so fine, and the air has a touch of + pensiveness, so that one is induced to reflection.” + </p> + <p> + There was the slightest tinge of impatience in the Judge’s response. “Yes, + yes, I understand. You walked to study life and to reflect and to enjoy + your intimacy with nature, but also to see our friend Zoe and her home. + And I do not wonder. She has a charm which makes me sad—for her.” + </p> + <p> + “So I have felt, so I have felt for her, monsieur. When she is gayest, and + when, as it might seem, I am quite happy, talking to her, or picnicking, + or idling on the river, or helping her with her lessons, I have sadness, I + know not why.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge pressed his friend’s arm firmly. His voice grew more insistent. + “Now, Maitre Fille, I think I understand the story, but there are lacunee + which you must fill. You say the thing happened three days ago—now, + when will the work be finished?” + </p> + <p> + “The work will be finished to-morrow, monsieur. Only one workman is left, + and he will be quit of his task to-night.” + </p> + <p> + “So the thing—the comedy or tragedy will come to an end to-morrow?” + remarked the Judge seriously. “How did you find out that the workmen go + tomorrow, maitre?” + </p> + <p> + “Jean Jacques—he told me yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + “Then it all ends to-morrow,” responded the Judge. + </p> + <p> + The puzzled subordinate stood almost still, and looked at the Judge in + wonder. Why should it all end to-morrow simply because the work was + finished at the flume? At last he spoke. + </p> + <p> + “It is only twelve miles to Laplatte where George Masson lives, and he + has, besides, another contract near here, but three miles from the Manor + Cartier. Also besides, how can we know what she will do—Jean + Jacques’ wife. How can we tell but that she will perhaps go and leave the + beloved Zoe alone!” + </p> + <p> + “And leave our little philosopher—miller also alone?” remarked the + Judge quizzically, yet with solemnity. M. Fille was agitated; he made a + protesting gesture. “Jean Jacques can find comfort, but the child—ah, + no, it is too terrible! Someone should speak. I tried to do it—to + Madame Carmen, to Jean Jacques; but it was no use. How could I betray her + to him, how could I tell her that I knew her shame!” + </p> + <p> + The Judge turned brusquely and caught his friend by the shoulders, + fastening him with the eyes which had made many a witness forget to lie. + </p> + <p> + “If you were an avocat in practice I would ruin your reputation, Fille,” + he said. “A fool would tell Jean Jacques, or speak to the woman, and spoil + all; for women go mad when they are in danger, and they do the impossible + things. But did it not occur to you that the one person to have in a quiet + room with the doors shut, with the light of the sun in his face, with the + book of the law open on your desk and the damages to be got by an injured + husband, in a Catholic province with a Catholic Judge, written down on a + piece of paper, to hand over at the right moment—did it not strike + you that that person was your George Masson?” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille’s head dropped before the disdainful eyes of M. Carcasson. He who + prided himself in keeping the court right on points of procedure, who was + looked upon almost with the respect given the position of the Judge + himself, that he should fail in thinking of the obvious thing was + humiliating, and alas! so disconcerting. + </p> + <p> + “I am a fool, an imbecile,” he responded, in great dejection. + </p> + <p> + “This much must be said, my imbecile, that every man some time or other + makes just such a fool of his intelligence,” was the soft reply. + </p> + <p> + A thin hand made a gesture of dissent. “Not you, monsieur. Never!” + </p> + <p> + “If it is any comfort to you, know then, my Solon, that I have done so + publicly in my time, while you have only done it privately. But let us + see. That Masson must be struck of a heap. What sort of a man is he to + look at? Apart from his morals, what class of creature is he?” + </p> + <p> + “He is a man of strength, of force in his way, monsieur. He made himself + from an apprentice without a cent, and he has now thirty men at work.” + </p> + <p> + “Then he does not drink or gamble?” + </p> + <p> + “Neither, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “Has he a family?” + </p> + <p> + “No, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “How old is he?” + </p> + <p> + “Forty or thereabouts, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge cogitated for a moment, then said: “Ah, that’s bad—unmarried + and forty, and no vices except this. It gives him few escape-valves. Is he + good-looking? What is his appearance?” + </p> + <p> + “Nor short, nor tall, and square shoulders. His face like the yellow brown + of a peach, hair that curls close to his head, blue eyes that see + everything, and a big hand that knows what it is doing.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge nodded. “Ah, you have watched him, maitre.... When? Since then?” + </p> + <p> + “No, no, monsieur, not since. If I had watched him since, I should perhaps + have thought of the right thing to do. But I did not. I used to study him + while the work was going on, when he first came, but I have known him some + time from a distance. If a man makes himself what he is, you look at him, + of course.” + </p> + <p> + “Truly. His temper—his disposition, what is it?” M. Fille was very + much alive now. He replied briskly. “Like the snap of a whip. He flies + into anger and flies out. He has a laugh that makes men say, ‘How he + enjoys himself!’ and his mind is very quick and sure.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge nodded with satisfaction. “Well done! Well done! I have got him + in my eye. He will not be so easy to handle; but, if he has brains, he + will see that you have the right end of the stick; and he will kiss and + ride away. It will not be easy, but the game is in your hands, my Fille. + In a quiet room, with the book of the law open, and figures of damages + given by a Catholic court and Judge—I think that will do it; and + then the course of true philosophy will not long be interrupted in the + house of Jean Jacques Barbille.” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur—monsieur le juge, you mean that I shall do this, shall see + George Masson and warn him—me?” + </p> + <p> + “Who else? You are a friend of the family. You are a public officer, to + whom the good name of your parish is dear. As all are aware, no doubt, you + are the trusted ancient comrade of the daughter of the woman—I speak + legally—Carmen Barbille nee Dolores, a name of charm to the ear. Who + but you then to do it?” + </p> + <p> + “There is yourself, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “Dismiss me from your mind. I go to Quebec to-night, as you know, and + there is not time; but even if there were, I should not be the best person + to do this. I am known to few; you are known to all. I have no locus + standi. You have. No, no, it would not be for me.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, in his desperation, the Clerk of the Court sought release for + himself from this solemn and frightening duty. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur,” he said eagerly, “there is another. I had forgotten. It is + Madame Carmen’s father, Sebastian Dolores.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, a father! Yes, I had forgotten to ask about him; so we are one in our + imbecility, my little Aristotle. This Sebastian Dolores, where is he?” + </p> + <p> + “In the next parish, Beauharnais, keeping books for a lumber-firm. Ah, + monsieur, that is the way to deal with the matter—through Sebastian + Dolores, her father!” + </p> + <p> + “What sort is he?” + </p> + <p> + The other shook his head and did not answer. “Ah, not of the best? + Drinks?” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Has a weak character?” + </p> + <p> + Again M. Fille nodded. + </p> + <p> + “Has no good reputation hereabouts?” + </p> + <p> + The nod was repeated. “He has never been steady He goes here and there, + but always he comes back to get Jean Jacques’ help. He and his daughter + are not close friends, and yet he likes to be near her. She can endure him + at least. He can command her interest. He is a stranger in a strange land, + and he drifts back to where she is always. But that is all.” + </p> + <p> + “Then he is out of the question, and he would be always out of the + question except as a last resort; for sooner or later he would tell his + daughter, and challenge our George Masson too; and that is what you do not + wish, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “Precisely so,” remarked M. Fille, dropping back again into gloom. “To be + quite honest, monsieur, even though it gives me a task which I abhor, I do + not think that M. Dolores could do what is needed without mistakes which + could not be mended. At least I can—” He stopped. + </p> + <p> + The Judge interposed at once, well pleased with the way things were going + for this “case.” “Assuredly. You can as can no other, my Solon. The secret + of success in such things is a good heart, a right mind, a clear + intelligence and some astuteness, and you have it all. It is your task and + yours only.” + </p> + <p> + The little man’s self-respect seemed restored. He preened himself somewhat + and bowed to the Judge. “I take your commands, monsieur, to obey them as + heaven gives me power so to do. Shall it be tomorrow?” + </p> + <p> + The Judge reflected a moment, then said: “Tonight would be better, but—” + </p> + <p> + “I can do it better to-morrow morning,” interposed M. Fille, “for George + Masson has a meeting here at Vilray with the avocat Prideaux at ten + o’clock to sign a contract, and I can ask him to step into my office on a + little affair of business. He will not guess, and I shall be armed”—the + Judge frowned—“with the book of the law on such misdemeanours, and + the figures of the damages,”—the Judge smiled—“and I think + perhaps I can frighten him as he has never been frightened before.” + </p> + <p> + A courage and confidence had now taken possession of the Clerk in strange + contrast to his timidity and childlike manner of a few minutes before. He + was now as he appeared in court, clothed with an austere authority which + gave him a vicarious strength and dignity. The Judge had done his work + well, and he was of those folk in the world who are not content to do even + the smallest thing ill. + </p> + <p> + Arm in arm they passed into the garden which fronted the vine-covered + house, where Maitre Fille lived alone with his sister, a tiny edition of + himself, who whispered and smiled her way through life. + </p> + <p> + She smiled and whispered now in welcome to the Judge; and as she did so, + the three saw Jean Jacques, laughing, and cracking his whip, drive past + with his daughter beside him, chirruping to the horses; while, moody and + abstracted, his wife sat silent on the backseat of the red wagon. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY + </h2> + <p> + Jean Jacques was in great good humour as he drove away to the Manor + Cartier. The day, which was not yet aged, had been satisfactory from every + point of view. He had impressed the Court, he had got a chance to pose in + the witness-box; he had been able to repeat in evidence the numerous + businesses in which he was engaged; had referred to his acquaintance with + the Lieutenant-Governor and a Cardinal; to his Grand Tour (this had been + hard to do in the cross-examination to which he was subjected, but he had + done it); and had been able to say at the very start in reply as to what + was his occupation—“Moi je suis M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosophe.” + </p> + <p> + Also he had, during the day, collected a debt long since wiped off his + books; he had traded a poor horse for a good cow; he had bought all the + wheat of a Vilray farmer below market-price, because the poor fellow + needed ready money; he had issued an insurance policy; his wife and + daughter had conversed in the public streets with the great judge who was + the doyen of the provincial Bench; and his daughter had been kissed by the + same judge in the presence of at least a dozen people. He was, in fact, + very proud of his Carmen and his Carmencita, as he called the two who sat + in the red wagon sharing his glory—so proud that he did not extol + them to others; and he was quite sure they were both very proud of him. + The world saw what his prizes of life were, and there was no need to + praise or brag. Dignity and pride were both sustained by silence and a + wave of the hand, which in fact said to the world, “Look you, my masters, + they belong to Jean Jacques. Take heed.” + </p> + <p> + There his domestic scheme practically ended. He was so busy that he took + his joys by snatches, in moments of suspension of actual life, as it were. + His real life was in the eddy of his many interests, in the field of his + superficial culture, in the eyes of the world. The worst of him was on the + surface. He showed what other men hid, that was all. Their vanity was + concealed, he wore it in his cap. They put on a manner as they put on + their clothes, and wore it out in the world, or took it off in their own + homes-behind the door of life; but he was the same vain, frank, cocksure + fellow in his home as in the street. There was no difference at all. He + was vain, but he had no conceit; and therefore he did not deceive, and was + not tyrannous or dictatorial; in truth, if you but estimated him at his + own value, he was the least insistent man alive. Many a debtor knew this; + and, by asking Jean Jacques’ advice, making an appeal to his logic, as it + were—and it was always worth listening to, even when wrong or sadly + obvious, because of the glow with which he declared things this or that—found + his situation immediately eased. Many a hard-up countryman, casting about + for a five-dollar bill, could get it of Jean Jacques by telling him what + agreeable thing some important person had said about him; or by writing to + a great newspaper in Montreal a letter, saying that the next candidate for + the provincial legislature should be M. Jean Jacques Barbille, of St. + Saviour’s. This never failed to draw a substantial “bill” from the wad + which Jean Jacques always carried in his pocket-loose, not tied up in a + leather roll, as so many lesser men freighted the burdens of their wealth. + </p> + <p> + He had changed since the day he left Bordeaux on the Antoine; since he had + first caught the flash of interest in Carmen Dolores’ eyes—an + interest roused from his likeness to a conspirator who had been shot for + his country’s good. He was no stouter in body, for he was of the kind that + wear away the flesh by much doing and thinking; but there were occasional + streaks of grey in his bushy hair, and his eye roamed less than it did + once. In the days when he first brought Carmen home, his eye was like a + bead of brown light on a swivel. It flickered and flamed; it saw here, saw + there; it twinkled, and it pierced into life’s mysteries; and all the + while it was a good eye. Its whites never showed, as it were. As an + animal, his eye showed a nature free from vice. In some respects he was + easy to live with, for he never found fault with what was given him to + eat, or the way the house was managed; and he never interfered with the + “kitchen people,” or refused a dollar or ten dollars to Carmen for finery. + In fact, he was in a sense too lavish, for he used at one time to bring + her home presents of silks and clothes and toilet things and stockings and + hats, which were not in accord with her taste, and only vexed her. Indeed, + she resented wearing them, and could hardly bring herself to thank him for + them. At last, however, she induced him to let her buy what she wanted + with the presents of money which he might give her. + </p> + <p> + On the whole Carmen fared pretty well, for he would sometimes give her a + handful of bills from his pocket, bidding her take ten dollars, and she + would coolly take twenty, while he shrugged his shoulders and declared she + would be his ruin. He had never repented of marrying her, in spite of the + fact that she did not always keep house as his mother and grandmother had + kept it; that she was gravely remiss in going to mass; and that she + quarrelled with more than one of her neighbours, who had an idea that + Spain was an inferior country because it was south of France, just as the + habitants regarded the United States as a low and inferior country because + it was south of Quebec. You went north towards heaven and south towards + hell, in their view; but when they went so far as to patronize or slander + Carmen, she drove her verbal stilettos home without a button; so that on + one occasion there would have been a law-suit for libel if the Old Cure + had not intervened. To Jean Jacques’ credit, be it said, he took his + wife’s part on this occasion, though in his heart he knew that she was in + the wrong. + </p> + <p> + He certainly was not always in the right himself. If he had been told that + he neglected his wife he would have been justly indignant. Also, it never + occurred to him that a woman did not always want to talk philosophy or + discuss the price of wheat or the cost of flour-barrels; and that for a + man to be stupidly and foolishly fond was dearer to a woman than anything + else. How should he know—yet he ought to have done so, if he really + was a philosopher—that a woman would want the cleverest man in the + world to be a boy and play the fool sometimes; that she would rather, if + she was a healthy woman, go to a circus than to a revelation of the + mysteries of the mind from an altar of culture, if her own beloved man was + with her. + </p> + <p> + Carmen had been left too much alone, as M. Fille had said to Judge + Carcasson. Her spirits had moments of great dullness, when she was ready + to fling herself into the river—or the arms of the schoolmaster or + the farrier. When she first came to St. Saviour’s, the necessity of + adapting herself to the new conditions, of keeping faith with herself, + which she had planned on the Antoine, and making a good wife to the man + who was to solve all her problems for her, prevailed. She did not at first + miss so much the life of excitement, of danger, of intrigue, of romance, + of colour and variety, which she had left behind in Spain. When her child + was born, she became passionately fond of it; her maternal spirit + smothered it. It gave the needed excitement in the routine of life at St. + Saviour’s. + </p> + <p> + Yet the interest was not permanent. There came a time when she resented + the fact that Jean Jacques made more of the child than he did of herself. + That was a bad day for all concerned, for dissimulation presently became + necessary, and the home of Jean Jacques was a home of mystery which no + philosophy could interpret. There had never been but the one child. She + was not less handsome than when Jean Jacques married her and brought her + home, though the bloom of maiden youthfulness was no longer there; and she + certainly was a cut far above the habitant women or even the others of a + higher social class, in a circle which had an area equal to a principality + in Europe. + </p> + <p> + The old cure, M. Langon, had had much influence over her, for few could + resist the amazing personal influence which his rare pure soul secured + over the worst. It was a sad day to her when he went to his long home; and + inwardly she felt a greater loss than she had ever felt, save that once + when her Carvillho Gonzales went the way of the traitor. Memories of her + past life far behind in Madrid did not grow fainter; indeed, they grew + more distinct as the years went on. They seemed to vivify, as her + discontent and restlessness grew. + </p> + <p> + Once, when there had come to St. Saviour’s a middle-aged baron from Paris + who had heard the fishing was good at St. Saviour’s, and talked to her of + Madrid and Barcelona, of Cordova and Toledo, as one who had seen and known + and (he declared) loved them; who painted for her in splashing + impressionist pictures the life that still eddied in the plazas and + dreamed in the patios, she had been almost carried off her feet with + longing; and she nearly gave that longing an expression which would have + brought a tragedy, while still her Zoe was only eight years old. But M. + Langon, the wise priest whose eyes saw and whose heart understood, had + intervened in time; and she never knew that the sudden disappearance of + the Baron, who still owed fifty dollars to Jean Jacques, was due to the + practical wisdom of a great soul which had worked out its own destiny in a + little back garden of the world. + </p> + <p> + When this good priest was alive she felt she had a friend who was as large + of heart as he was just, and who would not scorn the fool according to his + folly, or chastise the erring after his deserts. In his greatness of soul + Pere Langon had shut his eyes to things that pained him more than they + shocked him, for he had seen life in its most various and demoralized + forms, and indeed had had his own temptations when he lived in Belgium and + France, before he had finally decided to become a priest. He had protected + Carmen with a quiet persistency since her first day in the parish, and had + had a saving influence over her. Pere Langon reproved those who criticized + her and even slandered her, for it was evident to all that she would + rather have men talk to her than women; and any summer visitor who came to + fish, gave her an attention never given even to the youngest and brightest + in the district; and the eyes of the habitant lass can be very bright at + twenty. Yet whatever Carmen’s coquetry and her sport with fire had been, + her own emotions had never been really involved till now. + </p> + <p> + The new cure, M. Savry, would have said they were involved now because she + never came to confession, and indeed, since the Old Cure died, she had + seldom gone to mass. Yet when, with accumulated reproof on his tongue, M. + Savry did come to the Manor Cartier, he felt the inherent supremacy of + beauty, not the less commanding because it had not the refinement of the + duchess or the margravine. + </p> + <p> + Once M. Savry ventured to do what the Old Cure would never have done—he + spoke to Jean Jacques concerning Carmen’s neglect of mass and confession, + and he received a rebuff which was almost au seigneur; for in Jean + Jacques’ eyes he was now the figure in St. Saviour’s; and this was an + occasion when he could assert his position as premier of the secular world + outside the walls of the parish church. He did it in good style for a man + who had had no particular training in the social arts. + </p> + <p> + This is how he did it and what he said: + </p> + <p> + “There have been times when I myself have thought it would be a good thing + to have a rest from the duties of a Catholic, m’sieu’ le cure,” he + remarked to M. Savry, when the latter had ended his criticism. He said it + with an air of conflict, and with full intent to make his supremacy + complete. + </p> + <p> + “No Catholic should speak like that,” returned the shocked priest. + </p> + <p> + “No priest should speak to me as you have done,” rejoined Jean Jacques. + “What do you know of the reasons for the abstention of madame? The soul + must enjoy rest as well as the body, and madame has a—mind which can + judge for itself. I have a body that is always going, and it gets too + little rest, and that keeps my soul in a flutter too. It must be getting + to mass and getting to confession, and saying aves and doing penance, it + is such a busy little soul of mine; but we are not all alike, and madame’s + body goes in a more stately way. I am like a comet, she is like the sun + steady, steady, round and round, with plenty of sleep and the comfortable + darkness. Sometimes madame goes hard; so does the sun in summer-shines, + shines, shines like a furnace. Madame’s body goes like that—at the + dairy, in the garden, with the loom, among the fowls, growing her + strawberries, keeping the women at the beating of the flax; and then again + it is all still and idle like the sun on a cloudy day; and it rests. So it + is with the human soul—I am a philosopher—I think the soul + goes hard the same as the body, churning, churning away in the heat of the + sun; and then it gets quiet and goes to sleep in the cloudy day, when the + body is sick of its bouncing, and it has a rest—the soul has a rest, + which is good for it, m’sieu’. I have worked it all out so. Besides, the + soul of madame is her own. I have not made any claim upon it, and I will + not expect you to do more, m’sieu’ le cure.” + </p> + <p> + “It is my duty to speak,” protested the good priest. “Her soul is God’s, + and I am God’s vicar—” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques waved a hand. “T’sh, you are not the Pope. You are not even + an abbe. You were only a deacon a few years ago. You did not know how to + hold a baby for the christening when you came to St. Saviour’s first. For + the mass, you have some right to speak; it is your duty perhaps; but the + confession, that is another thing; that is the will of every soul to do or + not to do. What do you know of a woman’s soul-well, perhaps, you know what + they have told you; but madame’s soul—” + </p> + <p> + “Madame has never been to confession to me,” interjected M. Savry + indignantly. Jean Jacques chuckled. He had his New Cure now for sure. + </p> + <p> + “Confession is for those who have sinned. Is it that you say one must go + to confession, and in order to go to confession it is needful to sin?” + </p> + <p> + M. Savry shivered with pious indignation. He had a sudden desire to rend + this philosophic Catholic—to put him under 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! + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Not for ten months,” was her reply. “Why do you ask?” + </p> + <p> + “Wouldn’t he like to be nearer you and Zoe? It’s twelve miles to + Beauharnais,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “Are you thinking of offering him another place at the Manor?” she asked + sharply. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + “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 not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist. + </p> + <p> + “If mother doesn’t think it’s sensible, why do it, father?” asked Zoe + anxiously, looking up into her father’s face. + </p> + <p> + She had seen the look in her mother’s eyes, and also she had no love for + her grandfather. Her instinct had at one time wavered regarding him; but + she had seen an incident with a vanished female cook, and though she had + not understood, a prejudice had been created in her mind. She was always + contrasting him with M. Fille, who, to her mind, was what a grandfather + ought to be. + </p> + <p> + “I won’t have him beholden to you,” said Carmen, almost passionately. + </p> + <p> + “He is of my family,” said Jean Jacques firmly and chivalrously. “There is + no question of being beholden.” + </p> + <p> + “Let well enough alone,” was the gloomy reply. With a sigh, Jean Jacques + turned back to the study of the road before him, to gossip with Zoe, and + to keep on planning subconsciously the new things he must do. + </p> + <p> + Carmen sighed too, or rather she gave a gasp of agitation and annoyance. + Her father? She had lost whatever illusion once existed regarding him. For + years he had clung to her—to her pocket. He was given to drinking in + past years, and he still had his sprees. Like the rest of the world, she + had not in earlier years seen the furtiveness in his handsome face; but at + last, as his natural viciousness became stereotyped, and bad habits + matured and emphasized, she saw beneath his mask of low-class comeliness. + When at last she had found it necessary to dismiss the best cook she ever + had, because of him, they saw little of each other. This was coincident + with his failure at the ash-factory, where he mismanaged and even robbed + Jean Jacques right and left; and she had firmly insisted on Jean Jacques + evicting him, on the ground that it was not Sebastian Dolores’ bent to + manage a business. + </p> + <p> + This little episode, as they drove home from Vilray, had an unreasonable + effect upon her. + </p> + <p> + It was like the touch of a finger which launches a boat balancing in the + ways onto the deep. It tossed her on a sea of agitation. She was swept + away on a flood of morbid reflection. + </p> + <p> + Her husband and her daughter, laughing and talking in the front seat of + the red wagon, seemed quite oblivious of her, and if ever there was a time + when their influence was needed it was now. George Masson was coming over + late this afternoon to inspect the work he had been doing; and she was + trembling with an agitation which, however, did not show upon the surface. + She had not seen him for two days—since the day after the Clerk of + the Court had discovered her in the arms of a man who was not her husband; + but he was coming this evening, and he was coming to-morrow for the last + time; for the repair work on the flume of the dam would all be finished + then. + </p> + <p> + But would the work he had been doing all be finished then? As she thought + of that incident of three days ago and of its repetition on the following + day, she remembered what he had said to her as she snatched herself almost + violently from his arms, in a sudden access of remorse. He had said that + it had to be, that there was no escape now; and at his words she had felt + every pulse in her body throbbing, every vein expanding with a hot life + which thrilled and tortured her. Life had been so meagre and so dull, and + the man who had worshipped her on the Antoine now worshipped himself only, + and also Zoe, the child, maybe; or so she thought; while the man who had + once possessed her whole mind and whole heart, and never her body, back + there in Spain, he, Carvillho Gonzales, would have loved her to the end, + in scenes where life had colour and passion and danger and delightful + movement. + </p> + <p> + She was one of those happy mortals who believe that the dead and gone + lover was perfect, and that in losing him she was losing all that life had + in store; but the bare, hard truth was that her Gonzales could have been + true neither to her nor to any woman in the world for longer than one + lingering year, perhaps one lunar month. It did not console her—she + did not think of it-that the little man on the seat of the red wagon, + chirruping with their daughter, had been, would always be, true to her. Of + what good was fidelity if he that was faithful desired no longer as he + once did? + </p> + <p> + A keen observer would have seen in the glowing, unrestful look, in the hot + cheek, in the interlacing fingers, that a contest was going on in the + woman’s soul, as she drove homeward with all that was her own in the + world. The laughter of her husband and child grated painfully on her ears. + Why should they be mirthful while her life was being swept by a storm of + doubt, temptation, and dark passion? Why was it? + </p> + <p> + Yet she smiled at Jean Jacques when he lifted her down from the red wagon + at the door of the Manor Cartier, even though he lifted his daughter down + first. + </p> + <p> + Did she smile at Jean Jacques because, as they came toward the Manor, she + saw George Masson in the distance by the flume, and in that moment decided + to keep her promise and meet him at a secluded point on the river-bank at + sunset after supper? + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP + </h2> + <p> + The pensiveness of a summer evening on the Beau Cheval was like a veil + hung over all the world. While yet the sun was shining, there was the + tremor of life in the sadness; but when the last glint of amethyst and + gold died away behind Mont Violet, and the melancholy swish of the river + against the osiered banks rose out of the windless dusk, all the region + around Manor Cartier, with its cypresses, its firs, its beeches, and its + elms, became gently triste. Even the weather-vane on the Manor—the + gold Cock of Beaugard, as it was called—did not move; and the + stamping of a horse in the stable was like the thunderous knock of a + traveller from Beyond. The white mill and the grey manor stood out with + ghostly vividness in the light of the rising moon. Yet there were times + innumerable when they looked like cool retreats for those who wanted rest; + when, in the summer solstice, they offered the pleasant peace of the happy + fireside. How often had Jean Jacques stood off from it all of a summer + night and said to himself: “Look at that, my Jean Jacques. It is all + yours, Manor and mills and farms and factory—all.” + </p> + <p> + “Growing, growing, fattening, while I drone in my feather bed,” he had as + often said, with the delighted observation of the philosopher. “And me but + a young man yet—but a mere boy,” he would add. “I have piled it up—I + have piled it up, and it keeps on growing, first one thing and then + another.” + </p> + <p> + Could such a man be unhappy? Finding within himself his satisfaction, his + fountain of appeasement, why should not his days be days of pleasantness + and peace? So it appeared to him during that summer, just passed, when he + had surveyed the World and his world within the World, and it seemed to + his innocent mind that he himself had made it all. There he was, not far + beyond forty, and eligible to become a member of Parliament, or even a + count of the Holy Roman Empire! He had thought of both these honours, but + there was so much to occupy him—he never had a moment to himself, + except at night; and then there was planning and accounting to do, his + foremen to see, or some knotty thing to disentangle. But when the big + clock in the Manor struck ten, and he took out his great antique silver + watch, to see if the two marched to the second, he would go to the door, + look out into the night, say, “All’s well, thank the good God,” and would + go to bed, very often forgetting to kiss Carmen, and even forgetting his + darling little Zoe. + </p> + <p> + After all, a mind has to be very big and to have very many tentacles to + hold so many things all at once, and also to remember to do the right + thing at the right moment every time. He would even forget to ask Carmen + to play on the guitar, which in the first days of their married life was + the recreation of every evening. Seldom with the later years had he asked + her to sing, because he was so busy; and somehow his ear had not that + keenness of sound once belonging to it. There was a time when he himself + was wont to sing, when he taught his little Zoe the tunes of the Chansons + Canadiennes; but even that had dropped away, except at rare intervals, + when he would sing Le Petit Roger Bontemps, with Petite Fleur de Bois, and + a dozen others; but most he would sing—indeed there was never a + sing-song in the Manor Cartier but he would burst forth with A la Claire + Fontaine and its haunting refrain: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Il y a longtemps que je t’aime, + Jamais je ne t’oublierai.” + </pre> + <p> + But this very summer, when he had sung it on the birthday of the little + Zoe, his voice had seemed out of tune. At first he had thought that Carmen + was playing his accompaniment badly on the guitar, but she had sharply + protested against that, and had appealed to M. Fille, who was present at + the pretty festivity. He had told the truth, as a Clerk of the Court + should. He said that Jean Jacques’ voice was not as he had so often heard + it; but he would also frankly admit that he did not think madame played + the song as he had heard her play it aforetime, and that covered indeed + twelve years or more—in fact, since the birth of the renowned Zoe. + </p> + <p> + M. Fille had wondered much that night of June at the listless manner and + listless playing of Carmen Barbille. For a woman of such spirit and fire + it would seem as though she must be in ill-health to play like that. Yet + when he looked at her he saw only the comeliness of a woman whom the life + of the haut habitant had not destroyed or, indeed, dimmed. Her skin was + smooth, she had no wrinkles, and her neck was a pillar of softly moulded + white flesh, around which a man might well string unset jewels, if he had + them; for the tint and purity of her skin would be a better setting than + platinum or fine gold. But the Clerk of the Court was really + unsophisticated, or he would have seen that Carmen played the guitar badly + because she was not interested in Jean Jacques’ singing. He would have + known that she had come to that stage in her married life when the tenure + is pitifully insecure. He would have seen that the crisis was near. If he + had had any real observation he would have noticed that Carmen’s eyes at + once kindled, and that the guitar became a different thing, when M. + Colombin, the young schoolmaster, one of the guests, caught up the refrain + of A la Claire Fontaine, and in a soft tenor voice sang it with Jean + Jacques to the end, and then sang it again with Zoe. Then Carmen’s dark + eyes deepened with the gathering light in them, her body seemed to vibrate + and thrill with emotion; and when M. Colombin and Zoe ceased, with her + eyes fixed on the distance, and as though unconscious of them all, she + began to sing a song of Cadiz which she had not sung since boarding the + Antoine at Bordeaux. Her mind had, suddenly flown back out of her dark + discontent to the days when all life was before her, and, with her + Gonzales, she had moved in an atmosphere of romance, adventure and + passion. + </p> + <p> + In a second she was transformed from the wife of the brown money-master to + the girl she was when she came to St. Saviour’s from the plaza, where her + Carvillho Gonzales was shot, with love behind her and memory blazoned in + the red of martyrdom. She sang now as she had not sung for some years. Her + guitar seemed to leap into life, her face shone with the hot passion of + memory, her voice rang with the pain of a disappointed life: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Granada, Granada, thy gardens are gay, + And bright are thy stars, the high stars above; + But as flowers that fade and are gray, + But as dusk at the end of the day, + Are ye to the light in the eyes of my love + In the eyes, in the soul, of my love. + + “Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see + My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me? + + “Beloved, beloved, have pity, and make + Not the sun shut its eyes, its hot, envious eyes, + And the world in the darkness of night + Be debtor to thee for its light. + Turn thy face, turn thy face from the skies + To the love, to the pain in my eyes. + + “Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see + My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me!” + </pre> + <p> + From that night forward she had been restless and petulant and like one + watching and waiting. It seemed to her that she must fly from the life + which was choking her. It was all so petty and so small. People went about + sneaking into other people’s homes like detectives; they turned yellow and + grew scrofulous from too much salt pork, green tea, native tobacco, and + the heat of feather beds. The making of a rag carpet was an event, the + birth of a baby every year till the woman was forty-five was a + commonplace; but the exit of a youth to a seminary to become a priest, or + the entrance to the novitiate of a young girl, were matters as important + as a battle to Napoleon the Great. + </p> + <p> + How had she gone through it all so long, she asked herself? The presence + of Jean Jacques had become almost unbearable when, the day done, he + retired to the feather bed which she loathed, though he would have looked + upon discarding it like the abdication of his social position. A feather + bed was a sign of social position; it was as much the dais to his honour + as is the woolsack to the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords. + </p> + <p> + She was waiting for something. There was a restless, vagrant spirit alive + in her now. She had been so long inactive, tied by the leg, with wings + clipped; now her mind roamed into pleasant places of the imagination where + life had freedom, where she could renew the impulses of youth. A true + philosopher-a man of the world-would have known for what she was waiting + with that vague, disordered expectancy and yearning; but there was no man + of the world to watch and guide her this fateful summer, when things began + to go irretrievably wrong. + </p> + <p> + Then George Masson came. He was a man of the world in his way; he saw and + knew better than the philosopher of the Manor Cartier. He grasped the + situation with the mind of an artist in his own sphere, and with the + knowledge got by experience. Thus there had been the thing which the Clerk + of the Court saw from Mont Violet behind the Manor; and so it was that as + Jean Jacques helped Carmen down from the red wagon on their return from + Vilray, she gave him a smile which was meant to deceive; for though given + to him it was really given to another man in her mind’s eye. At sunset she + gave it again to George Masson on the river-bank, only warmer and brighter + still, with eyes that were burning, with hands that trembled, and with an + agitated bosom more delicately ample than it was on the day the Antoine + was wrecked. + </p> + <p> + Neither of these two adventurers into a wild world of feeling noticed that + a man was sitting on a little knoll under a tree, not far away from their + meeting-place, busy with pencil and paper. + </p> + <p> + It was Jean Jacques, who had also come to the river-bank to work out a + business problem which must be settled on the morrow. He had stolen out + immediately after supper from neighbours who wished to see him, and had + come here by a roundabout way, because he wished to be alone. + </p> + <p> + George Masson and Carmen were together for a few moments only, but Jean + Jacques heard his wife say, “Yes, to-morrow—for sure,” and then he + saw her kiss the master-carpenter—kiss him twice, thrice. After + which they vanished, she in one direction, and the invader and marauder in + another. + </p> + <p> + If either of these two had seen the face of the man with a pencil and + paper under the spreading beechtree, they would not have been so impatient + for tomorrow, and Carmen would not have said “for sure.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques was awake at last, man as well as philosopher. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL + </h2> + <p> + Jean Jacques was not without originality of a kind, and not without + initiative; but there were also the elements of the very old Adam in him, + and the strain of the obvious. If he had been a real genius, rather than a + mere lively variation of the commonplace—a chicken that could never + burst its shell, a bird which could not quite break into song—he + might have made his biographer guess hard and futilely, as to what he + would do after having seen his wife’s arms around the neck of another man + than himself—a man little more than a manual labourer, while he, + Jean Jacques Barbille, had come of the people of the Old Regime. As it + was, this magnate of St. Saviour’s, who yesterday posed so sympathetically + and effectively in the Court at Vilray as a figure of note, did the quite + obvious thing: he determined to kill the master-carpenter from Laplatte. + </p> + <p> + There was no genius in that. When, from under the spreading beech-tree, + Jean Jacques saw his wife footing it back to her house with a light, + wayward step; when he watched the master-carpenter vault over a stone + fence five feet high with a smile of triumph mingled with doubt on his + face, he was too stunned at first to move or speak. If a sledge-hammer + strikes you on the skull, though your skull is of such a hardness that it + does not break, still the shock numbs activity for awhile, at any rate. + The sledge-hammer had descended on Jean Jacques’ head, and also had struck + him between the eyes; and it is in the credit balance of his ledger of + life, that he refrained from useless outcry at the moment. Such a stroke + kills some men, either at once, or by lengthened torture; others it sends + mad, so that they make a clamour which draws the attention of the + astonished and not sympathetic world; but it only paralysed Jean Jacques. + For a time he sat fascinated by the ferocity of the event, his eyes + following the hurrying wife and the jaunty, swaggering master-carpenter + with a strange, animal-like dismay and apprehension. They remained fixed + with a kind of blank horror and distraction on the landscape for some time + after both had disappeared. + </p> + <p> + At last, however, he seemed to recover his senses, and to come back from + the place where he had been struck by the hammer of treachery. He seemed + to realize again that he was still a part of the common world, not a human + being swung through the universe on his heart-strings by a Gorgon. + </p> + <p> + The paper and pencil in his hand brought him back from the far Gehenna + where he had been, to the world again—how stony and stormy a world + it was, with the air gone as heavy as lead, with his feet so loaded down + with chains that he could not stir! He had had great joy of this his + world; he had found it a place where every day were problems to be solved + by an astute mind, problems which gave way before the master-thinker. + There was of course unhappiness in his world. There was death, there was + accident occasionally—had his own people not gone down under the + scythe of time? But in going they had left behind in real estate and other + things good compensation for their loss. There was occasional suffering + and poverty and trouble in his little kingdom; but a cord of wood here, a + barrel of flour there, a side of beef elsewhere, a little debt remitted, a + bag of dried apples, or an Indian blanket—these he gave, and had + great pleasure in giving; and so the world was not a place where men + should hang their heads, but a place where the busy man got more than the + worth of his money. + </p> + <p> + It had never occurred to him that he was ever translating the world into + terms of himself, that he went on his way saying in effect, “I am coming. + I am Jean Jacques Barbille. You have heard of me. You know me. Wave a hand + to me, duck your head to me, crack the whip or nod when I pass. I am + M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosopher.” + </p> + <p> + And all the while he had only been vaguely, not really, conscious of his + wife and child. He did not know that he had only made of his wife an + incident in his life, in spite of the fact that he thought he loved her; + that he had been proud of her splendid personality; and that, with + passionate chivalry, he had resented any criticism of her. + </p> + <p> + He thought still, as he did on the Antoine, that Carmen’s figure had the + lines of the Venus of Milo, that her head would have been a model either + for a Madonna, or for Joan of Arc, or the famous Isabella of Aragon. + Having visited the Louvre and the Luxembourg all in one day, he felt he + was entitled to make such comparisons, and that in making them he was on + sure ground. He had loved to kiss Carmen in the neck, it was so full and + soft and round; and when she went about the garden with her dress + shortened, and he saw her ankles, even after he had been married thirteen + years, and she was thirty-four, he still admired, he still thought that + the world was a good place when it produced such a woman. And even when + she had lashed him with her tongue, as she did sometimes, he still laughed—after + the smart was over—because he liked spirit. He would never have a + horse that had not some blood, and he had never driven a sluggard in his + life more than once. But wife and child and world, and all that therein + was, existed largely because they were necessary to Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + That is the way it had been; and it was as though the firmament had been + rolled up before his eyes, exposing the everlasting mysteries, when he saw + his wife in the arms of the master-carpenter. It was like some frightening + dream. + </p> + <p> + The paper and pencil waked him to reality. He looked towards his house, he + looked the way George Masson had gone, and he knew that what he had seen + was real life and not a dream. The paper fell from his hand. He did not + pick it up. Its fall represented the tumbling walls of life, was the + earthquake which shook his world into chaos. He ground the sheet into the + gravel with his heel. There would be no cheese-factory built at St. + Saviour’s for many a year to come. The man of initiative, the man of the + hundred irons would not have the hundred and one, or keep the hundred hot + any more; because he would be so busy with the iron which had entered into + his soul. + </p> + <p> + When the paper had been made one with the earth, a problem buried for + ever, Jean Jacques pulled himself up to his full height, as though facing + a great thing which he must do. + </p> + <p> + “Well, of course!” he said firmly. + </p> + <p> + That was what his honour, Judge Carcasson, had said a few hours before, + when the little Clerk of the Court had remarked an obvious thing about the + case of Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + And Jean Jacques said only the obvious thing when he made up his mind to + do the obvious thing—to kill George Masson, the master-carpenter. + </p> + <p> + This was evidence that he was no genius. Anybody could think of killing a + man who had injured him, as the master-carpenter had done Jean Jacques. It + is the solution of the problem of the Patagonian. It is old as Rameses. + </p> + <p> + Yet in his own way Jean Jacques did what he felt he had to do. The thing + he was going to do was hopelessly obvious, but the doing of it was Jean + Jacques’ own; and it was not obvious; and that perhaps was genius after + all. There are certain inevitable things to do, and for all men to do; and + they have been doing them from the beginning of time; but the way it is + done—is not that genius? There is no new story in the world; all the + things that happen have happened for untold centuries; but the man who + tells the story in a new way, that is genius, so the great men say. If, + then, Jean Jacques did the thing he had to do with a turn of his own, he + would justify to some degree the opinion he had formed of himself. + </p> + <p> + As he walked back to his desecrated home he set himself to think. How + should it be done? There was the rifle with which he had killed deer in + the woods beyond the Saguenay and bear beyond the Chicoutimi. That was + simple—and it was obvious; and it could be done at once. He could + soon overtake the man who had spoiled the world for him. + </p> + <p> + Yet he was a Norman, and the Norman thinks before he acts. He is the soul + of caution; he wants to get the best he can out of his bargain. He will + throw nothing away that is to his advantage. There should be other ways + than the gun with which to take a man’s life—ways which might give a + Norman a chance to sacrifice only one life; to secure punishment where it + was due, but also escape from punishment for doing the obvious thing. + </p> + <p> + Poison? That was too stupid even to think of once. A pitch-fork and a + dung-heap? That had its merits; but again there was the risk of more than + one life. + </p> + <p> + All the way to his house, Jean Jacques, with something of the rage of + passion and the glaze of horror gone from his eyes, and his face not now + so ghastly, still brooded over how, after he had had his say, he was to + put George Masson out of the world. But it did not come at once. All + makers of life-stories find their difficulty at times. Tirelessly they + grope along a wall, day in, day out, and then suddenly a great gate swings + open, as though to the touch of a spring, and the whole way is clear to + the goal. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques went on thinking in a strange, new, intense abstraction. His + restless eyes were steadier than they had ever been; his wife noticed that + as he entered the house after the Revelation. She noticed also his + paleness and his abstraction. For an instant she was frightened; but no, + Jean Jacques could not know anything. Yet—yet he had come from the + direction of the river! + </p> + <p> + “What is it, Jean Jacques?” she asked. “Aren’t you well?” + </p> + <p> + He put his hand to his head, but did not look her in the eyes. His gesture + helped him to avoid that. “I have a head—la, such a head! I have + been thinking, thinking-it is my hobby. I have been planning the + cheese-factory, and all at once it comes on-the ache in my head. I will go + to bed. Yes, I will go at once.” Suddenly he turned at the door leading to + the bedroom. “The little Zoe—is she well?” + </p> + <p> + “Of course. Why should she not be well? She has gone to the top of the + hill. Of course, she’s well, Jean Jacques.” + </p> + <p> + “Good-good!” he remarked. Somehow it seemed strange to him that Zoe should + be well. Was there not a terrible sickness in his house, and had not that + woman, his wife, her mother, brought the infection? Was he himself not + stricken by it? + </p> + <p> + Carmen was calm enough again. “Go to bed, Jean Jacques,” she said, “and + I’ll bring you a sleeping posset. I know those headaches. You had one when + the ash-factory was burned.” + </p> + <p> + He nodded without looking at her, and closed the door behind him. + </p> + <p> + When she came to the bedroom a half-hour later, his face was turned to the + wall. She spoke, but he did not answer. She thought he was asleep. He was + not asleep. He was only thinking how to do the thing which was not + obvious, which was also safe for himself. That should be his triumph, if + he could but achieve it. + </p> + <p> + When she came to bed he did not stir, and he did not answer her when she + spoke. + </p> + <p> + “The poor Jean Jacques!” he heard her say, and if there had not been on + him the same courage that possessed him the night when the Antoine was + wrecked, he would have sobbed. + </p> + <p> + He did not stir. He kept thinking; and all the time her words, “The poor + Jean Jacques!” kept weaving themselves through his vague designs. Why had + she said that—she who had deceived, betrayed him? Had he then seen + what he had seen? + </p> + <p> + She did not sleep for a long time, and when she did it was uneasily. But + the bed was an immense one, and she was not near him. There was no sleep + for him—not even for an hour. Once, in exhaustion, he almost rolled + over into the poppies of unconsciousness; but he came back with a start + and a groan to sentient life again, and kept feeling, feeling along the + wall of purpose for a masterly way to kill. + </p> + <p> + At dawn it came, suddenly spreading out before him like a picture. He saw + himself standing at the head of the flume out there by the Mill Cartier + with his hand on the lever. Below him in the empty flume was the + master-carpenter giving a last inspection to the repairs. Beyond the + master-carpenter—far beyond—was the great mill-wheel! Behind + himself, Jean Jacques, was the river held back by the dam; and if the + lever was opened,—the river would sweep through the raised gates + down the flume to the millwheel—with the man. And then the wheel + would turn and turn, and the man would be in the wheel. + </p> + <p> + It was not obvious; it was original; and it looked safe for Jean Jacques. + How easily could such an “accident” occur! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. “MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE” + </h2> + <p> + The air was like a mellow wine, and the light on the landscape was full of + wistfulness. It was a thing so exquisite that a man of sentiment like Jean + Jacques in his younger days would have wept to see. And the feeling was as + palpable as the seeing; as in the early spring the new life which is being + born in the year, produces a febrile kind of sorrow in the mind. But the + glow of Indian summer, that compromise, that after-thought of real summer, + which brings her back for another good-bye ere she vanishes for ever—its + sadness is of a different kind. Its longing has a sharper edge; there stir + in it the pangs of discontent; and the mind and body yearn for solace. It + is a dangerous time, even more dangerous than spring for those who have + passed the days of youth. + </p> + <p> + It had proved dangerous to Carmen Barbille. The melancholy of the + gorgeously tinted trees, the flights of the birds to the south, the smell + of the fallow field, the wind with the touch of the coming rains—these + had given to a growing discontent with her monotonous life the desire born + of self-pity. In spite of all she could do she was turning to the life she + had left behind in Cadiz long ago. + </p> + <p> + It seemed to her that Jean Jacques had ceased to care for the charms which + once he had so proudly proclaimed. There was in her the strain of the + religion of Epicurus. She desired always that her visible corporeal self + should be admired and desired, that men should say, “What a splendid + creature!” It was in her veins, an undefined philosophy of life; and she + had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by his caresses. She had no + other vital standard. This she could measure, she could grasp it and say, + “Here I have a hold; it is so much harvested.” But if some one had written + her a poem a thousand verses long, she would have said, “Yes, all very + fine, but let me see what it means; let me feel that it is so.” + </p> + <p> + She had an inherent love of luxury and pleasure, which was far more active + in her now than when she married Jean Jacques. For a Spanish woman she had + matured late; and that was because, in her youth, she had been active and + athletic, unlike most Spanish girls; and the microbes of a sensuous life, + or what might have become a sensual life, had not good chance to breed. + </p> + <p> + It all came, however, in the dullness of the winter days and nights, in + the time of deep snows, when they could go abroad but very little. Then + her body and her mind seemed to long for the indolent sun-spaces of Spain. + The artificial heat of the big stoves in the rooms with the low ceilings + only irritated her, and she felt herself growing more ample from lassitude + of the flesh. This particular autumn it seemed to her that she could not + get through another winter without something going wrong, without a crisis + of some sort. She felt the need of excitement, of change. She had the + desire for pleasures undefined. + </p> + <p> + Then George Masson came, and the undefined took form almost at once. It + was no case of the hunter pursuing his prey with all the craft and + subtlety of his trade. She had answered his look with spontaneity, due to + the fact that she had been surprised into the candour of her feelings by + the appearance of one who had the boldness of a brigand, the health of a + Hercules, and the intelligence of a primitive Jesuit. He had not + hesitated; he had yielded himself to the sumptuous attraction, and the + fire in his eyes was only the window of the furnace within him. He had + gone headlong to the conquest, and by sheer force of temperament and + weight of passion he had swept her off her feet. + </p> + <p> + He had now come to the last day of his duty at the Mill Cartier, when all + he had to do was to inspect the work done, give assurance and guarantee + that it was all right, and receive his cheque from Jean Jacques. He had + come 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. + </p> + <p> + 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!” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + It was not a perfunctory inspection, for he was a good craftsman, and he + had pride in what his workmen did. + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” + </p> + <p> + It was a sound of dumbfounded amazement, a hoarse cry of horror which was + not in tune with the beauty of the morning. + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Ah! Nom de Dieu!” George Masson exclaimed again in helpless fury and with + horror in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “Wait!” he called out after his gesture. “One second!” + </p> + <p> + 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 of Beaugard—like + the Baron of Beaugard that killed the man who abused his wife.” + </p> + <p> + It was so. Great-great-grand-nephew of the Baron of Beaugard as he was, + Jean Jacques looked like the portrait of him which hung in the Manor + Cartier. “Wait—but wait one minute!” exclaimed George Masson; and + now, all at once, he had grown cool and determined, and his brain was at + work again with an activity and a clearness it had never known. He had + gained one minute of time, he might be able to gain more. In any case, no + one could save him except himself. There was Jean Jacques with his hand on + the lever—one turn and the thing was done for ever. If a rescuer was + even within one foot of Jean Jacques, the deed could still be done. It was + so much easier opening than shutting the gates of the flume! + </p> + <p> + “Why should I wait, devil and rogue?” The words came from Jean Jacques’ + lips with a snarl. “I am going to kill you. It will do you no good to + whine—cochon!” + </p> + <p> + To call a man a pig is the worst insult which could be offered by one man + to another in the parish of St. Saviour’s. To be called a pig as you are + going to die, is an offensive business indeed. + </p> + <p> + “I know you are going to kill me—that you can kill me, and I can do + nothing,” was the master-carpenter’s reply. “There it is—a turn of + the lever, and I am done. Bien sur, I know how easy! I do not want to die, + but I will not squeal even if I am a pig. One can only die once. And once + is enough.... No, don’t—not yet! Give me a minute till I tell you + something; then you can open the gates. You will have a long time to live—yes, + yes, you are the kind that live long. Well, a minute or two is not much to + ask. If you want to murder, you will open the gates at once; but if it is + punishment, if you are an executioner, you will give me time to pray.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques did not soften. His voice was harsh and grim. “Well, get on + with your praying, but don’t talk. You are going to die,” he added, his + hands gripping the lever tighter. + </p> + <p> + The master-carpenter had had the true inspiration in his hour of danger. + He had touched his appeal with logic, he had offered an argument. Jean + Jacques was a logician, a philosopher! That point made about the + difference between a murder and an execution was a good one. Beside it was + an acknowledgment, by inference, from his victim, that he was getting what + he deserved. + </p> + <p> + “Pray quick and have it over, pig of an adulterer!” added Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + The master-carpenter raised a protesting hand. “There you are mistaken; + but it is no matter. At the end of to-day I would have been an adulterer, + if you hadn’t found out. I don’t complain of the word. But see, as a + philosopher”—Jean Jacques jerked a haughty assent—“as a + philosopher you will want to know how and why it is. Carmen will never + tell you—a woman never tells the truth about such things, because + she does not know how. She does not know the truth ever, exactly, about + anything. It is because she is a woman. But I would like to tell you the + exact truth; and I can, because I am a man. For what she did you are as + much to blame as she ... no, no—not yet!” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques’ hand had spasmodically tightened on the lever as though he + would wrench the gates open, and a snarl came from his lips. + </p> + <p> + “Figure de Christ, but it is true, as true as death! Listen, M’sieu’ Jean + Jacques. You are going to kill me, but listen so that you will know how to + speak to her afterwards, understanding what I said as I died.” + </p> + <p> + “Get on—quick!” growled Jean Jacques with white wrinkled lips and + the sun in his agonized eyes. George Masson continued his pleading. “You + were always a man of mind”—Jean Jacques’ fierce agitation visibly + subsided, and a surly sort of vanity crept into his face—“and you + married a girl who cared more for what you did than what you thought—that + is sure, for I know women. I am not married, and I have had much to do + with many of them. I will tell you the truth. I left the West because of a + woman—of two women. I had a good business, but I could not keep out + of trouble with women. They made it too easy for me.” + </p> + <p> + “Peacock-pig!” exclaimed Jean Jacques with an ugly sneer. + </p> + <p> + “Let a man when he is dying tell all the truth, to ease his mind,” said + the master-carpenter with a machiavellian pretence and cunning. “It was + vanity, it was, as you say; it was the peacock in me made me be the friend + of many women and not the husband of one. I came down here to Quebec from + the Far West to get away from consequences. It was expensive. I had to + sacrifice. Well, here I am in trouble again—my last trouble, and + with the wife of a man that I respect and admire, not enough to keep my + hands off his wife, but still that I admire. It is my weakness that I + could not be, as a man, honourable to Jean Jacques Barbille. And so I pay + the price; so I have to go without time to make my will. Bless heaven + above, I have no wife—” + </p> + <p> + “If you had a wife you would not be dying now. You would not then meddle + with the home of Jean Jacques Barbille,” sneered Jean Jacques. The note + was savage yet. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, for sure, for sure! It is so. And if I lived I would marry at once.” + </p> + <p> + Desperate as his condition was, the master-carpenter could almost have + laughed at the idea of marriage preventing him from following the bent of + his nature. He was the born lover. If he had been as high as the Czar, or + as low as the ditcher, he would have been the same; but it would be + madness to admit that to Jean Jacques now. + </p> + <p> + “But, as you say, let me get on. My time has come—” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques jerked his head angrily. “Enough of this. You keep on saying + ‘Wait a little,’ but your time has come. Now take it so, and don’t + repeat.” + </p> + <p> + “A man must get used to the idea of dying, or he will die hard,” replied + the master-carpenter, for he saw that Jean Jacques’ hands were not so + tightly clenched on the lever now; and time was everything. He had already + been near five minutes, and every minute was a step to a chance of escape—somehow. + </p> + <p> + “I said you were to blame,” he continued. “Listen, Jean Jacques Barbille. + You, a man of mind, married a girl who cared more for a touch of your hand + than a bucketful of your knowledge, which every man in the province knows + is great. At first you were almost always thinking of her and what a fine + woman she was, and because everyone admired her, you played the peacock, + too. I am not the only peacock. You are a good man—no one ever said + anything against your character. But always, always, you think most of + yourself. It is everywhere you go as if you say, ‘Look out. I am coming. I + am Jean Jacques Barbille. + </p> + <p> + “‘Make way for Jean Jacques. I am from the Manor Cartier. You have heard + of me.’... That is the way you say things in your mind. But all the time + the people say, ‘That is Jean Jacques Barbille, but you should see his + wife. She is a wonder. She is at home at the Manor with the cows and the + geese. Jean Jacques travels alone through the parish to Quebec, to Three + Rivers, to Tadousac, to the great exhibition at Montreal, but madame, she + stays at home. M’sieu’ Jean Jacques is nothing beside her’—that is + what the people say. They admire you for your brains, but they would have + fallen down before your wife, if you had given her half a chance.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that’s bosh—what do you know!” exclaimed Jean Jacques fiercely, + but he was fascinated too by the argument of the man whose life he was + going to take. + </p> + <p> + “I know the truth, my money-man. Do you think she’d have looked at me if + you’d been to her what she thought I might be? No, bien sur! Did you take + her where she could see the world? No. Did you bring her presents? No. Did + you say, ‘Come along, we will make a little journey to see the world?’ No. + Do you think that a woman can sit and darn your socks, and tidy your room, + and bake you pancakes in the morning while you roast your toes, and be + satisfied with just that, and not long for something outside?” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques was silent. He did not move. He was being hypnotized by a + mind of subtle strength, by the logic of which he was so great a lover. + </p> + <p> + The master-carpenter pressed his logic home. “No, she must sit in your + shadow always. She must wait till you come. And when you come, it was + ‘Here am I, your Jean Jacques. Fall down and worship me. I am your + husband.’ Did you ever say, ‘Heavens, there you are, the woman of all the + world, the rising and the setting sun, the star that shines, the garden + where all the flowers of love grow’? Did you ever do that? But no, there + was only one person in the world—there was only you, Jean Jacques. + You were the only pig in the sty.” + </p> + <p> + It was a bold stroke, but if Jean Jacques could stand that, he could stand + anything. There was a savage start on the part of Jean Jacques, and the + lever almost moved. + </p> + <p> + “Stop one second!” cried the master-carpenter, sharply now, for in spite + of the sudden savagery on Jean Jacques’ part, he felt he had an advantage, + and now he would play his biggest card. + </p> + <p> + “You can kill me. It is there in your hand. No one can stop you. But will + that give you anything? What is my life? If you take it away, will you be + happier? It is happiness you want. Your wife—she will love you, if + you give her a chance. If you kill me, I will have my revenge in death, + for it is the end of all things for you. You lose your wife for ever. You + need not do so. She would have gone with me, not because of me, but + because I was a man who she thought would treat her like a friend, like a + comrade; who would love her—sacre, what husband could help make love + to such a woman, unless he was in love with himself instead of her!” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques rocked to and fro over the lever in his agitation, yet he + made no motion to move it. He was under a spell. + </p> + <p> + Straight home drove the master-carpenter’s reasoning now. “Kill me, and + you lose her for ever. Kill me, and she will hate you. You think she will + not find out? Then see: as I die I will shriek out so loud that she can + hear me, and she will understand. She will go mad, and give you over to + the law. And then—and then! Did you ever think what will become of + your child, of your Zoe, if you go to the gallows? That would be your + legacy and your blessing to her—the death of a murderer; and she + would be left alone with the woman that would hate you in death! Voila—do + you not see?” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques saw. The terrific logic of the thing smote him. His wife + hating him, himself on the scaffold, his little Zoe disgraced and + dishonoured all her life; and himself out of it all, unable to help her, + and bringing irremediable trouble on her! As a chemical clears a muddy + liquid, leaving it pure and atomless, so there seemed to pass over Jean + Jacques’ face a thought like a revelation. + </p> + <p> + He took his hand from the lever. For a moment he stood like one awakened + out of a sleep. He put his hands to his eyes, then shook his head as + though to free it of some hateful burden. An instant later he stooped, + lifted up the ladder beside him, and let it down to the floor of the + flume. + </p> + <p> + “There, go—for ever,” he said. + </p> + <p> + Then he turned away with bowed head. He staggered as he stepped down from + the bridge of the flume, where the lever was. He swayed from side to side. + Then he raised his head and looked towards his house. His child lived + there—his Zoe. + </p> + <p> + “Moi je suis philosophe!” he said brokenly. + </p> + <p> + After a moment or two, as he stumbled on, he said it again—“Me, I am + a philosopher!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X. “QUIEN SABE”—WHO KNOWS! + </h2> + <p> + This much must be said for George Masson, that after the terrible incident + at the flume he would have gone straight to the Manor Cartier to warn + Carmen, if it had been possible, though perhaps she already knew. But + there was Jean Jacques on his way back to the Manor, and nothing remained + but to proceed to Laplatte, and give the woman up for ever. He had no wish + to pull up stakes again and begin life afresh, though he was only forty, + and he had plenty of initiative left. But if he had to go, he would want + to go alone, as he had done before. Yes, he would have liked to tell + Carmen that Jean Jacques knew everything; but it was impossible. She would + have to face the full shock from Jean Jacques’ own battery. But then again + perhaps she knew already. He hoped she did. + </p> + <p> + At the very moment that Masson was thinking this, while he went to the + main road where he had left his horse and buggy tied up, Carmen came to + know. + </p> + <p> + Carmen had not seen her husband that morning until now. She had waked + late, and when she was dressed and went into the dining-room to look for + him, with an apprehension which was the reflection of the bad dreams of + the night, she found that he had had his breakfast earlier than usual and + had gone to the mill. She also learned that he had eaten very little, and + that he had sent a man into Vilray for something or other. Try as she + would to stifle her anxiety, it obtruded itself, and she could eat no + breakfast. She kept her eyes on the door and the window, watching for Jean + Jacques. + </p> + <p> + Yet she reproved herself for her stupid concern, for Jean Jacques would + have spoken last night, if he had discovered anything. He was not the man + to hold his tongue when he had a chance of talking. He would be sure to + make the most of any opportunity for display of intellectual emotion, and + he would have burst his buttons if he had known. That was the way she put + it in a vernacular which was not Andalusian. Such men love a grievance, + because it gives them an opportunity to talk—with a good case and to + some point, not into the air at imaginary things, as she had so often seen + Jean Jacques do. She knew her Jean Jacques. That is, she thought she knew + her Jean Jacques after living with him for over thirteen years; but hers + was a very common mistake. It is not time which gives revelation, or which + turns a character inside out, and exposes a new and amazing, maybe + revolting side to it. She had never really seen Jean Jacques, and he had + never really seen himself, as he was, but only as circumstances made him + seem to be. What he had showed of his nature all these forty odd years was + only the ferment of a more or less shallow life, in spite of its many + interests: but here now at last was life, with the crust broken over a + deep well of experience and tragedy. She knew as little what he would do + in such a case as he himself knew beforehand. As the incident of the flume + just now showed, he knew little indeed, for he had done exactly the + opposite of what he meant to do. It was possible that Carmen would also do + exactly the opposite of what she meant to do in her own crisis. + </p> + <p> + Her test was to come. Would she, after all, go off with the + master-carpenter, leaving behind her the pretty, clever, volatile Zoe ... + Zoe—ah, where was Zoe? Carmen became anxious about Zoe, she knew not + why. Was it the revival of the maternal instinct? + </p> + <p> + She was told that Zoe had gone off on her pony to take a basket of good + things to a poor old woman down the river three miles away. She would be + gone all morning. By so much, fate was favouring her; for the child’s + presence would but heighten the emotion of her exit from that place where + her youth had been wasted. Already the few things she had meant to take + away were secreted in a safe place some distance from the house, beside + the path she meant to take when she left Jean Jacques for ever. George + Masson wanted her, they were to meet to-day, and she was going—going + somewhere out of this intolerable dullness and discontent. + </p> + <p> + When she pushed her coffee-cup aside and rose from the table without + eating, she went straight to her looking-glass and surveyed herself with a + searching eye. Certainly she was young enough (she said to herself) to + draw the eyes of those who cared for youth and beauty. There was not a + grey hair in the dark brown of her head, there was not a wrinkle—yes, + there were two at the corners of her mouth, which told the story of her + restlessness, of her hunger for the excitement of which she had been + deprived all these years. To go back to Cadiz?—oh, anywhere, + anywhere, so that her blood could beat faster; so that she could feel the + stir of life which had made her spirit flourish even in the dangers of the + far-off day when Gonzales was by her side. + </p> + <p> + She looked at her guitar. She was sorry she could not take that away with + her. But Jean Jacques would, no doubt, send it after her with his curse. + She would love to play it once again with the old thrill; with the thrill + she had felt on the night of Zoe’s birthday a little while ago, when she + was back again with her lover and the birds in the gardens of Granada. She + would sing to someone who cared to hear her, and to someone who would make + her care to sing, which was far more important. She would sing to the + master-carpenter. Though he had not asked her to go with him—only to + meet in a secret place in the hills—she meant to do so, just as she + once meant to marry Jean Jacques, and had done so. It was true she would + probably not have married Jean Jacques, if it had not been for the wreck + of the Antoine; but the wreck had occurred, and she had married him, and + that was done and over so far as she was concerned. She had determined to + go away with the master-carpenter, and though he might feel the same + hesitation as that which Jean Jacques had shown—she had read her + Norman aright aboard the Antoine—yet, still, George Masson should + take her away. A catastrophe had thrown Jean Jacques into her arms; it + would not be a catastrophe which would throw the master-carpenter into her + arms. It would be that they wanted each other. + </p> + <p> + The mirror gave her a look of dominance—was it her regular features + and her classic head? Does beauty in itself express authority, just + because it has the transcendent thing in it? Does the perfect form convey + something of the same thing that physical force—an army in arms, a + battleship—conveys? In any case it was there, that inherent + masterfulness, though not in its highest form. She was not an aristocrat, + she was no daughter of kings, no duchess of Castile, no dona of Segovia; + and her beauty belonged to more primary manifestations; but it was above + the lower forms, even if it did not reach to the highest. “A handsome even + splendid woman of her class” would have been the judgment of the + connoisseur. + </p> + <p> + As she looked in the glass at her clear skin, at the wonderful throat + showing so soft and palpable and tower-like under the black velvet ribbon + brightened by a paste ornament; as she saw the smooth breadth of brow, the + fulness of the lips, the limpid lustre of the large eyes, the well-curved + ear, so small and so like ivory, it came home to her, as it had never done + before, that she was wasted in this obscure parish of St. Saviour’s. + </p> + <p> + There was not a more restless soul or body in all the hemisphere than the + soul and body of Carmen Barbille, as she went from this to that on the + morning when Jean Jacques had refrained from killing the soul-disturber, + the master-carpenter, who had with such skill destroyed the walls and + foundations of his home. Carmen was pointlessly busy as she watched for + the return of Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + At last she saw him coming from the flume of the mill! She saw that he + stumbled as he walked, and that, every now and then, he lifted his head + with an effort and threw it back, and threw his shoulders back also, as + though to assert his physical manhood. He wore no hat, his hands were + making involuntary gestures of helplessness. But presently he seemed to + assert authority over his fumbling body and to come erect. His hands + clenched at his sides, his head came up stiffly and stayed, and with + quickened footsteps he marched rigidly forward towards the Manor. + </p> + <p> + Then she guessed at the truth, and as soon as she saw his face she was + sure beyond peradventure that he knew. + </p> + <p> + His figure darkened the doorway. Her first thought was to turn and flee, + not because she was frightened of what he would do, but because she did + not wish to hear what he would say. She shrank from the uprolling of the + curtain of the last thirteen years, from the grim exposure of the + nakedness of their life together. Her indolent nature in repose wanted the + dust of existence swept into a corner out of sight; yet when she was + roused, and there were no corners into which the dust could be swept, she + could be as bold as any better woman. + </p> + <p> + She hesitated till it was too late to go, and then as he entered the house + from the staring sunlight and the peace of the morning, she straightened + herself, and a sulky, stubborn look came into her eyes. He might try to + kill her, but she had seen death in many forms far away in Spain, and she + would not be afraid till there was cause. Imagination would not take away + her courage. She picked up a half-knitted stocking which lay upon the + table, and standing there, while he came into the middle of the room, she + began to ply the needles. + </p> + <p> + He stood still. Her face was bent over her knitting. She did not look at + him. + </p> + <p> + “Well, why don’t you look at me?” he asked in a voice husky with passion. + </p> + <p> + She raised her head and looked straight into his dark, distracted eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Good morning,” she said calmly. + </p> + <p> + A kind of snarling laugh came to his lips. “I said good morning to my wife + yesterday, but I will not say it to-day. What is the use of saying good + morning, when the morning is not good!” + </p> + <p> + “That’s logical, anyhow,” she said, her needles going faster now. She was + getting control of them—and of herself. + </p> + <p> + “Why isn’t the morning good? Speak. Why isn’t it good, Carmen?” + </p> + <p> + “Quien sabe—who knows!” she replied with exasperating coolness. + </p> + <p> + “I know—I know all; and it is enough for a lifetime,” he challenged. + </p> + <p> + “What do you know—what is the ‘all’?” Her voice had lost timbre. It + was suddenly weak, but from suspense and excitement rather than from fear. + </p> + <p> + “I saw you last night with him, by the river. I saw what you did. I heard + you say, ‘Yes, to-morrow, for sure.’ I saw what you did.” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes were busy with the knitting now. She did not know what to say. + Then, he had known all since the night before! He knew it when he + pretended that his head ached—knew it as he lay by her side all + night. He knew it, and said nothing! But what had he done—what had + he done? She waited for she knew not what. George Masson was to come and + inspect the flume early that morning. Had he come? She had not seen him. + But the river was flowing through the flume: she could hear the mill-wheel + turning—she could hear the mill-wheel turning! + </p> + <p> + As she did not speak, with a curious husky shrillness to his voice he + said: “There he was down in the flume, there was I at the lever above, + there was the mill-wheel unlocked. There it was. I gripped the lever, and—” + </p> + <p> + Her great eyes stared with horror. The knitting-needles stopped; a pallor + swept across her face. She felt as she did when she heard the + court-martial sentence Carvillho Gonzales to death. + </p> + <p> + The mill-wheel sounded louder and louder in her ears. + </p> + <p> + “You let in the river!” she cried. “You drove him into the wheel—you + killed him!” + </p> + <p> + “What else was there to do?” he demanded. “It had to be done, and it was + the safest way. It would be an accident. Such a thing might easily + happen.” + </p> + <p> + “You have murdered him!” she gasped with a wild look. + </p> + <p> + “To call it murder!” he sneered. “Surely my wife would not call it + murder.” + </p> + <p> + “Fiend—not to have the courage to fight him!” she flung back at him. + “To crawl like a snake and let loose a river on a man! In any other + country, he’d have been given a chance.” + </p> + <p> + This was his act in a new light. He had had only one idea in his mind when + he planned the act, and that was punishment. What rights had a man who had + stolen what was nearer and dearer than a man’s own flesh, and for which he + would have given his own flesh fifty times? Was it that Carmen would now + have him believe he ought to have fought the man, who had spoiled his life + and ruined a woman’s whole existence. + </p> + <p> + “What chance had I when he robbed me in the dark of what is worth fifty + times my own life to me?” he asked savagely. + </p> + <p> + “Murderer—murderer!” she cried hoarsely. “You shall pay for this.” + </p> + <p> + “You will tell—you will give me up?” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes were on the mill and the river... “Where—where is he? Has + he gone down the river? Did you kill him and let him go—like that!” + </p> + <p> + She made a flinging gesture, as one would toss a stone. + </p> + <p> + He stared at her. He had never seen her face like that—so strained + and haggard. George Masson was right when he said that she would give him + up; that his life would be in danger, and that his child’s life would be + spoiled. + </p> + <p> + “Murderer!” she repeated. “And when you go to the gallows, your child’s + life—you did not think of that, eh? To have your revenge on the man + who was no more to blame than I, thinking only of yourself, you killed + him; but you did not think of your child.” + </p> + <p> + Ah, yes, surely George Masson was right! That was what he had said about + his child, Zoe. What a good thing it was he had not killed the ravager of + his home! + </p> + <p> + But suddenly his logic came to his aid. In terrible misery as he was, he + was almost pleased that he could reason. “And you would give me over to + the law? You would send me to the gallows—and spoil your child’s + life?” he retorted. + </p> + <p> + She threw the knitting down and flung her hands up. “I have no husband. I + have no child. Take your life. Take it. I will go and find his body,” she + said, and she moved swiftly towards the door. “He has gone down the river—I + will find him!” + </p> + <p> + “He has gone up the river,” he exclaimed. “Up the river, I say!” + </p> + <p> + She stopped short and looked at him blankly. Then his meaning became clear + to her. + </p> + <p> + “You did not kill him?” she asked scarce above a whisper. + </p> + <p> + “I let him go,” he replied. + </p> + <p> + “You did not fight him—why?” There was scorn in her tone. + </p> + <p> + “And if I had killed him that way?” he asked with terrible logic, as he + thought. + </p> + <p> + “There was little chance of that,” she replied scornfully, and steadied + herself against a chair; for, now that the suspense was over, she felt as + though she had been passed between stones which ground the strength out of + her. + </p> + <p> + A flush of fierce resentment crossed over his face. “It is not everything + to be big,” he rejoined. “The greatest men in the world have been small + like me, but they have brought the giant things to their feet.” + </p> + <p> + She waved a hand disdainfully. “What are you going to do now?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + He drew himself up. He seemed to rearrange the motions of his mind with a + little of the old vanity, which was at once grotesque and piteous. “I am + going to forgive you and to try to put things right,” he said. “I have had + my faults. You were not to blame altogether. I have left you too much + alone. I did not understand everything all through. I had never studied + women. If I had I should have done the right thing always. I must begin to + study women.” The drawn look was going a little from his face, the ghastly + pain was fading from his eyes; his heart was speaking for her, while his + vain intellect hunted the solution of his problem. + </p> + <p> + She could scarcely believe her ears. No Spaniard would ever have acted as + this man was doing. She had come from a land of No Forgiveness. Carvillho + Gonzales would have killed her, if she had been untrue to him; and she + would have expected it and understood it. + </p> + <p> + But Jean Jacques was going to forgive her—going to study women, and + so understand her and understand women, as he understood philosophy! This + was too fantastic for human reason. She stared at him, unable to say a + word, and the distracted look in her face did not lessen. Forgiveness did + not solve her problem. + </p> + <p> + “I am going to take you to Montreal—and then out to Winnipeg, when + I’ve got the cheese-factory going,” he said with a wise look in his face, + and with tenderness even coming into his eyes. “I know what mistakes I’ve + made”—had not George Masson the despoiler told him of them?—“and + I know what a scoundrel that fellow is, and what tricks of the tongue he + has. Also he is as sleek to look at as a bull, and so he got a hold on + you. I grasp things now. Soon we will start away together again as we did + at Gaspe.” + </p> + <p> + He came close to her. “Carmen!” he said, and made as though he would + embrace her. + </p> + <p> + “Wait—wait a little. Give me time to think,” she said with dry lips, + her heart beating hard. Then she added with a flattery which she knew + would tell, “I cannot think quick as you do. I am slow. I must have time. + I want to work it all out. Wait till to-night,” she urged. “Then we can—” + </p> + <p> + “Good, we will make it all up to-night,” he said, and he patted her + shoulder as one would that of a child. It had the slight flavour of the + superior and the paternal. + </p> + <p> + She almost shrank from his touch. If he had kissed her she would have felt + that she must push him away; and yet she also knew how good a man he was. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE + </h2> + <p> + “Well, what is it, M’sieu’ Fille? What do you want with me? I’ve got a lot + to do before sundown, and it isn’t far off. Out with it.” + </p> + <p> + George Masson was in no good humour; from the look on the face of the + little Clerk of the Court he had no idea that he would disclose any good + news. It was probably some stupid business about “money not being paid + into the Court,” which had been left over from cases tried and lost; and + he had had a number of cases that summer. His head was not so clear to-day + as usual, but he had had little difficulties with M’sieu’ Fille before, + and he was sure that there was something wrong now. + </p> + <p> + “Do you want to make me a present?” he added with humorous impatience, for + though he was not in a good temper, he liked the Clerk of the Court, who + was such a figure at Vilray. + </p> + <p> + The opening for his purpose did not escape M. Fille. He had been at a loss + to begin, but here was a natural opportunity for him. + </p> + <p> + “Well, good advice is not always a present, but I should like mine to be + taken as such, monsieur,” he said a little oracularly. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, advice—to give me advice—that’s why you’ve brought me in + here, when I’ve so much to do I can’t breathe! Time is money with me, old + ‘un.” + </p> + <p> + “Mine is advice which may be money in your pocket, monsieur,” remarked the + Clerk of the Court with meaning. “Money saved is money earned.” + </p> + <p> + “How do you mean to save me money—by getting the Judge to give + decisions in my favour? That would be money in my pocket for sure. The + Court has been running against my interests this year. When I think I was + never so right in my life—bang goes the judgment of the Court + against me, and into my pocket goes my hand. I don’t only need to save + money, I need to make it; so if you can help me in that way I’m your man, + M’sieu’ la Fillette?” + </p> + <p> + The little man bristled at the misuse of his name, and he flushed slightly + also; but there was always something engaging in the pleasure-loving + master-carpenter. He had such an eloquent and warm temperament, the + atmosphere of his personality was so genial, that his impertinence was + insulated. Certainly the master-carpenter was not unpopular, and people + could not easily resist the grip of his physical influence, while mentally + he was far indeed from being deficient. He looked as little like a villain + as a man could, and yet—and yet—a nature like that of George + Masson (even the little Clerk could see that) was not capable of being + true beyond the minute in which he took his oath of fidelity. While the + fit of willingness was on him he would be true; yet in reality there was + no truth at all—only self-indulgence unmarked by duty or honour. + </p> + <p> + “Give me a judgment for defamation of character. Give me a thousand + dollars or so for that, m’sieu’, and you’ll do a good turn to a deserving + fellow-citizen and admirer—one little thousand, that’s all, m’sieu’. + Then I’ll dance at your wedding and weep at your tomb—so there!” + </p> + <p> + How easy he made the way for the little Clerk of the Court! “Defamation of + character”—could there possibly be a better opening for what he had + promised Judge Carcasson he would say! + </p> + <p> + “Ah, Monsieur Masson,” very officially and decorously replied M. Fille, + “but is it defamation of character? If the thing is true, then what is the + judgment? It goes against you—so there!” There was irony in the last + words. + </p> + <p> + “If what thing is true?” sharply asked the mastercarpenter, catching at + the fringe of the idea in M. Fille’s mind. “What thing?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but it is true, for I saw it! Yes, alas! I saw it with my own eyes. + By accident of course; but there it was—absolute, uncompromising, + deadly and complete.” + </p> + <p> + It was a happy moment for the little Clerk of the Court when he could, in + such an impromptu way, coin a phrase, or a set of adjectives, which would + bear inspection of purists of the language. He loved to talk, though he + did not talk a great deal, but he made innumerable conversations in his + mind, and that gave him facility when he did speak. He had made + conversations with George Masson in his mind since yesterday, when he gave + his promise to Judge Carcasson; but none of them was like the real + conversation now taking place. It was all the impression of the moment, + while the phrases in his mind had been wonderfully logical things which, + from an intellectual standpoint, would have delighted the man whose cause + he was now engaged in defending. + </p> + <p> + “You saw what, M’sieu’ la Fillette? Out with it, and don’t use such big + adjectives. I’m only a carpenter. ‘Absolute, uncompromising, deadly, + complete’—that’s a mouthful of grammar, my lords! Come, my sprig of + jurisprudence, tell us what you saw.” There was an apparent nervousness in + Masson’s manner now. Indeed he showed more agitation than when, a few + hours before, Jean Jacques had stood with his hand on the lever of the + gates of the flume, and the life of the master-carpenter at his feet, to + be kicked into eternity. + </p> + <p> + “Four days ago at five o’clock in the afternoon”—in a voice formal + and exact, the little Clerk of the Court seemed to be reading from a + paper, since he kept his eyes fixed on the blotter before him, as he did + in Court—“I was coming down the hill behind the Manor Cartier, when + my attention—by accident—was drawn to a scene below me in the + Manor. I stopped short, of course, and—” + </p> + <p> + “Diable! You stopped short ‘of course’ before what you saw! Spit it out—what + did you see?” George Masson had had a trying day, and there was danger of + losing control of himself. There was a whiteness growing round the eyes, + and eating up the warmth of the cheek; his admirably smooth brow was + contracted into heavy wrinkles, and a foot shifted uneasily on the floor + with a scraping sole. This drew the attention of M. Fille, who raised his + head reprovingly—he could not get rid of the feeling that he was in + court, and that a case was being tried; and the severity of a Judge is + naught compared with the severity of a Clerk of the Court, particularly if + he is small and unmarried, and has no one to beat him into manageable + humanity. + </p> + <p> + M. Fille’s voice was almost querulous. + </p> + <p> + “If you will but be patient, monsieur! I saw a man with a woman in his + arms, and I fear that I must mention the name of the man. It is not + necessary to give the name of the woman, but I have it written here”—he + tapped the paper—“and there is no mistake in the identity. The man’s + name is George Masson, master-carpenter, of the town of Laplatte in the + province of Quebec.” + </p> + <p> + George Masson was as one hit between the eyes. He made a motion as though + to ward off a blow. “Name of Peter, old cock!” he exclaimed abruptly. “You + saw enough certainly, if you saw that, and you needn’t mention the lady’s + name, as you say. The evidence is not merely circumstantial. You saw it + with your own eyes, and you are an official of the Court, and have the ear + of the Judge, and you look like a saint to a jury. Well for sure, I can’t + prove defamation of character, as you say. But what then—what do you + want?” + </p> + <p> + “What I want I hope you may be able to grant without demur, monsieur. I + want you to give your pledge on the Book”—he laid his hand on a + Testament lying on the table—“that you will hold no further + communication with the lady.” + </p> + <p> + “Where do you come inhere? What’s your standing in the business?” Masson + jerked out his words now. The Clerk of the Court made a reproving gesture. + “Knowing what I did, what I had seen, it was clear that I must approach + one or other of the parties concerned. Out of regard for the lady I could + not approach her husband, and so betray her; out of regard for the husband + I could not approach himself and destroy his peace; out of regard for all + concerned I could not approach the lady’s father, for then—” + </p> + <p> + Masson interrupted with an oath. + </p> + <p> + “That old reprobate of Cadiz—well no, bagosh! + </p> + <p> + “And so you whisked me into your office with the talk of urgent business + and—” + </p> + <p> + “Is not the business urgent, monsieur?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” was the sharp reply of the culprit. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur, you shock me. Do you consider that your conduct is not + criminal? I have here”—he placed his hand on a book—“the + Statutes of Victoria, and it lays down with wholesome severity the law + concerning the theft of the affection of a wife, with the accompanying + penalty, going as high as twenty thousand dollars.” + </p> + <p> + George Masson gasped. Here was a new turn of affairs. But he set his + teeth. + </p> + <p> + “Twenty thousand dollars—think of that!” he sneered angrily. + </p> + <p> + “That is what I said, monsieur. I said I could save you money, and money + saved is money earned. I am your benefactor, if you will but permit me to + be so, monsieur. I would save you from the law, and from the damages which + the law gives. Can you not guess what would be given in a court of the + Catholic province of Quebec, against the violation of a good man’s home? + Do you not see that the business is urgent?” + </p> + <p> + “Not at all,” curtly replied the master-carpenter. M. Fille bridled up, + and his spare figure seemed to gain courage and dignity. + </p> + <p> + “If you think I will hold my peace unless you give your sacred pledge, you + are mistaken, monsieur. I am no meddler, but I have had much kindness at + the hands of Monsieur and Madame Barbille, and I will do what I can to + protect them and their daughter—that good and sweet daughter, from + the machinations, corruptions and malfeasance—” + </p> + <p> + “Three damn good words for the Court, bagosh!” exclaimed Masson with a + jeer. + </p> + <p> + “No, with a man devoid of honour, I shall not hesitate, for the Manor + Cartier has been the home of domestic peace, and madame, who came to us a + stranger, deserves well of the people of that ancient abode of + chivalry-the chivalry of France.” + </p> + <p> + “When we are wound up, what a humming we can make!” laughed George Masson + sourly. “Have you quite finished, m’sieu’?” + </p> + <p> + “The matter is urgent, you will admit, monsieur?” again demanded M. Fille + with austerity. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all.” + </p> + <p> + The master-carpenter was defiant and insolent, yet there was a devilish + kind of humour in his tone as in his attitude. + </p> + <p> + “You will not heed the warning I give?” The little Clerk pointed to the + open page of the Victorian statutes before him. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I shall, with profound regret—” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly George Masson thrust his face forward near that of M. Fille, who + did not draw back. + </p> + <p> + “You will inform the Court that the prisoner refuses to incriminate + himself, eh?” he interjected. + </p> + <p> + “No, monsieur, I will inform Monsieur Barbille of what I saw. I will do + this without delay. It is the one thing left me to do.” + </p> + <p> + In quite a grand kind of way he stood up and bowed, as though to dismiss + his visitor. + </p> + <p> + As George Masson did not move, the other went to the door and opened it. + “It is the only thing left to do,” he repeated, as he made a gentle + gesture of dismissal. + </p> + <p> + “Not at all, my legal bombardier. Not at all, I say. All you know Jean + Jacques knows, and a good deal more—what he has seen with his own + eyes, and understood with his own mind, without legal help. So, you see, + you’ve kept me here talking when there’s no need and while my business + waits. It is urgent, M’sieu’ la Fillette—your business is stale. It + belongs to last session of the Court.” He laughed at his joke. “M’sieu’ + Jean Jacques and I understand each other.” He laughed grimly now. “We know + each other like a book, and the Clerk of the Court couldn’t get in an + adjective that would make the sense of it all clearer.” + </p> + <p> + Slowly M. Fille shut the door, and very slowly he came back. Almost + blindly, as it might seem, and with a moan, he dropped into his chair. His + eyes fixed themselves on George Masson. + </p> + <p> + “Ah—that!” he said helplessly. “That! The little Zoe—dear God, + the little Zoe, and the poor madame!” His voice was aching with pain and + repugnance. + </p> + <p> + “If you were not such an icicle naturally, I’d be thinking your interest + in the child was paternal,” said the master-carpenter roughly, for the + virtuous horror of the other’s face annoyed him. He had had a vexing day. + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court was on his feet in a second. “Monsieur, you dare!” + he exclaimed. “You dare to multiply your crimes in that shameless way. + Begone! There are those who can make you respect decency. I am not without + my friends, and we all stand by each other in our love of home—of + sacred home, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + There was something right in the master-carpenter at the bottom, with all + his villainy. It was not alone that he knew there were fifty men in the + Parish of St. Saviour’s who would man-handle him for such a suggestion, + and for what he had done at the Manor Cartier, if they were roused; but he + also had a sudden remorse for insulting the man who, after all, had tried + to do him a service. His amende was instant. + </p> + <p> + “I take it back with humble apology—all I can hold in both hands, + m’sieu’,” he said at once. “I would not insult you so, much less Madame + Barbille. If she’d been like what I’ve hinted at, I wouldn’t have gone her + way, for the promiscuous is not for me. I’ll tell you the whole truth of + what happened to-day this morning. Last night I met her at the river, and—Then + briefly he told all that had happened to the moment when Jean Jacques had + left him at the flume with the words, ‘Moi, je suis philosophe!’ And at + the last he said: + </p> + <p> + “I give you my word—my oath on this”—he laid his hand on the + Testament on the table—“that beyond what you saw, and what Jean + Jacques saw, there has been nothing.” He held up a hand as though taking + an oath. + </p> + <p> + “Name of God, is it not enough what there has been?” whispered the little + Clerk. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, as you think, and as you say! It is quite enough for me after to-day. + I’m a teetotaller, but I’m not so fond of water as to want to take my + eternal bath in it.” He shuddered slightly. “Bien sur, I’ve had my fill of + the Manor Cartier for one day, my Clerk of the Court.” + </p> + <p> + “Bien sur, it was enough to set you thinking, monsieur,” was the dry + comment of M. Fille, who was now recovering his composure. + </p> + <p> + At that moment there came a knock at the door, and another followed + quickly; then there entered without waiting for a reply—Carmen + Barbille. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM + </h2> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court came to his feet with a startled “Merci!” and the + master-carpenter fell back with a smothered exclamation. Both men stared + confusedly at the woman as she shut the door slowly and, as it might seem, + carefully, before she faced them. + </p> + <p> + “Here I am, George,” she said, her face alive with vital adventure. + </p> + <p> + His face was instantly swept by a storm of feeling for her, his nature + responded to the sound of her voice and the passion of her face. + </p> + <p> + “Carmen—ah!” he said, and took a step forward, then stopped. The + hoarse feeling in his voice made her eyes flash gratitude and triumph, and + she waited for him to take her in his arms; but she suddenly remembered M. + Fille. She turned to him. + </p> + <p> + “I am sorry to intrude, m’sieu’,” she said. “I beg your pardon. They told + me at the office of avocat Prideaux that M’sieu’ Masson was here. So I + came; but be sure I would not interrupt you if there was not cause.” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille came forward and took her hand respectfully. “Madame, it is the + first time you have honoured me here. I am very glad to receive you. + Monsieur and Mademoiselle Zoe, they are with you? They will also come in + perhaps?” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille was courteous and kind, yet he felt that a duty was devolving on + him, imposed by his superior officer, Judge Carcasson, and by his own + conscience, and with courage he faced the field of trouble which his + simple question opened up. George Masson had but now said there had been + nothing more than he himself had seen from the hill behind the Manor; and + he had further said, in effect, that all was ended between Carmen Barbille + and himself; yet here they were together, when they ought to be a hundred + miles apart for many a day. Besides, there was the look in the woman’s + face, and that intense look also in the face of the master-carpenter! The + Clerk of the Court, from sheer habit of his profession, watched human + faces as other people watch the weather, or the rise or fall in the price + of wheat and potatoes. He was an archaic little official, and apparently + quite unsophisticated; yet there was hidden behind his ascetic face a + quiet astuteness which would have been a valuable asset to a + worldly-minded and ambitious man. Besides, affection sharpens the wits. + Through it the hovering, protecting sense becomes instinctive, and + prescience takes on uncanny certainty. He had a real and deep affection + for Jean Jacques and his Carmen, and a deeper one still for the child Zoe; + and the danger to the home at the Manor Cartier now became again as sharp + as the knife of the guillotine. His eyes ran from the woman to the man, + and back again, and then with great courage he repeated his question: + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur and mademoiselle, they are well—they are with you, I hope, + madame?” + </p> + <p> + She looked at him in the eyes without flinching, and on the instant she + was aware that he knew all, and that there had been talk with George + Masson. She knew the little man to be as good as ever can be, but she + resented the fact that he knew. It was clear George Masson had told him—else + how could he know; unless, perhaps, all the world knew! + </p> + <p> + “You know well enough that I have come alone, my friend,” she answered. + “It is no place for Zoe; and it is no place for my husband and him + together,” she made a motion of the head towards the mastercarpenter. + “Santa Maria, you know it very well indeed!” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court bowed, but made no reply. What was there to say to + a remark like that! It was clear that the problem must be worked out alone + between these two people, though he was not quite sure what the problem + was. The man had said the thing was over; but the woman had come, and the + look of both showed that it was not all over. + </p> + <p> + What would the man do? What was it the woman wished to do? The + master-carpenter had said that Jean Jacques had spared him, and meant to + forgive his wife. No doubt he had done so, for Jean Jacques was a man of + sentiment and chivalry, and there was no proof that there had been + anything more than a few mad caresses between the two misdemeanants; yet + here was the woman with the man for whom she had imperilled her future and + that of her husband and child! + </p> + <p> + As though Carmen understood what was going on in his mind, she said: + “Since you know everything, you can understand that I want a few words + with M’sieu’ George here alone.” + </p> + <p> + “Madame, I beg of you,” the Clerk of the Court answered instantly, his + voice trembling a little—“I beg that you will not be alone with him. + As I believe, your husband is willing to let bygones be bygones, and to + begin to-morrow as though there was no to-day. In such case you should not + see Monsieur Masson here alone. It is bad enough to see him here in the + office of the Clerk of the Court, but to see him alone—what would + Monsieur Jean Jacques say? Also, outside there in the street, if our + neighbours should come to know of the trouble, what would they say? I wish + not to be tiresome, but as a friend, a true friend of your whole family, + madame—yes, in spite of all, your whole family—I hope you will + realize that I must remain here. I owe it to a past made happy by kindness + which is to me like life itself. Monsieur Masson, is it not so?” he added, + turning to the master-carpenter. More flushed and agitated than when he + had faced Jean Jacques in the flume, the master-carpenter said: “If she + wants a few words-of farewell—alone with me, she must have it, + M’sieu’ Fille. The other room—eh? Outside there”—he jerked a + finger towards the street—“they won’t know that you are not with us; + and as for Jean Jacques, isn’t it possible for a Clerk of the Court to + stretch the truth a little? Isn’t the Clerk of the Court a man as well as + a mummy? I’d do as much for you, little lawyer, any time. A word to say + farewell, you understand!” He looked M. Fille squarely in the eye. + </p> + <p> + “If I had to answer M. Jean Jacques on such a matter—and so much at + stake—” + </p> + <p> + Masson interrupted. “Well, if you like we’ll bind your eyes and put wads + in your ears, and you can stay, so that you’ll have been in the room all + the time, and yet have heard and seen nothing at all. How is that, + m’sieu’? It’s all right, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille stood petrified for a moment at the audacity of the proposition. + For him, the Clerk of the Court, to be blinded and made ridiculous with + wads in his ears-impossible! + </p> + <p> + “Grace of Heaven, I would prefer to lie!” he answered quickly. “I will go + into the next room, but I beg that you be brief, monsieur and madame. You + owe it to yourselves and to the situation to be brief, and, if I may say + so, you owe it to me. I am not a practised Ananias.” + </p> + <p> + “As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, m’sieu’,” returned Masson. + </p> + <p> + “I must beg that you will make your farewells of a minute and no more,” + replied the Clerk of the Court firmly. He took out his watch. “It is six + o’clock. I will come again at three minutes past six. That is long enough + for any farewell—even on the gallows.” + </p> + <p> + Not daring to look at the face of the woman, he softly disappeared into + the other room, and shut the door without a sound. + </p> + <p> + “Too good for this world,” remarked the master-carpenter when the door + closed tight. He said it after the disappearing figure and not to Carmen. + “I don’t suppose he ever kissed a real grown-up woman in his life. It + would have shattered his frail little carcass if, if”—he turned to + his companion—“if you had kissed him, Carmen. He’s made of + tissue-paper,—not tissue—and apple-jelly. Yes, but a stiff + little backbone, too, or he’d not have faced me down.” + </p> + <p> + Masson talked as though he were trying to gain time. “He said three + minutes,” she returned with a look of death in her face. As George Masson + had talked with the Clerk of the Court, she had come to see, in so far as + agitation would permit, that he was not the same as when he left her by + the river the evening before. + </p> + <p> + “There’s no time to waste,” she continued. “You spoke of farewells—twice + you spoke, and three times he spoke of farewells between us. Farewells—farewells—George—!” + </p> + <p> + With sudden emotion she held out her arms, and her face flushed with + passion and longing. + </p> + <p> + The tempest which shook her shook him also, and he swayed from side to + side like an animal uncertain if the moment had come to try its strength + with its foe; and in truth the man was fighting with himself. His moments + with Jean Jacques at the flume had expanded him in a curious kind of way. + His own arguments while he was fighting for his life had, in a way, + convinced himself. She was a rare creature, and she was alluring—more + alluring than she had ever been; for a tragic sense had made her thinner, + had refined the boldness of her beauty, had given a wonderful lustre to + her eyes; and suffering has its own attraction to the degenerate. But he, + George Masson, had had a great shock, and he had come out of the jaws of + death by the skin of his teeth. It had been the nearest thing he had ever + known; for though once he had had a pistol pointed at him, there was the + chance that it might miss at half-a-dozen yards, while there was no chance + of the lever of the flume going wrong; and water and a mill-wheel were as + absolute as the rope of the gallows. + </p> + <p> + In a sense he had saved himself by his cleverness, but if Jean Jacques had + not been just the man he was, he could not have saved himself. It did not + occur to him that Jean Jacques had acted weakly. He would not have done + what Jean Jacques had done, had Jean Jacques spoiled his home. He would + have sprung the lever; but he was not so mean as to despise Jean Jacques + because he had foregone his revenge. This master-carpenter had certain + gifts, or he could not have caused so much trouble in the world. There is + a kind of subtlety necessary to allure or delude even the humblest of + women, if she is not naturally bad; and Masson had had experiences with + the humblest, and also with those a little higher up. This much had to be + said for him, that he did not think Jean Jacques contemptible because he + had been merciful, or degraded because he had chosen to forgive his wife. + </p> + <p> + The sight of the woman, as she stood with arms outstretched, had made his + pulses pound in his veins, but the heat was suddenly chilled by the wave + of tragedy which had passed over him. When he had climbed out of the + flume, and opened the lever for the river to rush through, he had felt as + though ice—cold liquid flowed in his veins, not blood; and all day + he had been like that. He had moved much as one in a dream, and he had + felt for the first time in his life that he was not ready to bluff + creation. He had always faced things down, as long as it could be done; + and when it could not, he had retreated, with the comment that no man was + wise who took gruel when he needn’t. He was now face to face with his + greatest problem. One thing was clear—they must either part for + ever, or go together, and part no more. There could be no half measures. + She was a remarkable woman in her way, with a will of her own, and a kind + of madness in her; and there could be no backing and filling. They only + had three minutes to talk together alone, and two of them were up. + </p> + <p> + Her arms were held out to him, but he stood still, and before the fire of + her eyes his own eyes dropped. “No, not yet!” he exclaimed. “It’s been a + day—heaven and hell, what a day it’s been! He had me like that!” 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!” + </p> + <p> + 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!” + </p> + <p> + “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. + </p> + <p> + “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—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, the Clerk of the Court saw that,” he interrupted. “He saw from the + hill behind the Manor on Tuesday last.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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—” + </p> + <p> + “There is the child, there is Zoe—” + </p> + <p> + “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!” + </p> + <p> + He made a protesting gesture. “Maybe so, Carmen, but I think now before it + is too late.” + </p> + <p> + “The child loves her father as she never loved me,” she declared. “She is + twelve years old. She will soon be old enough to keep house for him, and + then to marry—ah, before there is time to think she will marry!” + </p> + <p> + “It would be better then for you to wait till she marries before—before—” + </p> + <p> + “Before I go away with you!” She gave a shrill, agonized laugh. “So that + is the end of it all! What did you think of my child when you forced your + way into my life, when you made me think of you—ah, quel bete—what + a coward and beast you are!” + </p> + <p> + “No, I am not all coward, though I may be a beast,” he answered. “I didn’t + think of your child when I began to talk to you as I did. I was out for + all I could get. I was the hunter. And you were the finest woman that I’d + ever met and talked with; you—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, stop lying!” she cried with a face suddenly grown white and cold. + </p> + <p> + “It isn’t lying. You’re the sort of woman to drive men mad. I went mad, + and I didn’t think of your child. But this morning in the flume I saved my + life by thinking of her, and I saved your life, too, maybe, by thinking of + her; and I owe her something. I’m going to try to pay back by letting her + keep her mother. I never felt towards a woman as I’ve felt towards you; + and that’s why I want to make things not so bad for you as they might be.” + </p> + <p> + In her bitter eagerness she took a step nearer to him. “As things might + be, if you were the man you were yesterday, willing to throw up everything + for me?” + </p> + <p> + “Like that—if you put it so,” he answered. + </p> + <p> + She walked slowly up to him, looking as though she would plunge a knife + into his heart. “I wish Jean Jacques had opened the gates,” she said. “It + would have saved the hangman trouble.” + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly, and with a cry, she raised her hand and struck him full in + the face with her fist. At that instant came a tap at the door of the + other room, and the Clerk of the Court appeared. He saw the blow, and drew + back with an exclamation. + </p> + <p> + Carmen turned to him. “Farewell has been said, M’sieu’ Fille,” she + remarked in a voice sombre with rage and despair, and she went to the door + leading to the street. + </p> + <p> + Masson had winced at the blow, but he remained silent. He knew not what to + say or do. + </p> + <p> + M. Fille hastily followed Carmen to the door. “You are going home, dear + madame? Permit me to accompany you,” he said gently. “I have to do + business with Jean Jacques.” + </p> + <p> + A hand upon his chest, she pushed him back. “Where I go I’m going alone,” + she said. Opening the door she went out, but turning back again she gave + George Masson a look that he never forgot. Then the door closed. + </p> + <p> + “Grace of God, she is not going home!” brokenly murmured the Clerk of the + Court. + </p> + <p> + With a groan the master-carpenter started forward towards the door, but M. + Fille stepped between, laid a hand on his arm, and stopped him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Oh, who will walk the wood with me, + I fear to walk alone; + So young am I, as you may see; + No dangers have I known. + So young, so small—ah, yes, m’sieu’, + I’ll walk the wood with you!” + </pre> + <p> + In the last note of the song applause came instantaneously, almost + impatiently, as it might seem. With cries of “Encore! Encore!” it lasted + some time, while the happy singer looked around with frank pleasure on the + little group encircling her in the Manor Cartier. + </p> + <p> + “Did you like it so much?” she asked in a general way, and not looking at + any particular person. A particular person, however, replied, and she had + addressed the question to him, although not looking at him. He was the Man + from Outside, and he sat near the bright wood-fire; for though it was + almost June the night was cool and he was delicate. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but splendid, but splendid—it got into every corner of every + one of us,” the Man from Outside responded, speaking his fluent French + with a slight English accent, which had a pleasant piquancy—at least + to the ears of the pretty singer, Mdlle. Zoe Barbille. He was a man of + about thirty-three, clean-shaven, dark-haired, with an expression of + cleverness; yet with an irresponsible something about him which M. Fille + had reflected upon with concern. For this slim, eager, talkative, + half-invalid visitor to St. Saviour’s had of late shown a marked liking + for the presence and person of Zoe Barbille; and Zoe was as dear to M. + Fille as though she were his own daughter. He it was who, in sarcasm, had + spoken of this young stranger as “The Man from Outside.” + </p> + <p> + Ever since Zoe’s mother had vanished—alone—seven years before + from the Manor Cartier, or rather from his office at Vilray, M. Fille had + been as much like a maiden aunt or a very elder brother to the Spanische’s + daughter as a man could be. Of M. Fille’s influence over his daughter and + her love of his companionship, Jean Jacques had no jealousy whatever. Very + often indeed, when he felt incompetent to do for his child all that he + wished—philosophers are often stupid in human affairs—he + thought it was a blessing Zoe had a friend like M. Fille. Since the + terrible day when he found that his wife had gone from him—not with + the master-carpenter who only made his exit from Laplatte some years + afterwards—he had had no desire to have a woman at the Manor to fill + her place, even as housekeeper. He had never swerved from that. He had had + a hard row to hoe, but he had hoed it with a will not affected by domestic + accidents or inconveniences. The one woman from outside whom he permitted + to go and come at will—and she did not come often, because she and + M. Fille agreed it would be best not to do so—was the sister of the + Cure. To be sure there was Seraphe Corniche, the old cook, but she was + buried in her kitchen, and Jean Jacques treated her like a man. + </p> + <p> + When Zoe was confirmed, and had come back from Montreal, having spent two + years in a convent there—the only time she had been away from her + father in seven years—having had her education chiefly from a + Catholic “brother,” the situation developed in a new way. Zoe at once + became as conspicuous in the country-side as her father had been over so + many years. She was fresh, volatile, without affectation or pride, and had + a temperament responsive to every phase of life’s simple interests. She + took the attention of the young men a little bit as her due, but yet + without conceit. The gallants had come about her like bees, for there was + Jean Jacques’ many businesses and his reputation for wealth; and there was + her own charm, concerning which there could be far less doubt than about + Jean Jacques’ magnificent solvency. + </p> + <p> + Zoe had gone heart-whole and with no especial preference for any young + man, until the particular person came, the Man from Outside. + </p> + <p> + His name was Gerard Fynes, and his business was mumming. He was a young + lawyer turned actor, and he had lived in Montreal before he went on the + stage. He was English—that was a misfortune; he was an actor—that + was a greater misfortune, for it suggested vagabondage of morals as well + as of profession; and he was a Protestant, which was the greatest + misfortune of all. But he was only at St. Saviour’s for his convalescence + after a so-called attack of congestion of the lungs; and as he still had a + slight cough and looked none too robust, and as, more than all, he was + simple in his ways, enjoying the life of the parish with greater zest than + the residents, he found popularity. Undoubtedly he had a taking way with + him. He was lodging with Louis Charron, a small farmer and kinsman of Jean + Jacques, who sold whisky—“white whisky”—without a license. It + was a Charron family habit to sell liquor illegally, and Louis pursued the + career with all an amateur’s enthusiasm. He had a sovereign balm for + “colds,” composed of camomile flowers, boneset, liquorice, pennyroyal and + gentian root, which he sold to all comers; and it was not unnatural that a + visitor with weak lungs should lodge with him. + </p> + <p> + Louis and his wife had only good things to say about Gerard Fynes; for the + young man lived their life as though he was born to it. He ate the + slap-jacks, the buttermilk-pop, the pork and beans, the Indian corn on the + cob, the pea-soup, and the bread baked in the roadside oven, with a relish + which was not all pretence; for indeed he was as primitive as he was + subtle. He himself could not have told how much of him was true and how + much was make-believe. But he was certainly lovable, and he was not bad by + nature. Since coming to St. Saviour’s he had been constant to one + attraction, and he had not risked his chances with Zoe by response to the + shy invitations of dark eyes, young and not so young, which met his own + here and there in the parish. + </p> + <p> + Only M. Fille and Jean Jacques himself had feelings of real antagonism to + him. Jean Jacques, though not naturally suspicious, had, however, seen an + understanding look pass between his Zoe and this stranger—this + Protestant English stranger from the outer world, to which Jean Jacques + went less frequently since his fruitless search for his vanished Carmen. + The Clerk of the Court saw that Jean Jacques had observed the intimate + glances of the two young people, and their eyes met in understanding. It + was just before Zoe had sung so charmingly, ‘Oh, Who Will Walk the Wood + With Me’. + </p> + <p> + At first after Carmen’s going Jean Jacques had found it hard to endure + singing in his house. Zoe’s trilling was torture to him, though he had + never forbidden her to sing, and she had sung on to her heart’s content. + By a subtle instinct, however, and because of the unspoken sorrow in her + own heart, she never sang the songs like ‘La Manola’. Never after the day + Carmen went did Zoe speak of her mother to anyone at all. It was worse + than death; it was annihilation, so far as speech was concerned. The world + at large only knew that Carmen Barbille had run away, and that even + Sebastian Dolores her father did not know where she was. The old man had + not heard from her, and he seldom visited at the Manor Cartier or saw his + grand-daughter. His own career of late years had been marked by long + sojourns in Quebec, Montreal and even New York; yet he always came back to + St. Saviour’s when he was penniless, and was there started afresh by Jean + Jacques. Some said that Carmen had gone back to Spain, but others + discredited that, for, if she had done so, certainly old Sebastian Dolores + would have gone also. Others continued to insist that she had gone off + with a man; but there was George Masson at Laplatte living alone, and + never going twenty miles away from home, and he was the only person under + suspicion. Others again averred that since her flight Carmen had become a + loose woman in Montreal; but the New Cure came down on that with a blow + which no one was tempted to invite again. + </p> + <p> + M. Savry’s method of punishing was of a kind to make men shrink. If Carmen + Barbille had become a loose woman in Montreal, how did any member of his + flock know that it was the case? What company had he kept in Montreal that + he could say that? Did he see the woman—or did he hear about her? + And if he heard, what sort of company was he keeping when he went to + Montreal without his wife to hear such things? That was final, and the + slanderer was under a cloud for a time, by reason of the anger of his own + wife. It was about this time that the good priest preached from the text, + “Judge not that ye be not judged,” and said that there were only ten + commandments on the tables of stone; but that the ten included all the + commandments which the Church made for every man, and which every man, + knowing his own weakness, must also make for himself. + </p> + <p> + His flock understood, though they did refrain, every one, from looking + towards the place where Jean Jacques sat with Ma’m’selle—she was + always called that, as though she was a great lady; or else she was called + “the little Ma’m’selle Zoe,” even when she had grown almost as tall as her + mother had been. + </p> + <p> + Though no one looked towards the place where Jean Jacques and his daughter + sat when this sermon was preached, and although Zoe seemed not to + apprehend personal reference in the priest’s words, when she reached home, + after talking to her father about casual things all the way, she flew to + her room, and, locking the door, flung herself on her bed and cried till + her body felt as though it had been beaten by rods. Then she suddenly got + up and, from a drawer, took out two things—an old photograph of her + mother at the time of her marriage, and Carmen’s guitar, which she had + made her own on the day after the flight, and had kept hidden ever since. + She lay on the bed with her cheek pressed to the guitar, and her eyes + hungrily feeding on the face of a woman whose beauty belonged to spheres + other than where she had spent the thirteen years of her married life. + </p> + <p> + Zoe had understood more even at the time of the crisis than they thought + she did, child though she was; and as the years had gone on she had + grasped the meaning of it all more clearly perhaps than anyone at all + except her adored friends Judge Carcasson, at whose home she had visited + in Montreal, and M. Fille. + </p> + <p> + The thing last rumoured about her mother in the parish was that she had + become an actress. To this Zoe made no protest in her mind. It was better + than many other possibilities, and she fixed her mind on it, so saving + herself from other agonizing speculations. In a fixed imagination lay + safety. In her soul she knew that, no matter what happened, her mother + would never return to the Manor Cartier. + </p> + <p> + The years had not deepened confidence between father and daughter. A + shadow hung between them. They laughed and talked together, were even + boisterous in their fun sometimes, and yet in the eyes of both was the + forbidden thing—the deserted city into which they could not enter. + He could not speak to the child of the shame of her mother; she could not + speak of that in him which had contributed to that mother’s shame—the + neglect which existed to some degree in her own life with him. This was + chiefly so because his enterprises had grown to such a number and height, + that he seemed ever to be counting them, ever struggling to the height, + while none of his ventures ever reached that state of success when it “ran + itself”, although as years passed men called him rich, and he spent and + loaned money so freely that they called him the Money Master, or the Money + Man Wise, in deference to his philosophy. + </p> + <p> + Zoe was not beautiful, but there was a wondrous charm in her deep brown + eyes and in the expression of her pretty, if irregular, features. + Sometimes her face seemed as small as that of a young child, and alive + with eerie fancies; and always behind her laughter was something which got + into her eyes, giving them a haunting melancholy. She had no signs of + hysteria, though now and then there came heart-breaking little outbursts + of emotion which had this proof that they were not hysteria—they + were never seen by others. They were sacred to her own solitude. While in + Montreal she had tasted for the first time the joys of the theatre, and + had then secretly read numbers of plays, which she bought from an old + bookseller, who was wise enough to choose them for her. She became + possessed of a love for the stage even before Gerard Fynes came upon the + scene. The beginning of it all was the rumour that her mother was now an + actress; yet the root-cause was far down in a temperament responsive to + all artistic things. + </p> + <p> + The coming of the Man from Outside acted on the confined elements of her + nature like the shutter of a camera. It let in a world of light upon + unexplored places, it set free elements of being which had not before been + active. She had been instantly drawn to Gerard Fynes. He had the distance + from her own life which provoked interest, and in that distance was the + mother whom perhaps it was her duty to forget, yet for whom she had a + longing which grew greater as the years went on. + </p> + <p> + Gerard Fynes could talk well, and his vivid pictures of his short + play-acting career absorbed her; and all the time she was vigilant for + some name, for the description of some actress which would seem to be a + clue to the lost spirit of her life. This clue never came, but before she + gave up hope of it, the man had got nearer to her than any man had ever + done. + </p> + <p> + After meeting him she awoke to the fact that there was a difference + between men, that it was not the same thing to be young as to be old; that + the reason why she could kiss the old Judge and the little Clerk of the + Court, and not kiss, say, the young manager of the great lumber firm who + came every year for a fortnight’s fishing at St. Saviour’s, was one which + had an understandable cause and was not a mere matter of individual taste. + She had been good friends with this young manager, who was only thirty + years of age, and was married, but when he had wanted to kiss her on + saying good-bye one recent summer, she had said, “Oh, no, oh, no, that + would spoil it all!” Yet when he had asked her why, and what she meant, + she could not tell him. She did not know; but by the end of the first week + after Gerard Fynes had been brought to the Manor Cartier by Louis Charron, + she knew. + </p> + <p> + She had then been suddenly awakened from mere girlhood. Judge Carcasson + saw the difference in her on a half-hour’s visit as he passed westward, + and he had said to M. Fille, “Who is the man, my keeper of the treasure?” + The reply had been of such a sort that the Judge was startled: + </p> + <p> + “Tut, tut,” he had exclaimed, “an actor—an actor once a lawyer! + That’s serious. She’s at an age—and with a temperament like hers + she’ll believe anything, if once her affections are roused. She has a + flair for the romantic, for the thing that’s out of reach—the bird + on the highest branch, the bird in the sky beyond ours, the song that was + lost before time was, the light that never was on sea or land. Why, damn + it, damn it all, my Solon, here’s the beginning of a case in Court unless + we can lay the fellow by the heels! How long is he here for?” + </p> + <p> + When M. Fille had told him that he would stay for another month for + certain, and no doubt much longer, if there seemed a prospect of winning + the heiress of the Manor Cartier, the Judge gave a groan. + </p> + <p> + “We must get him away, somehow,” he said. “Where does he stay?” + </p> + <p> + “At the house of Louis Charron,” was the reply. “Louis Charron—isn’t + he the fellow that sells whisky without a license?” + </p> + <p> + “It is so, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge moved his head from side to side like a bear in a cage. “It is + that, is it, my Fille? By the thumb of the devil, isn’t it time then that + Louis Charron was arrested for breaking the law? Also how do we know but + that the interloping fellow Fynes is an agent for a whisky firm perhaps? + Couldn’t he, then, on suspicion, be arrested with—” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully. His Judge was surely + becoming childish in his old age. He looked again closely at the great + man, and saw a glimmer of moisture in the grey eyes. It was clear that + Judge Carcasson felt deeply the dangers of the crisis, and that the futile + outburst had merely been the agitated protest of the helpless. + </p> + <p> + “The man is what he says he is—an actor; and it would be folly to + arrest him. If our Zoe is really fond of him, it would only make a martyr + of him.” + </p> + <p> + As he made this reply M. Fille looked furtively at the other—out of + the corner of his eye, as it were. The reply of the Judge was impatient, + almost peevish and rough. “Did you think I was in earnest, my punchinello? + Surely I don’t look so young as all that. I am over sixty-five, and am + therefore mentally developed!” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille was exactly sixty-five years of age, and the blow was a shrewd + one. He drew himself up with rigid dignity. + </p> + <p> + “You must feel sorry sometimes for those who suffered when your mind was + undeveloped, monsieur,” he answered. “You were a judge at forty-nine, and + you defended poor prisoners for twenty years before that.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge was conquered, and he was never the man to pretend he was not + beaten when he was. He admired skill too much for that. He squeezed M. + Fille’s arm and said: + </p> + <p> + “I’ve been quick with my tongue myself, but I feel sure now, that it’s + through long and close association with my Clerk of the Court.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, monsieur, you are so difficult to understand!” was the reply. “I have + known you all these years, and yet—” + </p> + <p> + “And yet you did not know how much of the woman there was in me!... But + yes, it is that. It is that which I fear with our Zoe. Women break out—they + break out, and then there is the devil to pay. Look at her mother. She + broke out. It was not inevitable. It was the curse of opportunity, the + wrong thing popping up to drive her mad at the wrong moment. Had the wrong + thing come at the right time for her, when she was quite sane, she would + be yonder now with our philosopher. Perhaps she would not be contented if + she were there, but she would be there; and as time goes on, to be where + we were in all things which concern the affections, that is the great + matter.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, yes, ah, yes,” was the bright-eyed reply of that Clerk, “there is no + doubt of that! My sister and I there, we are fifty years together, never + with the wrong thing at the wrong time, always the thing as it was, always + to be where we were.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge shook his head. “There is an eternity of difference, Fille, + between the sister and brother and the husband and wife. The sacredness of + isolation is the thing which holds the brother and sister together. The + familiarity of—but never mind what it is that so often forces + husband and wife apart. It is there, and it breaks out in rebellion as it + did with the wife of Jean Jacques Barbille. As she was a strong woman in + her way, it spoiled her life, and his too when it broke out.” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille’s face lighted with memory and feeling. “Ah, a woman of powerful + emotions, monsieur, that is so! I think I never told you, but at the last, + in my office, when she went, she struck George Masson in the face. It was + a blow that—but there it was; I have never liked to think of it. + When I do, I shudder. She was a woman who might have been in other + circumstances—but there!” + </p> + <p> + The Judge suddenly stopped in his walk and faced round on his friend. “Did + you ever know, my Solon,” he said, “that it was not Jean Jacques who saved + Carmen at the wreck of the Antoine, but it was she who saved him; and yet + she never breathed of it in all the years. One who was saved from the + Antoine told me of it. Jean Jacques was going down. Carmen gave him her + piece of wreckage to hang on to, and swam ashore without help. He never + gave her the credit. There was something big in the woman, but it did not + come out right.” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille threw up his hands. “Grace de Dieu, is it so that she saved Jean + Jacques? Then he would not be here if it had not been for her?” + </p> + <p> + “That is the obvious deduction, Maitre Fille,” replied the Judge. + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court seemed moved. “He did not treat her ill. I know + that he would take her back to-morrow if he could. He has never forgotten. + I saw him weeping one day—it was where she used to sing to the + flax-beaters by the Beau Cheval. I put my hand on his shoulder, and said, + ‘I know, I comprehend; but be a philosopher, Jean Jacques.’” + </p> + <p> + “What did he say?” asked the Judge. + </p> + <p> + “He drew himself up. ‘In my mind, in my soul, I am philosopher always,’ he + said, ‘but my eyes are the windows of my heart, m’sieu’. They look out and + see the sorrow of one I loved. It is for her sorrow that I weep, not for + my own. I have my child, I have money; the world says to me, “How goes it, + my friend?” I have a home—a home; but where is she, and what does + the world say to her?’” + </p> + <p> + The Judge shook his head sadly. “I used to think I knew life, but I come + to the belief in the end that I know nothing. Who could have guessed that + he would have spoken like that!” + </p> + <p> + “He forgave her, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge nodded mournfully. “Yes, yes, but I used to think it is such men + who forgive one day and kill the next. You never can tell where they will + explode, philosophy or no philosophy.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge was right. After all the years that had passed since his wife + had left him, Jean Jacques did explode. It was the night of his birthday + party at which was present the Man from Outside. It was in the hour when + he first saw what the Clerk of the Court had seen some time before—the + understanding between Zoe and Gerard Fynes. It had never occurred to him + that there was any danger. Zoe had been so indifferent to the young men of + St. Saviour’s and beyond, had always been so much his friend and the + friend of those much older than himself, like Judge Carcasson and M. + Fille, that he had not yet thought of her electing to go and leave him + alone. + </p> + <p> + To leave him alone! To be left alone—it had never become a + possibility to his mind. It did not break upon him with its full force all + at once. He first got the glimmer of it, then the glimmer grew to a glow, + and the glow to a great red light, in which his brain became drunk, and + all his philosophy was burned up like wood-shavings in a fiery furnace. + </p> + <p> + “Did you like it so much?” Zoe had asked when her song was finished, and + the Man from Outside had replied, “Ah, but splendid, splendid! It got into + every corner of every one of us.” + </p> + <p> + “Into the senses—why not into the heart? Songs are meant for the + heart,” said Zoe. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes, certainly,” was the young man’s reply, “but it depends upon the + song whether it touches the heart more than the senses. Won’t you sing + that perfect thing, ‘La Claire Fontaine’?” he added, with eyes as bright + as passion and the hectic fires of his lung-trouble could make them. + </p> + <p> + She nodded and was about to sing, for she loved the song, and it had been + ringing in her head all day; but at that point M. Fille rose, and with his + glass raised high—for at that moment Seraphe Corniche and another + carried round native wine and cider to the company—he said: + </p> + <p> + “To Monsieur Jean Jacques Barbille, and his fifty years, good health—bonne + sante! This is his birthday. To a hundred years for Jean Jacques!” + </p> + <p> + Instantly everyone was up with glass raised, and Zoe ran and threw her + arms round her father’s neck. “Kiss me before you drink,” she said. + </p> + <p> + With a touch almost solemn in its tenderness Jean Jacques drew her head to + his shoulder and kissed her hair, then her forehead. “My blessed one—my + angel,” he whispered; but there was a look in his eyes which only M. Fille + had seen there before. It was the look which had been in his eyes at the + flax-beaters’ place by the river. + </p> + <p> + “Sing—father, you must sing,” said Zoe, and motioned to the fiddler. + “Sing It’s Fifty Years,” she cried eagerly. They all repeated her request, + and he could but obey. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques’ voice was rather rough, but he had some fine resonant notes + in it, and presently, with eyes fastened on the distance, and with free + gesture and much expression, he sang the first verse of the haunting + ballad of the man who had reached his fifty years: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Wherefore these flowers? + This fete for me? + Ah, no, it is not fifty years, + Since in my eyes the light you see + First shone upon life’s joys and tears! + How fast the heedless days have flown + Too late to wail the misspent hours, + To mourn the vanished friends I’ve known, + To kneel beside love’s ruined bowers. + Ah, have I then seen fifty years, + With all their joys and hopes and fears!” + </pre> + <p> + Through all the verses he ranged, his voice improving with each phrase, + growing more resonant, till at last it rang out with a ragged richness + which went home to the hearts of all. He was possessed. All at once he was + conscious that the beginning of the end of things was come for him; and + that now, at fifty, in no sphere had he absolutely “arrived,” neither in + home nor fortune, nor—but yes, there was one sphere of success; + there was his fatherhood. There was his daughter, his wonderful Zoe. He + drew his eyes from the distance, and saw that her ardent look was not + towards him, but towards one whom she had known but a few weeks. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a verse, and broke forward with his + arms outstretched, laughing. He felt that he must laugh, or he would cry; + and that would be a humiliating thing to do. + </p> + <p> + “Come, come, my friends, my children, enough of that!” he cried. “We’ll + have no more maundering. Fifty years—what are fifty years! Think of + Methuselah! It’s summer in the world still, and it’s only spring at St. + Saviour’s. It’s the time of the first flowers. Let’s dance—no, no, + never mind the Cure to-night! He will not mind. I’ll settle it with him. + We’ll dance the gay quadrille.” + </p> + <p> + He caught the hands of the two youngest girls present, and nodded at the + fiddler, who at once began to tune his violin afresh. One of the joyous + young girls, however, began to plead with him. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, no, let us dance, but at the last—not yet, M’sieu’ Jean + Jacques! There is Zoe’s song, we must have that, and then we must have + charades. Here is M’sieu’ Fynes—he can make splendid charades for + us. Then the dance at the last—ah, yes, yes, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques! + Let it be like that. We all planned it, and though it is your birthday, + it’s us are making the fete.” + </p> + <p> + “As you will then, as you will, little ones,” Jean Jacques acquiesced with + a half-sigh; but he did not look at his daughter. Somehow, suddenly, a + strange constraint possessed him where Zoe was concerned. “Then let us + have Zoe’s song; let us have ‘La Claire Fontaine’,” cried the black-eyed + young madcap who held Jean Jacques’ arms. + </p> + <p> + But Zoe interrupted. “No, no,” she protested, “the singing spell is + broken. We will have the song after the charades—after the + charades.” + </p> + <p> + “Good, good—after the charades!” they all cried, for there would be + charades like none which had ever been played before, with a real actor to + help them, to carry them through as they did on the stage. To them the + stage was compounded of mystery, gaiety and the forbidden. + </p> + <p> + So, for the next half-hour they were all at the disposal of the Man from + Outside, who worked as though it was a real stage, and they were real + players, and there were great audiences to see them. It was all quite + wonderful, and it involved certain posings, attitudes, mimicry and + pantomime, for they were really ingenious charades. + </p> + <p> + So it happened that Zoe’s fingers often came in touch with those of the + stage-manager, that his hands touched her shoulders, that his cheek + brushed against her dark hair once, and that she had sensations never + experienced before. Why was it that she thrilled when she came near to + him, that her whole body throbbed and her heart fluttered when their + shoulders or arms touched? Her childlike nature, with all its warmth and + vibration of life, had never till now felt the stir of sex in its vital + sense. All men had in one way been the same to her; but now she realized + that there was a world-wide difference between her Judge Carcasson, her + little Clerk of the Court, and this young man whose eyes drank hers. She + had often been excited, even wildly agitated, had been like a sprite let + loose in quiet ways; but that was mere spirit. Here was body and senses + too; here was her whole being alive to a music, which had an aching + sweetness and a harmony coaxing every sense into delight. + </p> + <p> + “To-morrow evening, by the flume, where the beechtrees are—come—at + six. I want to speak with you. Will you come?” + </p> + <p> + Thus whispered the maker of this music of the senses, who directed the + charades, but who was also directing the course of another life than his + own. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, if I can,” was Zoe’s whispered reply, and the words shook as she + said them; for she felt that their meeting in the beech-trees by the flume + would be of consequence beyond imagination. + </p> + <p> + Judge Carcasson had always said that Zoe had judgment beyond her years; M. + Fille had remarked often that she had both prudence and shrewdness as well + as a sympathetic spirit; but M. Fille’s little whispering sister, who + could never be tempted away from her home to any house, to whom the market + and the church were like pilgrimages to distant wilds, had said to her + brother: + </p> + <p> + “Wait, Armand—wait till Zoe is waked, and then prudence and wisdom + will be but accident. If all goes well, you will see prudence and wisdom; + but if it does not, you will see—ah, but just Zoe!” + </p> + <p> + The now alert Jean Jacques had seen the whispering of the two, though he + did not know what had been said. It was, however, something secret, and if + it was secret, then it was—yes, it was love; and love between his + daughter and that waif of the world—the world of the stage—in + which men and women were only grown-up children, and bad grown-up children + at that—it was not to be endured. One thing was sure, the man should + come to the Manor Cartier no more. He would see to that to-morrow. There + would be no faltering or paltering on his part. His home had been shaken + to its foundations once, and he was determined that it should not fall + about his ears a second time. An Englishman, an actor, a Protestant, and a + renegade lawyer! It was not to be endured. + </p> + <p> + The charade now being played was the best of the evening. One of the + madcap friends of Zoe was to be a singing-girl. She was supposed to carry + a tambourine. When her turn to enter came, with a look of mischief and a + gay dancing step, she ran into the room. In her hands was a guitar, not a + tambourine. When Zoe saw the guitar she gave a cry. + </p> + <p> + “Where did you get that?” she asked in a low, shocked, indignant voice. + </p> + <p> + “In your room—your bedroom,” was the half-frightened answer. “I saw + it on the dresser, and I took it.” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come, let’s get on with the charade,” urged the Man from Outside. + </p> + <p> + On the instant’s pause, in which Zoe looked at her lover almost + involuntarily, and without fully understanding what he said, someone else + started forward with a smothered exclamation—of anger, of horror, of + dismay. It was Jean Jacques. He was suddenly transformed. + </p> + <p> + His eyes were darkened by hideous memory, his face alight with passion. He + caught from the girl’s hands the guitar—Carmen’s forgotten guitar + which he had not seen for seven years—how well he knew it! With both + hands he broke it across his knee. The strings, as they snapped, gave a + shrill, wailing cry, like a voice stopped suddenly by death. Stepping + jerkily to the fireplace he thrust it into the flame. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, there!” he said savagely. “There—there!” When he turned round + slowly again, his face—which he had never sought to control before + he had his great Accident seven years ago—was under his command. A + strange, ironic-almost sardonic-smile was on his lips. + </p> + <p> + “It’s in the play,” he said. + </p> + <p> + “No, it’s not in the charade, Monsieur Barbille,” said the Man from + Outside fretfully. + </p> + <p> + “That is the way I read it, m’sieu’,” retorted Jean Jacques, and he made a + motion to the fiddler. + </p> + <p> + “The dance! The dance!” he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + But yet he looked little like a man who wished to dance, save upon a + grave. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV. “I DO NOT WANT TO GO” + </h2> + <p> + It is a bad thing to call down a crisis in the night-time. A “scene” at + midnight is a savage enemy of ultimate understanding, and that Devil, + called Estrangement, laughs as he observes the objects of his attention in + conflict when the midnight candle burns. + </p> + <p> + He should have been seized with a fit of remorse, however, at the sight he + saw in the Manor Cartier at midnight of the day when Jean Jacques Barbille + had reached his fiftieth year. There is nothing which, for pathos and for + tragedy, can compare with a struggle between the young and the old. + </p> + <p> + The Devil of Estrangement when he sees it, may go away and indulge himself + in sleep; for there will be no sleep for those who, one young and the + other old, break their hearts on each other’s anvils, when the lights are + low and it is long till morning. + </p> + <p> + When Jean Jacques had broken the forgotten guitar which his daughter had + retrieved from her mother’s life at the Manor Cartier (all else he had had + packed and stored away in the flour-mill out of sight) and thrown it in + the fire, there had begun a revolt in the girl’s heart, founded on a sense + of injustice, but which itself became injustice also; and that is a dark + thing to come between those who love—even as parent and child. + </p> + <p> + After her first exclamation of dismay and pain, Zoe had regained her + composure, and during the rest of the evening she was full of feverish + gaiety. Indeed her spirits and playful hospitality made the evening a + success in spite of the skeleton at the feast. Jean Jacques had also + roused himself, and, when the dance began, he joined in with spirit, + though his face was worn and haggard even when lighted by his smile. But + though the evening came to the conventional height of hilarity, there was + a note running through it which made even the youngest look at each other, + as though to say, “Now, what’s going to happen next!” + </p> + <p> + Three people at any rate knew that something was going to happen. They + were Zoe, the Man from Outside and M. Fille. Zoe had had more than one + revelation that night, and she felt again as she did one day, seven years + before, when, coming home from over the hills, she had stepped into a + house where Horror brooded as palpably as though it sat beside the fire, + or hung above the family table. She had felt something as soon as she had + entered the door that far-off day, though the house seemed empty. It was + an emptiness which was filled with a torturing presence or torturing + presenes. It had stilled her young heart. What was it? She had learned the + truth soon enough. Out of the sunset had come her father with a face + twisted with misery, and as she ran to him, he had caught her by both + shoulders, looked through her eyes to something far beyond, and hoarsely + said: “She is gone—gone from us! She has run away from home! Curse + her baptism—curse it, curse it!” + </p> + <p> + Zoe could never forget these last words she had ever heard her father + speak of Carmen. They were words which would make any Catholic shudder to + hear. It was a pity he had used them, for they made her think at last that + her mother had been treated with injustice. This, in spite of the fact + that in the days, now so far away, when her mother was with them she had + ever been nearer to her father, and that, after first childhood, she and + her mother were not so close as they had been, when she went to sleep to + the humming of a chanson of Cadiz. Her own latent motherhood, however, + kept stealing up out of the dim distances of childhood’s ignorance and, + with modesty and allusiveness, whispering knowledge in her ear. So it was + that now she looked back pensively to the years she had spent within sight + and sound of her handsome mother, and out of the hunger of her own spirit + she had come to idealize her memory. It was good to have a loving father; + but he was a man, and he was so busy just when she wanted—when she + wanted she knew not what, but at least to go and lay her head on a heart + that would understand what was her sorrow, her joy, or her longing. + </p> + <p> + And now here at last was come Crisis, which showed its thunderous head in + the gay dance, and shook his war-locks in the fire, where her mother’s + guitar had shrieked in its last agony. + </p> + <p> + When all the guests had gone, when the bolts had been shot home, and old + Seraphe Corniche had gone to bed, father and daughter came face to face. + </p> + <p> + There was a moment’s pause, as the two looked at each other, and then Zoe + came up to Jean Jacques to kiss him good-night. It was her way of facing + the issue. Instinctively she knew that he would draw back, and that the + struggle would begin. It might almost seem that she had invited it; for + she had let the Man from Outside hold her hand for far longer than + courtesy required, while her father looked on with fretful eyes—even + with a murmuring which was not a benediction. Indeed, he had evaded + shaking hands with his hated visitor by suddenly offering him a cigar, and + then in the doorway itself handing a lighted match. + </p> + <p> + “His eminence, Cardinal Christophe, gave these cigars to me when he passed + through St. Saviour’s five years ago,” Jean Jacques had remarked loftily, + “and I always smoke one on my birthday. I am a good Catholic, and his + eminence rested here for a whole day.” + </p> + <p> + He had had a grim pleasure in avoiding the handshake, and in having the + Protestant outsider smoke the Catholic cigar! In his anger it seemed to + him that he had done something worthy almost of the Vatican, indeed of the + great Cardinal Christophe himself. Even in his moments of crisis, in his + hours of real tragedy, in the times when he was shaken to the centre, Jean + Jacques fancied himself more than a little. It was as the master-carpenter + had remarked seven years before, he was always involuntarily saying, “Here + I come—look at me. I am Jean Jacques Barbille!” + </p> + <p> + When Zoe reached out a hand to touch his arm, and raised her face as + though to kiss him good-night, Jean Jacques drew back. + </p> + <p> + “Not yet, Zoe,” he said. “There are some things—What is all this + between you and that man?... I have seen. You must not forget who you are—the + daughter of Jean Jacques Barbille, of the Manor Cartier, whose name is + known in the whole province, who was asked to stand for the legislature. + You are Zoe Barbille—Mademoiselle Zoe Barbille. We do not put on + airs. We are kind to our neighbours, but I am descended from the Baron of + Beaugard. I have a place—yes, a place in society; and it is for you + to respect it. You comprehend?” + </p> + <p> + Zoe flushed, but there was no hesitation whatever in her reply. “I am what + I have always been, and it is not my fault that I am the daughter of M. + Jean Jacques Barbille! I have never done anything which was not good + enough for the Manor Cartier.” She held her head firmly as she said it. + </p> + <p> + Now Jean Jacques flushed, and he did hesitate in his reply. He hated irony + in anyone else, though he loved it in himself, when heaven gave him + inspiration thereto. He was in a state of tension, and was ready to break + out, to be a force let loose—that is the way he would have expressed + it; and he was faced by a new spirit in his daughter which would surely + spring the mine, unless he secured peace by strategy. He had sense enough + to feel the danger. + </p> + <p> + He did not see, however, any course for diplomacy here, for she had given + him his cue in her last words. As a pure logician he was bound to take it, + though it might lead to drama of a kind painful to them both. + </p> + <p> + “It is not good enough for the Manor Cartier that you go falling in love + with a nobody from nowhere,” he responded. + </p> + <p> + “I am not falling in love,” she rejoined. + </p> + <p> + “What did you mean, then, by looking at him as you did; by whispering + together; by letting him hold your hand when he left, and him looking at + you as though he’d eat you up—without sugar!” + </p> + <p> + “I said I was not falling in love,” she persisted, quietly, but with + characteristic boldness. “I am in love.” + </p> + <p> + “You are in love with him—with that interloper! Heaven of heavens, + do you speak the truth? Answer me, Zoe Barbille.” + </p> + <p> + She bridled. “Certainly I will answer. Did you think I would let a man + look at me as he did, that I would look at a man as I looked at him, that + I would let him hold my hand as I did, if I did not love him? Have you + ever seen me do it before?” + </p> + <p> + Her voice was even and quiet—as though she had made up her mind on a + course, and meant to carry it through to the end. + </p> + <p> + “No, I never saw you look at a man like that, and everything is as you + say, but—” his voice suddenly became uneven and higher—pitched + and a little hoarse, “but he is English, he is an actor—only that; + and he is a Protestant.” + </p> + <p> + “Only that?” she asked, for the tone of his voice was such as one would + use in speaking of a toad or vermin, and she could not bear it. “Is it a + disgrace to be any one of those things?” + </p> + <p> + “The Barbilles have been here for two hundred years; they have been French + Catholics since the time of”—he was not quite sure—“since the + time of Louis XI.,” he added at a venture, and then paused, overcome by + his own rashness. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that is a long time,” she said, “but what difference does it make? + We are just what we are now, and as if there never had been a Baron of + Beaugard. What is there against Gerard except that he is an actor, that he + is English, and that he is a Protestant? Is there anything?” + </p> + <p> + “Sacre, is it not enough? An actor, what is that—to pretend to be + someone else and not to be yourself!” + </p> + <p> + “It would be better for a great many people to be someone else rather than + themselves—for nothing; and he does it for money.” + </p> + <p> + “For money! What money has he got? You don’t know. None of us know. + Besides, he’s a Protestant, and he’s English, and that ends it. There + never has been an Englishman or a Protestant in the Barbille family, and + it shan’t begin at the Manor Cartier.” Jean Jacques’ voice was rising in + proportion as he perceived her quiet determination. Here was something of + the woman who had left him seven years ago—left this comfortable + home of his to go to disgrace and exile, and God only knew what else! Here + in this very room—yes, here where they now were, father and + daughter, stood husband and wife that morning when he had his hand on the + lever prepared to destroy the man who had invaded his home; who had cast a + blight upon it, which remained after all the years; after he had done all + a man could do to keep the home and the woman too. The woman had gone; the + home remained with his daughter in it, and now again there was a fight for + home and the woman. Memory reproduced the picture of the mother standing + just where the daughter now stood, Carmen quiet and well in hand, and + himself all shaken with weakness, and with all power gone out of him—even + the power which rage and a murderous soul give. + </p> + <p> + But yet this was different. There was no such shame here as had fallen on + him seven years ago. But there was a shame after its kind; and if it were + not averted, there was the end of the home, of the prestige, the pride and + the hope of “M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, philosophe.” + </p> + <p> + “What shall not begin here at the Manor Cartier?” she asked with burning + cheek. + </p> + <p> + “The shame—it shall not begin here.” + </p> + <p> + “What shame, father?” + </p> + <p> + “Of marriage with a Protestant and an actor.” + </p> + <p> + “You will not let me marry him?” she persisted stubbornly. + </p> + <p> + Her words seemed to shake him all to pieces. It was as though he was going + through the older tragedy all over again. It had possessed him ever since + the sight of Carmen’s guitar had driven him mad three hours ago. He swayed + to and fro, even as he did when his hand left the lever and he let the + master-carpenter go free. It was indeed a philosopher under torture, a + spirit rocking on its anchor. Just now she had put into words herself + what, even in his fear, he had hoped had no place in her mind—marriage + with the man. He did not know this daughter of his very well. There was + that in her which was far beyond his ken. Thousands of miles away in Spain + it had origin, and the stream of tendency came down through long + generations, by courses unknown to him. + </p> + <p> + “Marry him—you want to marry him!” he gasped. “You, my Zoe, want to + marry that tramp of a Protestant!” + </p> + <p> + Her eyes blazed in anger. Tramp—the man with the air of a young + Alexander, with a voice like the low notes of the guitar thrown to the + flames! Tramp! + </p> + <p> + “If I love him I ought to marry him,” she answered with a kind of + calmness, however, though all her body was quivering. Suddenly she came + close to her father, a great sympathy welled up in her eyes, and her voice + shook. + </p> + <p> + “I do not want to leave you, father, and I never meant to do so. I never + thought of it as possible; but now it is different. I want to stay with + you; but I want to go with him too.” + </p> + <p> + Presently as she seemed to weaken before him, he hardened. “You can’t have + both,” he declared with as much sternness as was possible to him, and with + a Norman wilfulness which was not strength. “You shall not marry an actor + and a Protestant. You shall not marry a man like that—never—never—never. + If you do, you will never have a penny of mine, and I will never—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, hush—Mother of Heaven, hush!” she cried. “You shall not put a + curse on me too.” + </p> + <p> + “What curse?” he burst forth, passion shaking him. “You cursed my mother’s + baptism. It would be a curse to be told that you would see me no more, + that I should be no more part of this home. There has been enough of that + curse here.... Ah, why—why—” she added with a sudden rush of + indignation, “why did you destroy the only thing I had of hers? It was all + that was left—her guitar. I loved it so.” + </p> + <p> + All at once, with a cry of pain, she turned and ran to the door—entering + on the staircase which led to her room. In the doorway she turned. + </p> + <p> + “I can’t help it. I can’t help it, father. I love him—but I love you + too,” she cried. “I don’t want to go—oh, I don’t want to go! Why do + you—?” her voice choked; she did not finish the sentence; or if she + did, he could not hear. + </p> + <p> + Then she opened the door wide, and disappeared into the darkness of the + unlighted stairway, murmuring, “Pity—have pity on me, holy Mother, + Vierge Marie!” Then the door closed behind her almost with a bang. + </p> + <p> + After a moment of stupefied inaction Jean Jacques hurried over and threw + open the door she had closed. “Zoe—little Zoe, come back and say + good-night,” he called. But she did not hear, for, with a burst of crying, + she had hurried into her own room and shut and locked the door. + </p> + <p> + It was a pity, a measureless pity, as Mary the Mother must have seen, if + she could see mortal life at all, that Zoe did not hear him. It might have + altered the future. As it was, the Devil of Estrangement might well be + content with his night’s work. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV. BON MARCHE + </h2> + <p> + Vilray was having its market day, and everyone was either going to or + coming from market, or buying and selling in the little square by the + Court House. It was the time when the fruits were coming in, when + vegetables were in full yield, when fish from the Beau Cheval were to be + had in plenty—from mud-cats and suckers, pike and perch, to + rock-bass, sturgeon and even maskinonge. Also it was the time of year when + butter and eggs, chickens and ducks were so cheap that it was a + humiliation not to buy. There were other things on sale also, not for + eating and drinking, but for wear and household use—from pots and + pans to rag-carpets and table-linen, from woollen yarn to pictures of the + Virgin and little calvaries. + </p> + <p> + These were side by side with dried apples, bottled fruits, jars of maple + syrup, and cordials of so generous and penetrating a nature that the + currant and elderberry wine by which they were flanked were tipple for + babes beside them. Indeed, when a man wanted to forget himself quickly he + drank one of these cordials, in preference to the white whisky so commonly + imbibed in the parishes. But the cordials being expensive, they were + chiefly bought for festive occasions like a wedding, a funeral, a + confirmation, or the going away of some young man or young woman to the + monastery or the convent to forget the world. Meanwhile, if these + spiritual argonauts drank it, they were likely to forget the world on the + way to their voluntary prisons. It was very seldom that a man or woman + bought the cordials for ordinary consumption, and when that was done, it + would almost make a parish talk! Yet cordials of nice brown, of delicate + green, of an enticing yellow colour, were here for sale at Vilray market + on the morning after the painful scene at the Manor Cartier between Zoe + and her father. + </p> + <p> + The market-place was full—fuller than it had been for many a day. A + great many people were come in as much to “make fete” as to buy and sell. + It was a saint’s day, and the bell of St. Monica’s had been ringing away + cheerfully twice that morning. To it the bell of the Court House had made + reply, for a big case was being tried in the court. It was a river-driving + and lumber case for which many witnesses had been called; and there were + all kinds of stray people in the place—red-shirted river-drivers, a + black-coated Methodist minister from Chalfonte, clerks from lumber-firms, + and foremen of lumber-yards; and among these was one who greatly loved + such a day as this when he could be free from work, and celebrate himself! + </p> + <p> + Other people might celebrate saints dead and gone, and drink to ‘La + Patrie’, and cry “Vive Napoleon!” or “Vive la Republique!” or “Vive la + Reine!” though this last toast of the Empire was none too common—but + he could only drink with real sincerity to the health of Sebastian + Dolores, which was himself. Sebastian Dolores was the pure anarchist, the + most complete of monomaniacs. + </p> + <p> + “Here comes the father of the Spanische,” remarked Mere Langlois, who + presided over a heap of household necessities, chiefly dried fruits, + preserves and pickles, as Sebastian Dolores appeared not far away. + </p> + <p> + “Good-for-nothing villain! I pity the poor priest that confesses him.” + </p> + <p> + “Who is the Spanische?” asked a young woman from her own stall or stand + very near, as she involuntarily arranged her hair and adjusted her + waist-belt; for the rakish-looking reprobate, with the air of having been + somewhere, was making towards them; and she was young enough to care how + she looked when a man, who took notice, was near. Her own husband had been + a horse-doctor, farmer, and sportsman of a kind, and she herself was now a + farmer of a kind; and she had only resided in the parish during the three + years since she had been married to, and buried, Palass Poucette. + </p> + <p> + Old Mere Langlois looked at her companion in merchanting irritably, then + she remembered that Virginie Poucette was a stranger, in a way, and was + therefore deserving of pity, and she said with compassionate patronage: + “Newcomer you—I’d forgotten. Look you then, the Spanische was the + wife of my third cousin, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, and—” + </p> + <p> + Virginie Poucette nodded, and the slight frown cleared from her low yet + shapely forehead. “Yes, yes, of course I know. I’ve heard enough. What a + fool she was, and M’sieu’ Jean Jacques so rich and kind and good-looking! + So this is her father—well, well, well!” + </p> + <p> + Palass Poucette’s widow leaned forward, and looked intently at Sebastian + Dolores, who had stopped near by, and facing a couple of barrels on which + were exposed some bottles of cordial and home-made wine. He was addressing + himself with cheerful words to the dame that owned the merchandise. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose you think it’s a pity Jean Jacques can’t get a divorce,” said + Mere Langlois, rather spitefully to Virginie, for she had her sex’s + aversion to widows who had had their share of mankind, and were afterwards + free to have someone else’s share as well. But suddenly repenting, for + Virginie was a hard-working widow who had behaved very well for an + outsider—having come from Chalfonte beyond the Beau Chevalshe added: + “But if he was a Protestant and could get a divorce, and you did marry + him, you’d make him have more sense than he’s got; for you’ve a quiet + sensible way, and you’ve worked hard since Palass Poucette died.” + </p> + <p> + “Where doesn’t he show sense, that M’sieu’ Jean Jacques?” the younger + woman asked. + </p> + <p> + “Where? Why, with his girl—with Ma’m’selle.” “Everybody I ever heard + speaks well of Ma’m’selle Zoe,” returned the other warmly, for she had a + very generous mind and a truthful, sentimental heart. Mere Langlois + sniffed, and put her hands on her hips, for she had a daughter of her own; + also she was a relation of Jean Jacques, and therefore resented in one way + the difference in their social position, while yet she plumed herself on + being kin. + </p> + <p> + “Then you’ll learn something now you never knew before,” she said. “She’s + been carrying on—there’s no other word for it—with an actor + fellow—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes, I did hear about him—a Protestant and an Englishman.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then, why do you pretend you don’t know—only to hear me talk, + is it? Take my word, I’d teach cousin Zoe a lesson with all her education + and her two years at the convent. Wasn’t it enough that her mother should + spoil everything for Jean Jacques, and make the Manor Cartier a place to + point the finger at, without her bringing disgrace on the parish too! What + happened last night—didn’t I hear this morning before I had my + breakfast! Didn’t I—” + </p> + <p> + She then proceeded to describe the scene in which Jean Jacques had thrown + the wrecked guitar of his vanished spouse into the fire. Before she had + finished, however, something occurred which swept them into another act of + the famous history of Jean Jacques Barbille and his house. + </p> + <p> + She had arrived at the point where Zoe had cried aloud in pain at her + father’s incendiary act, when there was a great stir at the Court House + door which opened on the market-place, and vagrant cheers arose. These + were presently followed by a more disciplined fusillade; which presently, + in turn, was met by hisses and some raucous cries of resentment. These + increased as a man appeared on the steps of the Court House, looked round + for a moment in a dazed kind of way, then seeing some friends below who + were swarming towards him, gave a ribald cry, and scrambled down the steps + towards them. + </p> + <p> + He was the prisoner whose release had suddenly been secured by a piece of + evidence which had come as a thunder-clap on judge and jury. Immediately + after giving this remarkable evidence the witness—Sebastian Dolores—had + left the court-room. He was now engaged in buying cordials in the + market-place—in buying and drinking them; for he had pulled the cork + out of a bottle filled with a rich yellow liquid, and had drained half the + bottle at a gulp. Presently he offered the remainder to a passing carter, + who made a gesture of contempt and passed on, for, to him, white whisky + was the only drink worth while. Besides, he disliked Sebastian Dolores. + Then, with a flourish, the Spaniard tendered the bottle to Madame Langlois + and Palass Poucette’s widow, at whose corner of merchandise he had now + arrived. + </p> + <p> + Surely there never was a more benign villain and perjurer in the world + than Sebastian Dolores! His evidence, given a half-hour before, with every + sign of truthfulness, was false. The man—Rocque Valescure—for + whom he gave it was no friend of his; but he owned a tavern called “The + Red Eagle,” a few miles from the works where the Spaniard was employed; + also Rocque Valescure’s wife set a good table, and Sebastian Dolores was a + very liberal feeder; when he was not hungry he was always thirsty. The + appeasement of hunger and thirst was now become a problem to him, for his + employers at Beauharnais had given him a month’s notice because of certain + irregularities which had come to their knowledge. Like a wise man + Sebastian Dolores had said nothing about this abroad, but had enlarged his + credit in every direction, and had then planned this piece of friendly + perjury for Rocque Valescure, who was now descending the steps of the + Court House to the arms of his friends and amid the execrations of his + foes. What the alleged crime was does not matter. It has no vital + significance in the history of Jean Jacques Barbille, though it has its + place as a swivel on which the future swung. + </p> + <p> + Sebastian Dolores had saved Rocque Valescure from at least three years in + jail, and possibly a very heavy fine as well; and this service must have + its due reward. Something for nothing was not the motto of Sebastian + Dolores; and he confidently looked forward to having a home at “The Red + Eagle” and a banker in its landlord. He was no longer certain that he + could rely on help from Jean Jacques, to whom he already owed so much. + That was why he wanted to make Rocque Valescure his debtor. It was not his + way to perjure his soul for nothing. He had done so in Spain—yet not + for nothing either. He had saved his head, which was now doing useful work + for himself and for a needy fellow-creature. No one could doubt that he + had helped a neighbour in great need, and had done it at some expense to + his own nerve and brain. None but an expert could have lied as he had done + in the witness-box. Also he had upheld his lies with a striking narrative + of circumstantiality. He made things fit in “like mortised blocks” as the + Clerk of the Court said to Judge Carcasson, when they discussed the infamy + afterwards with clear conviction that it was perjury of a shameless kind; + for one who would perjure himself to save a man from jail, would also + swear a man into the gallows-rope. But Judge Carcasson had not been able + to charge the jury in that sense, for there was no effective evidence to + rebut the untruthful attestation of the Spaniard. It had to be taken for + what it was worth, since the prosecuting attorney could not shake it; and + yet to the Court itself it was manifestly false witness. + </p> + <p> + Sebastian Dolores was too wise to throw himself into the arms of his + released tavern-keeper here immediately after the trial, or to allow + Rocque Valescure a like indiscretion and luxury; for there was a strong + law against perjury, and right well Sebastian Dolores knew that old Judge + Carcasson would have little mercy on him, in spite of the fact that he was + the grandfather of Zoe Barbille. The Judge would probably think that safe + custody for his wayward character would be the kindest thing he could do + for Zoe. Therefore it was that Sebastian Dolores paid no attention to the + progress of the released landlord of “The Red Eagle,” though, by a glance + out of the corner of his eyes, he made sure that the footsteps of + liberated guilt were marching at a tangent from where he was—even to + the nearest tavern. + </p> + <p> + It was enough for Dolores that he should watch the result of his good deed + from the isolated area where he now was, in the company of two virtuous + representatives of domesticity. His time with liberated guilt would come! + He chuckled to think how he had provided himself with a refuge against his + hour of trouble. That very day he had left his employment, meaning to + return no more, securing his full wages through having suddenly become + resentful and troublesome, neglectful—and imperative. To avoid + further unpleasantness the firm had paid him all his wages; and he had + straightway come to Vilray to earn his bed and board by other means than + through a pen, a ledger and a gift for figures. It would not be a + permanent security against the future, but it would suffice for the + moment. It was a rest-place on the road. If the worst came to the worst, + there was his grand-daughter and his dear son-in-law whom he so seldom saw—blood + was thicker than water, and he would see to it that it was not thinned by + neglect. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile he ogled Palass Poucette’s widow with one eye, and talked softly + with his tongue to Mere Langlois, as he importuned Madame to “Sip the good + cordial in the name of charity to all and malice towards none.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re a bad man—you, and I want none of your cordials,” was Mere + Langlois’s response. “Malice towards none, indeed! If you and the devil + started business in the same street, you’d make him close up shop in a + year. I’ve got your measure, for sure; I have you certain as an arm and a + pair of stirrups.” + </p> + <p> + “I go about doing good—only good,” returned the old sinner with a + leer at the young widow, whose fingers he managed to press unseen, as he + swung the little bottle of cordial before the eyes of Mere Langlois. He + was not wholly surprised when Palass Poucette’s widow did not show abrupt + displeasure at his bold familiarity. + </p> + <p> + A wild thought flashed into his mind. Might there not be another refuge + here—here in Palass Poucette’s widow! He was sixty-three, it was + true, and she was only thirty-two; but for her to be an old man’s darling + who had no doubt been a young man’s slave, that would surely have its + weight with her. Also she owned the farm where she lived; and she was + pleasant pasturage—that was the phrase he used in his own mind, even + as his eye swept from Mere Langlois to hers in swift, hungry inquiry. + </p> + <p> + He seemed in earnest when he spoke—but that was his way; it had done + him service often. “I do good whenever it comes my way to do it,” he + continued. “I left my work this morning”—he lied of course—“and + hired a buggy to bring me over here, all at my own cost, to save a + fellow-man. There in the Court House he was sure of prison, with a wife + and three small children weeping in ‘The Red Eagle’; and there I come at + great expense and trouble to tell the truth—before all to tell the + truth—and save him and set him free. Yonder he is in the tavern, the + work of my hands, a gift to the world from an honest man with a good heart + and a sense of justice. But for me there would be a wife and three + children in the bondage of shame, sorrow, poverty and misery”—his + eyes again ravished the brown eyes of Palass Poucette’s widow—“and + here again I drink to my own health and to that of all good people—with + charity to all and malice towards none!” + </p> + <p> + The little bottle of golden cordial was raised towards Mere Langlois. The + fingers of one hand, however, were again seeking those of the comely young + widow who was half behind him, when he felt them caught spasmodically + away. Before he had time to turn round he heard a voice, saying: “I should + have thought that ‘With malice to all and charity towards none,’ was your + motto, Dolores.” + </p> + <p> + He knew that voice well enough. He had always had a lurking fear that he + would hear it say something devastating to him, from the great chair where + its owner sat and dispensed what justice a jury would permit him to do. + That devastating something would be agony to one who loved liberty and + freedom—had not that ever been his watchword, liberty and freedom to + do what he pleased in the world and with the world? Yes, he well knew + Judge Carcasson’s voice. He would have recognized it in the dark—or + under the black cap. “M’sieu’ le juge!” he said, even before he turned + round and saw the faces of the tiny Judge and his Clerk of the Court. + There was a kind of quivering about his mouth, and a startled look in his + eyes as he faced the two. But there was the widow of Palass Poucette, and, + if he was to pursue and frequent her, something must be done to keep him + decently figured in her eye and mind. + </p> + <p> + “It cost me three dollars to come here and save a man from jail to-day, + m’sieu’ le juge,” he added firmly. The Judge pressed the point of his cane + against the stomach of the hypocrite and perjurer. “If the Devil and you + meet, he will take off his hat to you, my escaped anarchist”—Dolores + started almost violently now—“for you can teach him much, and + Ananias was the merest aboriginal to you. But we’ll get you—we’ll + get you, Dolores. You saved that guilty fellow by a careful and remarkable + perjury to-day. In a long experience I have never seen a better + performance—have you, monsieur?” he added to M. Fille. + </p> + <p> + “But once,” was the pointed and deliberate reply. “Ah, when was that?” + asked Judge Carcasson, interested. + </p> + <p> + “The year monsieur le juge was ill, and Judge Blaquiere took your place. + It was in Vilray at the Court House here.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah—ah, and who was the phenomenon—the perfect liar?” asked + the Judge with the eagerness of the expert. + </p> + <p> + “His name was Sebastian Dolores,” meditatively replied M. Fille. “It was + even a finer performance than that of to-day.” + </p> + <p> + The Judge gave a little grunt of surprise. “Twice, eh?” he asked. “Yet + this was good enough to break any record,” he added. He fastened the young + widow’s eyes. “Madame, you are young, and you have an eye of intelligence. + Be sure of this: you can protect yourself against almost anyone except a + liar—eh, madame?” he added to Mere Langlois. “I am sure your + experience of life and your good sense—” + </p> + <p> + “My good sense would make me think purgatory was hell if I saw him”—she + nodded savagely at Dolores as she said it, for she had seen that last + effort of his to take the fingers of Palass Poucette’s widow—“if I + saw him there, m’sieu’ le juge.” + </p> + <p> + “We’ll have you yet—we’ll have you yet, Dolores,” said the Judge, as + the Spaniard prepared to move on. But, as Dolores went, he again caught + the eyes of the young widow. + </p> + <p> + This made him suddenly bold. “‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against + thy neighbour,’—that is the commandment, is it not, m’sieu’ le juge? + You are doing against me what I didn’t do in Court to-day. I saved a man + from your malice.” + </p> + <p> + The crook of the Judge’s cane caught the Spaniard’s arm, and held him + gently. + </p> + <p> + “You’re possessed of a devil, Dolores,” he said, “and I hope I’ll never + have to administer justice in your case. I might be more man than judge. + But you will come to no good end. You will certainly—” + </p> + <p> + He got no further, for the attention of all was suddenly arrested by a + wagon driving furiously round the corner of the Court House. It was a red + wagon. In it was Jean Jacques Barbille. + </p> + <p> + His face was white and set; his head was thrust forward, as though looking + at something far ahead of him; the pony stallions he was driving were + white with sweat, and he had an air of tragic helplessness and panic. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly a child ran across the roadway in front of the ponies, and the + wild cry of the mother roused Jean Jacques out of his agonized trance. He + sprang to his feet, wrenching the horses backward and aside with deftness + and presence of mind. The margin of safety was not more than a foot, but + the child was saved. + </p> + <p> + The philosopher of the Manor Cartier seemed to come out of a dream as men + and women applauded, and cries arose of “Bravo, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques!” + </p> + <p> + At any other time this would have made Jean Jacques nod and smile, or wave + a hand, or exclaim in good fellowship. Now, however, his eyes were full of + trouble, and the glassiness of the semi-trance leaving them, they shifted + restlessly here and there. Suddenly they fastened on the little group of + which Judge Carcasson was the centre. He had stopped his horses almost + beside them. + </p> + <p> + “Ah!” he said, “ah!” as his eyes rested on the Judge. “Ah!” he again + exclaimed, as the glance ran from the Judge to Sebastian Dolores. “Ah, + mercy of God!” he added, in a voice which had both a low note and a high + note-deep misery and shrill protest in one. Then he seemed to choke, and + words would not come, but he kept looking, looking at Sebastian Dolores, + as though fascinated and tortured by the sight of him. + </p> + <p> + “What is it, Jean Jacques?” asked the little Clerk of the Court gently, + coming forward and laying a hand on the steaming flank of a spent and + trembling pony. + </p> + <p> + As though he could not withdraw his gaze from Sebastian Dolores, Jean + Jacques did not look at M. Fille; but he thrust out the long whip he + carried towards the father of his vanished Carmen and his Zoe’s + grandfather, and with the deliberation of one to whom speaking was like + the laceration of a nerve he said: “Zoe’s run away—gone—gone!” + </p> + <p> + At that moment Louis Charron, his cousin, at whose house Gerard Fynes had + lodged, came down the street galloping his horse. Seeing the red wagon, he + made for it, and drew rein. + </p> + <p> + “It’s no good, Jean Jacques,” he called. “They’re married and gone to + Montreal—married right under our noses by the Protestant minister at + Terrebasse Junction. I’ve got the telegram here from the stationmaster at + Terrebasse.... Ah, the villain to steal away like that—only a child—from + her own father! Here it is—the telegram. But believe me, an actor, a + Protestant and a foreigner—what a devil’s mess!” + </p> + <p> + He waved the telegram towards Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “Did he owe you anything, Louis?” asked old Mere Langlois, whose practical + mind was alert to find the material status of things. + </p> + <p> + “Not a sou. Well, but he was honest, I’ll say that for the rogue and + seducer.” + </p> + <p> + “Seducer—ah, God choke you with your own tongue!” cried Jean + Jacques, turning on Louis Charron with a savage jerk of the whip he held. + “She is as pure—” + </p> + <p> + “It is no marriage, of course!” squeaked a voice from the crowd. + </p> + <p> + “It’ll be all right among the English, won’t it, monsieur le juge?” asked + the gentle widow of Palass Poucette, whom the scene seemed to rouse out of + her natural shyness. + </p> + <p> + “Most sure, madame, most sure,” answered the Judge. “It will be all right + among the English, and it is all right among the French so far as the law + is concerned. As for the Church, that is another matter. But—but + see,” he added addressing Louis Charron, “does the station-master say what + place they took tickets for?” + </p> + <p> + “Montreal and Winnipeg,” was the reply. “Here it is in the telegram. + Winnipeg—that’s as English as London.” + </p> + <p> + “Winnipeg—a thousand miles!” moaned Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + With the finality which the tickets for Winnipeg signified, the shrill + panic emotion seemed to pass from him. In its mumbling, deadening force it + was like a sentence on a prisoner. + </p> + <p> + As many eyes were on Sebastian Dolores as on Jean Jacques. “It’s the bad + blood that was in her,” said a farmer with a significant gesture towards + Sebastian Dolores. + </p> + <p> + “A little bad blood let out would be a good thing,” remarked a truculent + river-driver, who had given evidence directly contrary to that given by + Sebastian Dolores in the trial just concluded. There was a savage look in + his eye. + </p> + <p> + Sebastian Dolores heard, and he was not the man to invite trouble. He + could do no good where he was, and he turned to leave the market-place; + but in doing so he sought the eye of Virginie Poucette, who, however, kept + her face at an angle from him, as she saw Mere Langlois sharply watching + her. + </p> + <p> + “Grandfather, mother and daughter, all of a piece!” said a spiteful woman, + as Sebastian Dolores passed her. The look he gave her was not the same as + that he had given to Palass Poucette’s widow. If it had been given by a + Spanish inquisitor to a heretic, little hope would have remained in the + heretic’s heart. Yet there was a sad patient look on his face, as though + he was a martyr. He had no wish to be a martyr; but he had a feeling that + for want of other means of expressing their sympathy with Jean Jacques, + these rough people might tar and feather him at least; though it was only + his misfortune that those sprung from his loins had such adventurous + spirits! + </p> + <p> + Sebastian Dolores was not without a real instinct regarding things. What + was in his mind was also passing through that of the river-driver and a + few of his friends, and they carefully watched the route he was taking. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques prepared to depart. He had ever loved to be the centre of a + picture, but here was a time when to be in the centre was torture. Eyes of + morbid curiosity were looking at the open wounds of his heart-ragged + wounds made by the shrapnel of tragedy and treachery, not the clean wounds + got in a fair fight, easily healed. For the moment at least the little + egoist was a mere suffering soul—an epitome of shame, misery and + disappointment. He must straightway flee the place where he was tied to + the stake of public curiosity and scorn. He drew the reins tighter, and + the horses straightened to depart. Then it was that old Judge Carcasson + laid a hand on his knee. + </p> + <p> + “Come, come,” he said to the dejected and broken little man, “where is + your philosophy?” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques looked at the Judge, as though with a new-born suspicion that + henceforth the world would laugh at him, and that Judge Carcasson was + setting the fashion; but seeing a pitying moisture in the other’s eyes, he + drew himself up, set his jaw, and calling on all the forces at his + command, he said: + </p> + <p> + “Moi je suis philosophe!” + </p> + <p> + His voice frayed a little on the last word, but his head was up now. The + Clerk of the Court would have asked to accompany him to the Manor Cartier, + but he was not sure that Jean Jacques would like it. He had a feeling that + Jean Jacques would wish to have his dark hour alone. So he remained + silent, and Jean Jacques touched his horses with the whip. After starting, + however, and having been followed for a hundred yards or so by the pitying + murmurs and a few I-told-you-so’s and revilings for having married as he + did, Jean Jacques stopped the ponies. Standing up in the red wagon he + looked round for someone whom, for a moment, he did not see in the slowly + shifting crowd. + </p> + <p> + Philosophy was all very well, and he had courageously given his allegiance + to it, or a formula of it, a moment before; but there was something deeper + and rarer still in the little man’s soul. His heart hungered for the two + women who had been the joy and pride of his life, even when he had been + lost in the business of the material world. They were more to him than he + had ever known; they were parts of himself which had slowly developed, as + the features and characteristics of ancestors gradually emerge and are + emphasized in a descendant as his years increase. Carmen and Zoe were more + a part of himself now than they had ever been. + </p> + <p> + They were gone, the living spirits of his home. Anything that reminded him + of them, despite the pain of the reminder, was dear to him. Love was + greater than the vengeful desire of injured human nature. His eyes + wandered over the people, over the market. At last he saw what he was + looking for. He called. A man turned. Jean Jacques beckoned to him. He + came eagerly, he hurried to the red wagon. + </p> + <p> + “Come home with me,” said Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + The words were addressed to Sebastian Dolores, who said to himself that + this was a refuge surer than “The Red Eagle,” or the home of the widow + Poucette. He climbed in beside Jean Jacques with a sigh of content. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, but that—but that is the end of our philosopher,” said Judge + Carcasson sadly to the Clerk of the Court, as with amazement he saw this + catastrophe. + </p> + <p> + “Alas! if I had only asked to go with him, as I wished to do!” responded + M. Fille. “There, but a minute ago, it was in my mind,” he added with a + look of pain. + </p> + <p> + “You missed your chance, falterer,” said the Judge severely. “If you have + a good thought, act on it—that is the golden rule. You missed your + chance. It will never come again. He has taken the wrong turning, our + unhappy Jean Jacques.” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur—oh, monsieur, do not shut the door in the face of God like + that!” said the shocked little master of the law. “Those two together—it + may be only for a moment.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, no, my little owl, Jean Jacques will wind the boa-constrictor round + his neck like a collar, all for love of those he has lost,” answered the + Judge with emotion; and he caught M. Fille’s arm in the companionship of + sorrow. + </p> + <p> + In silence these two watched the red wagon till it was out of sight. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY + </h2> + <p> + Judge Carcasson was right. For a year after Zoe’s flight Jean Jacques + wrapped Sebastian Dolores round his neck like a collar, and it choked him + like a boaconstrictor. But not Sebastian Dolores alone did that. When + things begin to go wrong in the life of a man whose hands have held too + many things, the disorder flutters through all the radii of his affairs, + and presently they rattle away from the hub of his control. + </p> + <p> + So it was with Jean Jacques. To take his reprobate father-in-law to his + lonely home would have brought him trouble in any case; but as things + were, the Spaniard became only the last straw which broke his camel’s + back. And what a burden his camel carried—flour-mill, saw-mill, + ash-factory, farms, a general store, lime-kilns, agency for lightning-rods + and insurance, cattle-dealing, the project for the new cheese-factory, and + money-lending! + </p> + <p> + Money-lending? It seemed strange that Jean Jacques should be able to lend + money, since he himself had to borrow, and mortgage also, from time to + time. When things began to go really wrong with him financially, he + mortgaged his farms, his flour-mill, and saw-mill, and then lent money on + other mortgages. This he did because he had always lent money, and it was + a habit so associated with his prestige, that he tied himself up in + borrowing and lending and counter-mortgaging till, as the saying is, “a + Philadelphia lawyer” could not have unravelled his affairs without having + been born again in the law. That he was able to manipulate his tangled + affairs, while keeping the confidence of those from whom he borrowed, and + the admiration of those to whom he lent, was evidence of his capacity. + “Genius of a kind” was what his biggest creditor called it later. + </p> + <p> + After a personal visit to St. Saviour’s, this biggest creditor and + financial potentate—M. Mornay—said that if Jean Jacques had + been started right and trained right, he would have been a “general in the + financial field, winning big battles.” + </p> + <p> + M. Mornay chanced to be a friend of Judge Carcasson, and when he visited + Vilray he remembered that the Judge had spoken often of his humble but + learned friend, the Clerk of the Court, and of his sister. So M. Mornay + made his way from the office of the firm of avocats whom he had instructed + in his affairs with Jean Jacques, to that of M. Fille. Here he was soon + engaged in comment on the master-miller and philosopher. + </p> + <p> + “He has had much trouble, and no doubt his affairs have suffered,” + remarked M. Fille cautiously, when the ice had been broken and the Big + Financier had referred casually to the difficulties among which Jean + Jacques was trying to maintain equilibrium; “but he is a man who can do + things too hard for other men.” + </p> + <p> + The Big Financier lighted another cigar and blew away several clouds of + smoke before he said in reply, “Yes, I know he has had family trouble + again, but that is a year ago, and he has had a chance to get another grip + of things.” + </p> + <p> + “He did not sit down and mope,” explained M. Fille. “He was at work the + next day after his daughter’s flight just the same as before. He is a man + of great courage. Misfortune does not paralyse him.” + </p> + <p> + M. Mornay’s speech was of a kind which came in spurts, with pauses of + thought between, and the pause now was longer than usual. + </p> + <p> + “Paralysis—certainly not,” he said at last. “Physical activity is + one of the manifestations of mental, moral, and even physical shock and + injury. I’ve seen a man with a bullet in him run a half-mile—anywhere; + I’ve seen a man ripped up by a crosscut-saw hold himself together, and + walk—anywhere—till he dropped. Physical and nervous activity + is one of the forms which shattered force takes. I expect that your + ‘M’sieu’ Jean Jacques’ has been busier this last year than ever before in + his life. He’d have to be; for a man who has as many irons in the fire as + he has, must keep running from bellows to bellows when misfortune starts + to damp him down.” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court sighed. He realized the significance of what his + visitor was saying. Ever Since Zoe had gone, Jean Jacques had been for + ever on the move, for ever making hay on which the sun did not shine. Jean + Jacques’ face these days was lined and changeful. It looked unstable and + tired—as though disturbing forces were working up to the surface out + of control. The brown eyes, too, were far more restless than they had ever + been since the Antoine was wrecked, and their owner returned with Carmen + to the Manor Cartier. But the new restlessness of the eyes was different + from the old. That was a mobility impelled by an active, inquisitive soul, + trying to observe what was going on in the world, and to make sure that + its possessor was being seen by the world. This activity was that of a + mind essentially concerned to find how many ways it could see for escape + from a maze of things; while his vanity was taking new forms. It was + always anxious to discover if the world was trying to know how he was + taking the blows of fate and fortune. He had been determined that, + whatever came, it should not see him paralysed or broken. + </p> + <p> + As M. Fille only nodded his head in sorrowful assent, the Big Financier + became more explicit. He was determined to lose nothing by Jean Jacques, + and he was prepared to take instant action when it was required; but he + was also interested in the man who might have done really powerful things + in the world, had he gone about them in the right way. + </p> + <p> + “M. Barbille has had some lawsuits this year, is it not so?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “Two of importance, monsieur, and one is not yet decided,” answered M. + Fille. + </p> + <p> + “He lost those suits of importance?” + </p> + <p> + “That is so, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “And they cost him six thousand dollars—and over?” The Big Financier + seemed to be pressing towards a point. + </p> + <p> + “Something over that amount, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “And he may lose the suit now before the Courts?” + </p> + <p> + “Who can tell, monsieur!” vaguely commented the little learned official. + </p> + <p> + M. Mornay was not to be evaded. “Yes, yes, but the case as it stands—to + you who are wise in experience of legal affairs, does it seem at all a + sure thing for him?” + </p> + <p> + “I wish I could say it was, monsieur,” sadly answered the other. + </p> + <p> + The Big Financier nodded vigorously. “Exactly. Nothing is so unproductive + as the law. It is expensive whether you win or lose, and it is murderously + expensive when you do lose. You will observe, I know, that your Jean + Jacques is a man who can only be killed once—eh?” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur?” M. Fille really did not grasp this remark. + </p> + <p> + M. Mornay’s voice became precise. “I will explain. He has never created; + he has only developed what has been created. He inherited much of what he + has or has had. His designs were always affected by the fact that he had + never built from the very bottom. When he goes to pieces—” + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur—to pieces!” exclaimed the Clerk of the Court painfully. + </p> + <p> + “Well, put it another way. If he is broken financially, he will never come + up again. Not because of his age—I lost a second fortune at fifty, + and have a third ready to lose at sixty—but because the primary + initiative won’t be in him. He’ll say he has lost, and that there’s an end + to it all. His philosophy will come into play—just at the last. It + will help him in one way and harm him in another.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, then you know about his philosophy, monsieur?” queried M. Fille. Was + Jean Jacques’ philosophy, after all, to be a real concrete asset of his + life sooner or later? + </p> + <p> + The Big Financier smiled, and turned some coins over in his pocket rather + loudly. Presently he said: “The first time I ever saw him he treated me to + a page of Descartes. It cost him one per cent. I always charge a man for + talking sentiment to me in business hours. I had to listen to him, and he + had to pay me for listening. I’ve no doubt his general yearly expenditure + has been increased for the same reason—eh, Maitre Fille? He has done + it with others—yes?” M. Fille waved a hand in deprecation, and his + voice had a little acidity as he replied: “Ah, monsieur, what can we poor + provincials do—any of us—in dealing with men like you, + philosophy or no philosophy? You get us between the upper and the nether + mill stones. You are cosmopolitan; M. Jean Jacques Barbille is a + provincial; and you, because he has soul enough to forget business for a + moment and to speak of things that matter more than money and business, + you grind him into powder.” + </p> + <p> + M. Mornay shook his head and lighted his cigar again. “There you are + wrong, Maitre Fille. It is bad policy to grind to powder, or grind at all, + men out of whom you are making money. It is better to keep them from + between the upper and nether mill-stones. + </p> + <p> + “I have done so with your Barbille. I could give him such trouble as would + bring things crashing down upon him at once, if I wanted to be merely + vicious in getting my own; but that would make it impossible for me to + meet at dinner my friend Judge Carcasson. So, as long as I can, I will not + press him. But I tell you that the margin of safety on which he is moving + now is too narrow—scarce a foot-hold. He has too much under + construction in the business of his life, and if one stone slips out, down + may come the whole pile. He has stopped building the cheese-factory—that + represents sheer loss. The ash-factory is to close next week, the saw-mill + is only paying its way, and the flour-mill and the farms, which have to + sustain the call of his many interests, can’t stand the drain. Also, he + has several people heavily indebted to him, and if they go down—well, + it depends on the soundness of the security he holds. If they listened to + him talk philosophy, encouraged him to do it, and told him they liked it, + when the bargain was being made, the chances are the security is + inadequate.” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court bridled up. “Monsieur, you are very hard on a man + who for twenty-five years has been a figure and a power in this part of + the province. You sneer at one who has been a benefactor to the place + where he lives; who has given with the right hand and the left; whose + enterprise has been a source of profit to many; and who has got a savage + reward for the acts of a blameless and generous life. You know his + troubles, monsieur, and we who have seen him bear them with fortitude and + Christian philosophy, we resent—” + </p> + <p> + “You need resent nothing, Maitre Fille,” interrupted the Big Financier, + not unkindly. “What I have said has been said to his friend and the friend + of my own great friend, Judge Carcasson; and I am only anxious that he + should be warned by someone whose opinions count with him; whom he can + trust—” + </p> + <p> + “But, monsieur, alas!” broke in the Clerk of the Court, “that is the + trouble; he does not select those he can trust. He is too confiding. He + believes those who flatter him, who impose on his good heart. It has + always been so.” + </p> + <p> + “I judge it is so still in the case of Monsieur Dolores, his daughter’s + grandfather?” the Big Financier asked quizzically. + </p> + <p> + “It is so, monsieur,” replied M. Fille. “The loss of his daughter shook + him even more than the flight of his wife; and it is as though he could + not live without that scoundrel near him—a vicious man, who makes + trouble wherever he goes. He was a cause of loss to M. Barbille years ago + when he managed the ash-factory; he is very dangerous to women—even + now he is a danger to the future of a young widow” (he meant the widow of + Palass Poucette); “and he has caused a scandal by perjury as a witness, + and by the consequences—but I need not speak of that here. He will + do Jean Jacques great harm in the end, of that I am sure. The very day + Mademoiselle Zoe left the Manor Cartier to marry the English actor, Jean + Jacques took that Spanish bad-lot to his home; and there he stays, and the + old friends go—the old friends go; and he does not seem to miss + them.” + </p> + <p> + There was something like a sob in M. Fille’s voice. He had loved Zoe in a + way that in a mother would have meant martyrdom, if necessary, and in a + father would have meant sacrifice when needed; and indeed he had + sacrificed both time and money to find Zoe. He had even gone as far as + Winnipeg on the chance of finding her, making that first big journey in + the world, which was as much to him in all ways as a journey to Bagdad + would mean to most people of M. Mornay’s world. Also he had spent money + since in corresponding with lawyers in the West whom he engaged to search + for her; but Zoe had never been found. She had never written but one + letter to Jean Jacques since her flight. This letter said, in effect, that + she would come back when her husband was no longer “a beggar” as her + father had called him, and not till then. It was written en route to + Winnipeg, at the dictation of Gerard Fynes, who had a romantic view of + life and a mistaken pride, but some courage too—the courage of love. + </p> + <p> + “He thinks his daughter will come back—yes?” asked M. Mornay. “Once + he said to me that he was sorry there was no lady to welcome me at the + Manor Cartier, but that he hoped his daughter would yet have the honour. + His talk is quite spacious and lofty at times, as you know.” + </p> + <p> + “So—that is so, monsieur... Mademoiselle Zoe’s room is always ready + for her. At time of Noel he sent cards to all the families of the parish + who had been his friends, as from his daughter and himself; and when + people came to visit at the Manor on New Year’s Day, he said to each and + all that his daughter regretted she could not arrive in time from the West + to receive them; but that next year she would certainly have the + pleasure.” + </p> + <p> + “Like the light in the window for the unreturning sailor,” somewhat + cynically remarked the Big Financier. “Did many come to the Manor on that + New Year’s Day?” + </p> + <p> + “But yes, many, monsieur. Some came from kindness, and some because they + were curious—” + </p> + <p> + “And Monsieur Dolores?” + </p> + <p> + The lips of the Clerk of the Court curled, “He went about with a manner as + soft as that of a young cure. Butter would not melt in his mouth. Some of + the women were sorry for him, until they knew he had given one of Jean + Jacques’ best bear-skin rugs to Madame Palass Poucette for a New Year’s + gift.” + </p> + <p> + The Big Financier laughed cheerfully. “It’s an old way to popularity—being + generous with other people’s money. That is why I am here. The people that + spend your Jean Jacques’ money will be spending mine too, if I don’t take + care.” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille noted the hard look which now settled in M. Mornay’s face, and it + disturbed him. He rose and leaned over the table towards his visitor + anxiously. + </p> + <p> + “Tell me, if you please, monsieur, is there any real and immediate danger + of the financial collapse of Jean Jacques?” + </p> + <p> + The other regarded M. Fille with a look of consideration. He liked this + Clerk of the Court, but he liked Jean Jacques for the matter of that, and + away now from the big financial arena where he usually worked, his natural + instincts had play. He had come to St. Saviour’s with a bigger thing in + his mind than Jean Jacques and his affairs; he had come on the matter of a + railway, and had taken Jean Jacques on the way, as it were. The scheme for + the railway looked very promising to him, and he was in good humour; so + that all he said about Jean Jacques was free from that general irritation + of spirit which has sacrificed many a small man on a big man’s altar. He + saw the agitation he had caused, and he almost repented of what he had + already said; yet he had acted with a view to getting M. Fille to warn + Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “I repeat what I said,” he now replied. “Monsieur Jean Jacques’ affairs + are too nicely balanced. A little shove one way or another and over goes + the whole caboose. If anyone here has influence over him, it would be a + kindness to use it. That case before the Court of Appeal, for instance; + he’d be better advised to settle it, if there is still time. One or two of + the mortgages he holds ought to be foreclosed, so that he may get out of + them all the law will let him. He ought to pouch the money that’s owing + him; he ought to shave away his insurance, his lightning-rod, and his + horsedealing business; and he ought to sell his farms and his store, and + concentrate on the flour-mill and the saw-mill. He has had his warnings + generally from my lawyers, but what he wants most is the gentle hand to + lead him; and I should think that yours, M. Fille, is the hand the + Almighty would choose if He was concerned with what happens at St. + Saviour’s and wanted an agent.” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court blushed greatly. This was a very big man indeed in + the great commercial world, and flattery from him had unusual + significance; but he threw out his hands with a gesture of helplessness, + and said: “Monsieur, if I could be of use I would; but he has ceased to + listen to me; he—” + </p> + <p> + He got no further, for there was a sharp knock at the street door of the + outer office, and M. Fille hastened to the other room. After a moment he + came back, a familiar voice following him. + </p> + <p> + “It is Monsieur Barbille, monsieur,” M. Fille said quietly, but with + apprehensive eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Well—he wants to see me?” asked M. Mornay. “No, no, monsieur. It + would be better if he did not see you. He is in some agitation.” + </p> + <p> + “Fille! Maitre Fille—be quick now,” called Jean Jacques’ voice from + the other room. + </p> + <p> + “What did I say, monsieur?” asked the Big Financier. “The mind that’s + received a blow must be moving—moving; the man with the many irons + must be flying from bellows to bellows!” + </p> + <p> + “Come, come, there’s no time to lose,” came Jean Jacques’ voice again, and + the handle of the door of their room turned. + </p> + <p> + M. Fille’s hand caught the handle. “Excuse me, Monsieur Barbille,—a + minute please,” he persisted almost querulously. “Be good enough to keep + your manners... monsieur!” he added to the Financier, “if you do not wish + to speak with him, there is a door”—he pointed—“which will let + you into the side-street.” + </p> + <p> + “What is his trouble?” asked M. Mornay. + </p> + <p> + M. Fille hesitated, then said reflectively: “He has lost his case in the + Appeal Court, monsieur; also, his cousin, Auguste Charron, who has been + working the Latouche farm, has flitted, leaving—” + </p> + <p> + “Leaving Jean Jacques to pay unexpected debts?” + </p> + <p> + “So, monsieur.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I can be of no use, I fear,” remarked M. Mornay dryly. + </p> + <p> + “Fille! Fille!” came the voice of Jean Jacques insistently from the room. + </p> + <p> + “And so I will say au revoir, Monsieur Fille,” continued the Big + Financier. + </p> + <p> + A moment later the great man was gone, and M. Fille was alone with the + philosopher of the Manor Cartier. + </p> + <p> + “Well, well, why do you keep me waiting! Who was it in there—anyone + that’s concerned with my affairs?” asked Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + In these days he was sensitive when there was no cause, and he was + credulous where he ought to be suspicious. The fact that the little man + had held the door against him made him sure that M. Fille had not wished + him to see the departed visitor. + </p> + <p> + “Come, out with it—who was it making fresh trouble for me?” + persisted Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “No one making trouble for you, my friend,” answered the Clerk of the + Court, “but someone who was trying to do you a good turn.” + </p> + <p> + “He must have been a stranger then,” returned Jean Jacques bitterly. “Who + was it?” + </p> + <p> + M. Fille, after an instant’s further hesitation, told him. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, him—M. Momay!” exclaimed Jean Jacques, with a look of relief, + his face lighting. “That’s a big man with a most capable and far-reaching + mind. He takes a thing in as the ocean mouths a river. If I had had men + like that to deal with all my life, what a different ledger I’d be + balancing now! Descartes, Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel—he + has an ear for them all. That is the intellectual side of him; and in + business”—he threw up a hand—“there he views the landscape + from the mountain-top. He has vision, strategy, executive. He is Napoleon + and Anacreon in one. He is of the builders on the one hand, of the + Illuminati and the Encyclopedistes on the other.” + </p> + <p> + Even the Clerk of the Court, with his circumscribed range of thought and + experience, in that moment saw Jean Jacques as he really was. Here was a + man whose house of life was beginning to sway from an earthquake; who had + been smitten in several deadly ways, and was about to receive buffetings + beyond aught he had yet experienced, philosophizing on the tight-rope—Blondin + and Plato in one. Yet sardonically piteous as it was, the incident had + shown Jean Jacques with the germ of something big in him. He had + recognized in M. Mornay, who could level him to the dust tomorrow + financially, a master of the world’s affairs, a prospector of life’s + fields, who would march fearlessly beyond the farthest frontiers into the + unknown. Jean Jacques’ admiration of the lion who could, and would, slay + him was the best tribute to his own character. + </p> + <p> + M. Fille’s eyes moistened as he realized it; and he knew that nothing he + could say or do would make this man accommodate his actions to the hard + rules of the business of life; he must for ever be applying to them + conceptions of a half-developed mind. + </p> + <p> + “Quite so, quite so, Jean Jacques,” M. Fille responded gently, “but”—here + came a firmer note to his voice, for he had taken to heart the lesson M. + Mornay had taught him, and he was determined to do his duty now when the + opportunity was in his hand—“but you have got to deal with things as + they are; not as they might have been. If you cannot have the great men + you have to deal with the little men like me. You have to prove yourself + bigger than the rest of us by doing things better. A man doesn’t fail only + because of others, but also because of himself. You were warned that the + chances were all against you in the case that’s just been decided, yet you + would go on; you were warned that your cousin, Auguste Charron, was in + debt, and that his wife was mad to get away from the farm and go West, yet + you would take no notice. Now he has gone, and you have to pay, and your + case has gone against you in the Appellate Court besides.... I will tell + you the truth, my friend, even if it cuts me to the heart. You have not + kept your judgment in hand; you have gone ahead like a bull at a gate; and + you pay the price. You listen to those who flatter, and on those who would + go through fire and water for you, you turn your back—on those who + would help you in your hour of trouble, in your dark day.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques drew himself up with a gesture, impatient, masterful and + forbidding. “I have fought my fight alone in the dark day; I have not + asked for any one’s help,” he answered. “I have wept on no man’s shoulder. + I have been mauled by the claws of injury and shame, and I have not + flinched. I have healed my own wounds, and I wear my scars without—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped, for there came a sharp rat-tat-tat at the door which opened + into the street. Somehow the commonplace, trivial interruption produced on + both a strange, even startling effect. It suddenly produced in their minds + a feeling of apprehension, as though there was whispered in their ears, + “Something is going to happen—beware!” + </p> + <p> + Rat-tat-tat! The two men looked at each other. The same thought was in the + mind of both. Jean Jacques clutched at his beard nervously, then with an + effort he controlled himself. He took off his hat as though he was about + to greet some important person, or to receive sentence in a court. + Instinctively he felt the little book of philosophy which he always + carried now in his breast-pocket, as a pietist would finger his beads in + moments of fear or anxiety. The Clerk of the Court passed his thin hand + over his hair, as he was wont to do in court when the Judge began his + charge to the Jury, and then with an action more impulsive than was usual + with him, he held out his hand, and Jean Jacques grasped it. Something was + bringing them together just when it seemed that, in the storm of Jean + Jacques’ indignation, they were about to fall apart. M. Fille’s eyes said + as plainly as words could do, “Courage, my friend!” + </p> + <p> + Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! The knocking was sharp and imperative now. The + Clerk of the Court went quickly forward and threw open the door. + </p> + <p> + There stepped inside the widow of Palass Poucette. She had a letter in her + hand. “M’sieu’, pardon, if I intrude,” she said to M. Fille; “but I heard + that M’sieu’ Jean Jacques was here. I have news for him.” + </p> + <p> + “News!” repeated Jean Jacques, and he looked like a man who was waiting + for what he feared to hear. “They told me at the post-office that you were + here. I got the letter only a quarter of an hour ago, and I thought I + would go at once to the Manor Cartier and tell M’sieu’ Jean Jacques what + the letter says. I wanted to go to the Manor Cartier for something else as + well, but I will speak of that by and by. It is the letter now.” + </p> + <p> + She pulled off first one glove and then the other, still holding the + letter, as though she was about to perform some ceremony. “It was a good + thing I found out that M’sieu’ Jean Jacques was here. It saves a four-mile + drive,” she remarked. + </p> + <p> + “The news—ah, nom de Dieu, the slowness of the woman—like a + river going uphill!” exclaimed Jean Jacques, who was finding it hard to + still the trembling of his limbs. + </p> + <p> + The widow of Palass Poucette flushed, but she had some sense in her head, + and she realized that Jean Jacques was a little unbalanced at the moment. + Indeed, Jean Jacques was not so old that she would have found it difficult + to take a well-defined and warm interest in him, were circumstances + propitious. She held out the letter to him at once. “It is from my sister + in the West—at Shilah,” she explained. “There is nothing in it you + can’t read, and most of it concerns you.” Jean Jacques took the letter, + but he could not bring himself to read it, for Virginie Poucette’s manner + was not suggestive of happy tidings. After an instant’s hesitation he + handed the letter to M. Fille, who pressed his lips with an air of + determination, and put on his glasses. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques saw the face of the Clerk of the Court flush and then turn + pale as he read the letter. “There, be quick!” he said before M. Fille had + turned the first page. + </p> + <p> + Then the widow of Palass Poucette came to him and, in a simple harmless + way she had, free from coquetry or guile, stood beside him, took his hand + and held it. He seemed almost unconscious of her act, but his fingers + convulsively tightened on hers; while she reflected that here was one who + needed help sorely; here was a good, warm-hearted man on whom a woman + could empty out affection like rain and get a good harvest. She really was + as simple as a child, was Virginie Poucette, and even in her acquaintance + with Sebastian Dolores, there had only been working in her the natural + desire of a primitive woman to have a man saying that which would keep + alive in her the things that make her sing as she toils; and certainly + Virginie toiled late and early on her farm. She really was concerned for + Jean Jacques. Both wife and daughter had taken flight, and he was alone + and in trouble. At this moment she felt she would like to be a sister to + him—she was young enough to be his daughter almost. Her heart was + kind. + </p> + <p> + “Now!” said Jean Jacques at last, as the Clerk of the Court’s eyes reached + the end of the last page. “Now, speak! It is—it is my Zoe?” + </p> + <p> + “It is our Zoe,” answered M. Fille. + </p> + <p> + “Figure de Christ, what do you wait for—she is not dead?” exclaimed + Jean Jacques with a courage which made him set his feet squarely. + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court shook his head and began. “She is alive. Madame + Poucette’s sister saw her by chance. Zoe was on her way up the + Saskatchewan River to the Peace River country with her husband. Her + husband’s health was bad. He had to leave the stage in the United States + where he had gone after Winnipeg. The doctors said he must live the + open-air life. He and Zoe were going north, to take a farm somewhere.” + </p> + <p> + “Somewhere! Somewhere!” murmured Jean Jacques. “The farther away from Jean + Jacques the better—that is what she thinks.” + </p> + <p> + “No, you are wrong, my friend,” rejoined M. Fille. “She said to Madame + Poucette’s sister”—he held up the letter—“that when they had + proved they could live without anybody’s help they would come back to see + you. Zoe thought that, having taken her life in her own hands, she ought + to justify herself before she asked your forgiveness and a place at your + table. She felt that you could only love her and be glad of her, if her + man was independent of you. It is a proud and sensitive soul—but + there it is!” + </p> + <p> + “It is romance, it is quixotism—ah, heart of God, what quixotism!” + exclaimed Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “She gets her romance and quixotism from Jean Jacques Barbille,” retorted + the Clerk of the Court. “She does more feeling than thinking—like + you.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques’ heart was bleeding, but he drew himself up proudly, and + caught his hand away from the warm palm of Poucette’s widow. As his + affairs crumbled his pride grew more insistent. M. Fille had challenged + his intellect—his intellect! + </p> + <p> + “My life has been a procession of practical things,” he declared + oracularly. “I have been a man of business who designs. I am no dreamer. I + think. I act. I suffer. I have been the victim of romance, not its + interpreter. Mercy of God, what has broken my life, what but romance—romance, + first with one and then with another! More feeling than thinking, Maitre + Fille—you say that? Why the Barbilles have ever in the past built up + life on a basis of thought and action, and I have added philosophy—the + science of thought and act. Jean Jacques Barbille has been the man of + design and the man of action also. Don Quixote was a fool, a dreamer, but + Jean Jacques is no Don Quixote. He is a man who has done things, but also + he is a man who has been broken on the wheel of life. He is a man whose + heart-strings have been torn—” + </p> + <p> + He had worked himself up into a fit of eloquence and revolt. He was + touched by the rod of desperation, which makes the soul protest that it is + right when it knows that it is wrong. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, breaking off his speech, he threw up his hands and made for the + door. + </p> + <p> + “I will fight it out alone!” he declared with rough emotion, and at the + door he turned towards them again. He looked at them both as though he + would dare them to contradict him. The restless fire of his eyes seemed to + dart from one to the other. + </p> + <p> + “That’s the way it is,” said the widow of Palass Poucette coming quickly + forward to him. “It’s always the way. We must fight our battles alone, but + we don’t have to bear the wounds alone. In the battle you are alone, but + the hand to heal the wounds may be another’s. You are a philosopher—well, + what I speak is true, isn’t it?” + </p> + <p> + Virginie had said the one thing which could have stayed the tide of Jean + Jacques’ pessimism and broken his cloud of gloom. She appealed to him in + the tune of an old song. The years and the curses of years had not + dispelled the illusion that he was a philosopher. He stopped with his hand + on the door. + </p> + <p> + “That’s so, without doubt that’s so,” he said. “You have stumbled on a + truth of life, madame.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly there came into his look something of the yearning and hunger + which the lonely and forsaken feel when they are not on the full tide of + doing. It was as though he must have companionship, in spite of his brave + announcement that he must fight his fight alone. He had been wounded in + the battle, and here was one who held out the hand of healing to him. + Never since his wife had left him the long lonely years ago had a woman + meant anything to him except as one of a race; but in this moment here a + woman had held his hand, and he could feel still the warm palm which had + comforted his own agitated fingers. + </p> + <p> + Virginie Poucette saw, and she understood what was passing in his mind. + Yet she did not see and understand all by any means; and it is hard to + tell what further show of fire there might have been, but that the Clerk + of the Court was there, saying harshly under his breath, “The huzzy! The + crafty huzzy!” + </p> + <p> + The Clerk of the Court was wrong. Virginie was merely sentimental, not + intriguing or deceitful; for Jean Jacques was not a widower—and she + was an honest woman and genuinely tender-hearted. + </p> + <p> + “I’m coming to the Manor Cartier to-morrow,” Virginie continued. “I have a + rug of yours. By mistake it was left at my house by M’sieu’ Dolores.” + </p> + <p> + “You needn’t do that. I will call at your place tomorrow for it,” replied + Jean Jacques almost eagerly. “I told M’sieu’ Dolores to-day never to enter + my house again. I didn’t know it was your rug. It was giving away your + property, not his own,” she hurriedly explained, and her face flushed. + </p> + <p> + “That is the Spanish of it,” said Jean Jacques bitterly. His eyes were + being opened in many directions to-day. + </p> + <p> + M. Fille was in distress. Jean Jacques had had a warning about Sebastian + Dolores, but here was another pit into which he might fall, the pit digged + by a widow, who, no doubt, would not hesitate to marry a divorced Catholic + philosopher, if he could get a divorce by hook or by crook. Jean Jacques + had said that he was going to Virginie Poucette’s place the next day. That + was as bad as it could be; yet there was this to the good, that it was + to-morrow and not to-day; and who could tell what might happen between + to-day and to-morrow! + </p> + <p> + A moment later the three were standing outside the office in the street. + As Jean Jacques climbed into his red wagon, Virginie Poucette’s eyes were + attracted to the northern sky where a reddish glow appeared, and she gave + an exclamation of surprise. + </p> + <p> + “That must be a fire,” she said, pointing. + </p> + <p> + “A bit of pine-land probably,” said M. Fille—with anxiety, however, + for the red glow lay in the direction of St. Saviour’s where were the + Manor Cartier and Jean Jacques’ mills. Maitre Fille was possessed of a + superstition that all the things which threaten a man’s life to wreck it, + operate awhile in their many fields before they converge like an army in + one field to deliver the last attack on their victim. It would not have + seemed strange to him, if out of the night a voice of the unseen had said + that the glow in the sky came from the Manor Cartier. This very day three + things had smitten Jean Jacques, and, if three, why not four or five, or + fifty! + </p> + <p> + With a strange fascination Jean Jacques’ eyes were fastened on the glow. + He clucked to his horses, and they started jerkily away. M. Fille and the + widow Poucette said good-bye to him, but he did not hear, or if he heard, + he did not heed. His look was set upon the red reflection which widened in + the sky and seemed to grow nearer and nearer. The horses quickened their + pace. He touched them with the whip, and they went faster. The glow + increased as he left Vilray behind. He gave the horses the whip again + sharply, and they broke into a gallop. Yet his eyes scarcely left the sky. + The crimson glow drew him, held him, till his brain was afire also. Jean + Jacques had a premonition and a conviction which was even deeper than the + imagination of M. Fille. + </p> + <p> + In Vilray, behind him, the telegraph clerk was in the street shouting to + someone to summon the local fire-brigade to go to St. Saviour’s. + </p> + <p> + “What is it—what is it?” asked M. Fille of the telegraph clerk in + marked agitation. + </p> + <p> + “It’s M’sieu’ Jean Jacques’ flour-mill,” was the reply. + </p> + <p> + Wagons and buggies and carts began to take the road to the Manor Cartier; + and Maitre Fille went also with the widow of Palass Poucette. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET + </h2> + <p> + Jean Jacques did not go to the house of the widow of Palass Poucette “next + day” as he had proposed: and she did not expect him. She had seen his + flour-mill burned to the ground on the-evening when they met in the office + of the Clerk of the evening Court, when Jean Jacques had learned that his + Zoe had gone into farther and farther places away from him. Perhaps + Virginie Poucette never had shed as many tears in any whole year of her + life as she did that night, not excepting the year Palass Poucette died, + and left her his farm and seven horses, more or less sound, and a + threshing-machine in good condition. The woman had a rare heart and there + was that about Jean Jacques which made her want to help him. She had no + clear idea as to how that could be done, but she had held his hand at any + rate, and he had seemed the better for it. Virginie had only an objective + view of things; and if she was not material, still she could best express + herself through the medium of the senses. + </p> + <p> + There were others besides her who shed tears also—those who saw Jean + Jacques’ chief asset suddenly disappear in flame and smoke and all his + other assets become thereby liabilities of a kind; and there were many who + would be the poorer in the end because of it. If Jean Jacques went down, + he probably would not go alone. Jean Jacques had done a good + fire-insurance business over a course of years, but somehow he had not + insured himself as heavily as he ought to have done; and in any case the + fire-policy for the mill was not in his own hands. It was in the + safe-keeping of M. Mornay at Montreal, who had warned M. Fille of the + crisis in the money-master’s affairs on the very day that the crisis came. + </p> + <p> + No one ever knew how it was that the mill took fire, but there was one man + who had more than a shrewd suspicion, though there was no occasion for + mentioning it. This was Sebastian Dolores. He had not set the mill afire. + That would have been profitable from no standpoint, and he had no grudge + against Jean Jacques. Why should he have a grudge? Jean Jacques’ good + fortune, as things were, made his own good fortune; for he ate and drank + and slept and was clothed at his son-in-law’s expense. But he guessed + accurately who had set the mill on fire, and that it was done + accidentally. He remembered that a man who smoked bad tobacco which had to + be lighted over and over again, threw a burning match down after applying + it to his pipe. He remembered that there was a heap of flour-bags near + where the man stood when the match was thrown down; and that some loose + strings for tying were also in a pile beside the bags. So it was easy for + the thing to have happened if the man did not turn round after he threw + the match down, but went swaying on out of the mill, and over to the Manor + Cartier, and up staggering to bed; for he had been drinking potato-brandy, + and he had been brought up on the mild wines of Spain! In other words, the + man who threw down the lighted match which did the mischief was Sebastian + Dolores himself. + </p> + <p> + He regretted it quite as much as he had ever regretted anything; and on + the night of the fire there were tears in his large brown eyes which + deceived the New Cure and others; though they did not deceive the widow of + Palass Poucette, who had found him out, and who now had no pleasure at all + in his aged gallantries. But the regret Dolores experienced would not + prevent him from doing Jean Jacques still greater injury if, and when, the + chance occurred, should it be to his own advantage. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques shed no tears on the night that his beloved flour-mill became + a blackened ruin, and his saw-mill had a narrow escape. He was like one in + a dream, scarcely realizing that men were saying kind things to him; that + the New Cure held his hand and spoke to him more like a brother than one + whose profession it was to be good to those who suffered. In his eyes was + the same half-rapt, intense, distant look which came into them when, at + Vilray, he saw that red reflection in the sky over against St. Saviour’s, + and urged his horses onward. + </p> + <p> + The world knew that the burning of the mill was a blow to Jean Jacques, + but it did not know how great and heavy the blow was. First one and then + another of his friends said he was insured, and that in another six months + the mill-wheel would be turning again. They said so to Jean Jacques when + he stood with his eyes fixed on the burning fabric, which nothing could + save; but he showed no desire to speak. He only nodded and kept on staring + at the fire with that curious underglow in his eyes. Some chemistry of the + soul had taken place in him in the hour when he drove to the Manor Cartier + from Vilray, and it produced a strange fire, which merged into the + reflection of the sky above the burning mill. Later, came things which + were strange and eventful in his life, but that under-glow was for ever + afterwards in his eyes. It was in singular contrast to the snapping fire + which had been theirs all the days of his life till now—the snapping + fire of action, will and design. It still was there when they said to him + suddenly that the wind had changed, and that the flame and sparks were now + blowing toward the saw-mill. Even when he gave orders, and set to work to + defend the saw-mill, arranging a line of men with buckets on its roof, and + so saving it, this look remained. It was something spiritual and + unmaterial, something, maybe, which had to do with the philosophy he had + preached, thought and practised over long years. It did not disappear when + at last, after midnight, everyone had gone, and the smouldering ruins of + his greatest asset lay mournful in the wan light of the moon. + </p> + <p> + Kind and good friends like the Clerk of the Court and the New Cure had + seen him to his bedroom at midnight, leaving him there with a promise that + they would come on the morrow; and he had said goodnight evenly, and had + shut the door upon them with a sort of smile. But long after they had + gone, when Sebastian Dolores and Seraphe Corniche were asleep, he had got + up again and left the house, to gaze at the spot where the big white mill + with the red roof had been-the mill which had been there in the days of + the Baron of Beaugard, and to which time had only added size and + adornment. The gold-cock weathervane of the mill, so long the admiration + of people living and dead, and indeed the symbol of himself, as he had + been told, being so full of life and pride, courage and vigour-it lay + among the ruins, a blackened relic of the Barbilles. + </p> + <p> + He had said in M. Fille’s office not many hours before, “I will fight it + all out alone,” and here in the tragic quiet of the night he made his + resolve a reality. In appearance he was not now like the “Seigneur” who + sang to the sailors on the Antoine when she was fighting for the shore of + Gaspe; nevertheless there was that in him which would keep him much the + same man to the end. + </p> + <p> + Indeed, as he got into bed that fateful night he said aloud: “They shall + see that I am not beaten. If they give me time up there in Montreal I’ll + keep the place till Zoe comes back—till Zoe comes home.” + </p> + <p> + As he lay and tried to sleep, he kept saying over to himself, “Till Zoe + comes home.” + </p> + <p> + He thought that if he could but have Zoe back, it all would not matter so + much. She would keep looking at him and saying, “There’s the man that + never flinched when things went wrong; there’s the man that was a friend + to everyone.” + </p> + <p> + At last a thought came to him—the key to the situation as it seemed, + the one thing necessary to meet the financial situation. He would sell the + biggest farm he owned, which had been to him in its importance like the + flour-mill itself. He had had an offer for it that very day, and a bigger + offer still a week before. It was mortgaged to within eight thousand + dollars of what it could be sold for but, if he could gain time, that + eight thousand dollars would build the mill again. M. Mornay, the Big + Financier, would certainly see that this was his due—to get his + chance to pull things straight. Yes, he would certainly sell the Barbille + farm to-morrow. With this thought in his mind he went to sleep at last, + and he did not wake till the sun was high. + </p> + <p> + It was a sun of the most wonderful brightness and warmth. Yesterday it + would have made the Manor Cartier and all around it look like Arcady. But + as it shone upon the ruins of the mill, when Jean Jacques went out into + the working world again, it made so gaunt and hideous a picture that, in + spite of himself, a cry of misery came from his lips. + </p> + <p> + Through all the misfortunes which had come to him the outward semblance of + things had remained, and when he went in and out of the plantation of the + Manor Cartier, there was no physical change in the surroundings, which + betrayed the troubles and disasters fallen upon its overlord. There it all + was just as it had ever been, and seeming to deny that anything had + changed in the lives of those who made the place other than a dead or + deserted world. When Carmen went, when Zoe fled, when his cousin Auguste + Charron took his flight, when defeats at law abashed him, the house and + mills, and stores and offices, and goodly trees, and well-kept yards and + barns and cattle-sheds all looked the same. Thus it was that he had been + fortified. In one sense his miseries had seemed unreal, because all was + the same in the outward scene. It was as though it all said to him: “It is + a dream that those you love have vanished, that ill-fortune sits by your + fireside. One night you will go to bed thinking that wife and child have + gone, that your treasury is nearly empty; and in the morning you will wake + up and find your loved ones sitting in their accustomed places, and your + treasury will be full to overflowing as of old.” + </p> + <p> + So it was while the picture of his home scene remained unbroken and + serene; but the hideous mass of last night’s holocaust was now before his + eyes, with little streams of smoke rising from the cindered pile, and a + hundred things with which his eyes had been familiar lay distorted, + excoriated and useless. He realized with sudden completeness that a + terrible change bad come in his life, that a cyclone had ruined the face + of his created world. + </p> + <p> + This picture did more to open up Jean Jacques’ eyes to his real position + in life than anything he had experienced, than any sorrow he had suffered. + He had been in torment in the past, but he had refused to see that he was + in Hades. Now it was as though he had been led through the streets of Hell + by some dark spirit, while in vain he looked round for his old friends + Kant and Hegel, Voltaire and Rousseau and Rochefoucauld, Plato and + Aristotle. + </p> + <p> + While gazing at the dismal scene, however, and unheeding the idlers who + poked about among the ruins, and watched him as one who was the centre of + a drama, he suddenly caught sight of the gold Cock of Beaugard, which had + stood on the top of the mill, in the very centre of the ruins. + </p> + <p> + Yes, there it was, the crested golden cock which had typified his own + life, as he went head high, body erect, spurs giving warning, and a + clarion in his throat ready to blare forth at any moment. There was the + golden Cock of Beaugard in the cinders, the ashes and the dust. His chin + dropped on his breast, and a cloud like a fog on the coast of Gaspe + settled round him. Yet even as his head drooped, something else happened—one + of those trivial things which yet may be the pivot of great things. A cock + crowed—almost in his very ear, it seemed. He lifted his head + quickly, and a superstitious look flashed into his face. His eyes fastened + on the burnished head of the Cock among the ruins. To his excited + imagination it was as though the ancient symbol of the Barbilles had + spoken to him in its own language of good cheer and defiance. Yes, there + it was, half covered by the ruins, but its head was erect in the midst of + fire and disaster. Brought low, it was still alert above the wreckage. The + child, the dreamer, the optimist, the egoist, and the man alive in Jean + Jacques sprang into vigour again. It was as though the Cock of Beaugard + had really summoned him to action, and the crowing had not been that of a + barnyard bantam not a hundred feet away from him. Jean Jacques’ head went + up too. + </p> + <p> + “Me—I am what I always was, nothing can change me,” he exclaimed + defiantly. “I will sell the Barbille farm and build the mill again.” + </p> + <p> + So it was that by hook or by crook, and because the Big Financier had more + heart than he even acknowledged to his own wife, Jean Jacques did sell the + Barbille farm, and got in cash—in good hard cash-eight thousand + dollars after the mortgage was paid. M. Mornay was even willing to take + the inadequate indemnity of the insurance policy on the mill, and lose the + rest, in order that Jean Jacques should have the eight thousand dollars to + rebuild. This he did because Jean Jacques showed such amazing courage + after the burning of the mill, and spread himself out in a greater + activity than his career had yet shown. He shaved through this financial + crisis, in spite of the blow he had received by the loss of his lawsuits, + the flitting of his cousin, Auguste Charron, and the farm debts of this + same cousin. It all meant a series of manipulations made possible by the + apparent confidence reposed in him by M. Mornay. + </p> + <p> + On the day he sold his farm he was by no means out of danger of absolute + insolvency—he was in fact ruined; but he was not yet the victim of + those processes which would make him legally insolvent. The vultures were + hovering, but they had not yet swooped, and there was the Manor saw-mill + going night and day; for by the strangest good luck Jean Jacques received + an order for M. Mornay’s new railway (Judge Carcasson was behind that) + which would keep his saw-mill working twenty-four hours in the day for six + months. + </p> + <p> + “I like his pluck, but still, ten to one, he loses,” remarked M. Mornay to + Judge Carcasson. “He is an unlucky man, and I agree with Napoleon that you + oughtn’t to be partner with an unlucky man.” + </p> + <p> + “Yet you have had to do with Monsieur Jean Jacques,” responded the aged + Judge. + </p> + <p> + M. Mornay nodded indulgently. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, without risk, up to the burning of the mill. Now I take my chances, + simply because I’m a fool too, in spite of all the wisdom I see in history + and in life’s experiences. I ought to have closed him up, but I’ve let him + go on, you see.” + </p> + <p> + “You will not regret it,” remarked the Judge. “He really is worth it.” + </p> + <p> + “But I think I will regret it financially. I think that this is the last + flare of the ambition and energy of your Jean Jacques. That often happens—a + man summons up all his reserves for one last effort. It’s partly pride, + partly the undefeated thing in him, partly the gambling spirit which + seizes men when nothing is left but one great spectacular success or else + be blotted out. That’s the case with your philosopher; and I’m not sure + that I won’t lose twenty thousand dollars by him yet.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve lost more with less justification,” retorted the Judge, who, in + his ninetieth year, was still as alive as his friend at sixty. + </p> + <p> + M. Mornay waved a hand in acknowledgment, and rolled his cigar from corner + to corner of his mouth. “Oh, I’ve lost a lot more in my time, Judge, but + with a squint in my eye! But I’m doing this with no astigmatism. I’ve got + the focus.” + </p> + <p> + The aged Judge gave a conciliatory murmur-he had a fine persuasive voice. + “You would never be sorry for what you have done if you had known his + daughter—his Zoe. It’s the thought of her that keeps him going. He + wants the place to be just as she left it when she comes back.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, well, let’s hope it will. I’m giving him a chance,” replied M. + Mornay with his wineglass raised. “He’s got eight thousand dollars in cash + to build his mill again; and I hope he’ll keep a tight hand on it till the + mill is up.” + </p> + <p> + Keep a tight hand on it? + </p> + <p> + That is what Jean Jacques meant to do; but if a man wants to keep a tight + hand on money he should not carry it about in his pocket in cold, hard + cash. It was a foolish whim of Jean Jacques that he must have the eight + thousand dollars in cash—in hundred-dollar bills—and not in + the form of a cheque; but there was something childlike in him. When, as + he thought, he had saved himself from complete ruin, he wanted to keep and + gloat over the trophy of victory, and his trophy was the eight thousand + dollars got from the Barbille farm. He would have to pay out two thousand + dollars in cash to the contractors for the rebuilding of the mill at once,—they + were more than usually cautious—but he would have six thousand left, + which he would put in the bank after he had let people see that he was + well fortified with cash. + </p> + <p> + The child in him liked the idea of pulling out of his pocket a few + thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He had always carried a good + deal of money loose in his pocket, and now that his resources were so + limited he would still make a gallant show. After a week or two he would + deposit six thousand dollars in the bank; but he was so eager to begin + building the mill, that he paid over the stipulated two thousand dollars + to the contractors on the very day he received the eight thousand. A few + days later the remaining six thousand were housed in a cupboard with an + iron door in the wall of his office at the Manor Cartier. + </p> + <p> + “There, that will keep me in heart and promise,” said Jean Jacques as he + turned the key in the lock. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER + </h2> + <p> + The day after Jean Jacques had got a new lease of life and become his own + banker, he treated himself to one of those interludes of pleasure from + which he had emerged in the past like a hermit from his cave. He sat on + the hill above his lime-kilns, reading the little hand-book of philosophy + which had played so big a part in his life. Whatever else had disturbed + his mind and diverted him from his course, nothing had weaned him from + this obsession. He still interlarded all his conversation with quotations + from brilliant poseurs like Chateaubriand and Rochefoucauld, and from + missionaries of thought like Hume and Hegel. + </p> + <p> + His real joy, however, was in withdrawing for what might be called a + seance of meditation from the world’s business. Some men make celebration + in wine, sport and adventure; but Jean Jacques made it in flooding his + mind with streams of human thought which often tried to run uphill, which + were frequently choked with weeds, but still were like the pool of Siloam + to his vain mind. They bathed that vain mind in the illusion that it could + see into the secret springs of experience. + </p> + <p> + So, on as bright a day as ever the New World offered, Jean Jacques sat + reciting to himself a spectacular bit of logic from one of his idols, + wedged between a piece of Aristotle quartz and Plato marble. The sound of + it was good in his ears. He mouthed it as greedily and happily as though + he was not sitting on the edge of a volcano instead of the moss-grown + limestone on a hill above his own manor. + </p> + <p> + “The course of events in the life of a man, whatever their gravity or + levity, are only to be valued and measured by the value and measure of his + own soul. Thus, what in its own intrinsic origin and material should in + all outer reason be a tragedy, does not of itself shake the foundations or + make a fissure in the superstructure. Again—” + </p> + <p> + Thus his oracle, but Jean Jacques’ voice suddenly died down, for, as he + sat there, the face of a woman made a vivid call of recognition. He slowly + awakened from his self-hypnotism, to hear a woman speaking to him; to see + two dark eyes looking at him from under heavy black brows with bright, + intent friendliness. + </p> + <p> + “They said at the Manor you had come this way, so I thought I’d not have + my drive for nothing, and here I am. I wanted to say something to you, + M’sieu’ Jean Jacques.” + </p> + <p> + It was the widow of Palass Poucette. She looked very fresh and friendly + indeed, and she was the very acme of neatness. If she was not handsome, + she certainly had a true and sweet comeliness of her own, due to the deep + rose-colour of her cheeks, the ivory whiteness round the lustrous brown + eyes, the regular shining teeth which showed so much when she smiled, and + the look half laughing, half sentimental which dominated all. + </p> + <p> + Before she had finished speaking Jean Jacques was on his feet with his hat + off. Somehow she seemed to be a part of that abstraction, that + intoxication, in which he had just been drowning his accumulated + anxieties. Not that Virginie Poucette was logical or philosophical, or a + child of thought, for she was wholly the opposite-practical, sensuous, + emotional, a child of nature and of Eve. But neither was Jean Jacques a + real child of thought, though he made unconscious pretence of it. He also + was a child of nature—and Adam. He thought he had the courage of his + convictions, but it was only the courage of his emotions. His philosophy + was but the bent or inclination of a mind with a capacity to feel things + rather than to think them. He had feeling, the first essential of the + philosopher, but there he stayed, an undeveloped chrysalis. + </p> + <p> + His look was abstracted still as he took the hand of the widow of Palass + Poucette; but he spoke cheerfully. “It is a pleasure, madame, to welcome + you among my friends,” he said. + </p> + <p> + He made a little flourish with the book which had so long been his bosom + friend, and added: “But I hope you are in no trouble that you come to me—so + many come to me in their troubles,” he continued with an air of + satisfaction. + </p> + <p> + “Come to you—why, you have enough troubles of your own!” she made + answer. “It’s because you have your own troubles that I’m here.” + </p> + <p> + “Why you are here,” he remarked vaguely. + </p> + <p> + There was something very direct and childlike in Virginie Poucette. She + could not pretend; she wore her heart on her sleeve. She travelled a long + distance in a little while. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve got no trouble myself,” she responded. “But, yes, I have,” she + added. “I’ve got one trouble—it’s yours. It’s that you’ve been + having hard times—the flour-mill, your cousin Auguste Charron, the + lawsuits, and all the rest. They say at Vilray that you have all you can + do to keep out of the Bankruptcy Court, and that—” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques started, flushed, and seemed about to get angry; but she put + things right at once. + </p> + <p> + “People talk more than they know, but there’s always some fire where + there’s smoke,” she hastened to explain. “Besides, your father-in-law + babbles more than is good for him or for you. I thought at first that M. + Dolores was a first-class kind of man, that he had had hard times too, and + I let him come and see me; but I found him out, and that was the end of + it, you may be sure. If you like him, I don’t want to say anything more, + but I’m sure that he’s no real friend to you-or to anybody. If that man + went to confession—but there, that’s not what I’ve come for. I’ve + come to say to you that I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life as I + do for you. I cried all night after your beautiful mill was burned down. + You were coming to see me next day—you remember what you said in M. + Fille’s office—but of course you couldn’t. Of course, there was no + reason why you should come to see me really—I’ve ‘only got two + hundred acres and the house. It’s a good house, though—Palass saw to + that—and it’s insured; but still I know you’d have come just the + same if I’d had only two acres. I know. There’s hosts of people you’ve + been good to here, and they’re sorry for you; and I’m sorrier than any, + for I’m alone, and you’re alone, too, except for the old Dolores, and he’s + no good to either of us—mark my words, no good to you! I’m sorry for + you, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques, and I’ve come to say that I’m ready to lend you + two thousand dollars, if that’s any help. I could make it more if I had + time; but sometimes money on the spot is worth a lot more than what’s just + crawling to you—snailing along while you eat your heart out. Two + thousand dollars is two thousand dollars—I know what it’s worth to + me, though it mayn’t be much to you; but I didn’t earn it. It belonged to + a first-class man, and he worked for it, and he died and left it to me. + It’s not come easy, go easy with me. I like to feel I’ve got two thousand + cash without having to mortgage for it. But it belonged to a number-one + man, a man of brains—I’ve got no brains, only some sense—and I + want another good man to use it and make the world easier for himself.” + </p> + <p> + It was a long speech, and she delivered it in little gasps of oratory + which were brightened by her wonderfully kind smile and the heart—not + to say sentiment—which showed in her face. The sentiment, however, + did not prejudice Jean Jacques against her, for he was a sentimentalist + himself. His feelings were very quick, and before she had spoken fifty + words the underglow of his eyes was flooded by something which might have + been mistaken for tears. It was, however, only the moisture of gratitude + and the soul’s good feeling. + </p> + <p> + “Well there, well there,” he said when she had finished, “I’ve never had + anything like this in my life before. It’s the biggest thing in the art of + being a neighbour I’ve ever seen. You’ve only been in the parish three + years, and yet you’ve shown me a confidence immense, inspiring! It is as + the Greek philosopher said, ‘To conceive the human mind aright is the + greatest gift from the gods.’ And to you, who never read a line of + philosophy, without doubt, you have done the thing that is greatest. It + says, ‘I teach neighbourliness and life’s exchange.’ Madame, your house + ought to be called Neighbourhood House. It is the epitome of the spirit, + it is the shrine of—” + </p> + <p> + He was working himself up to a point where he could forget all the things + that trouble humanity, in the inebriation of an idealistic soul which had + a casing of passion, but the passion of the mind and not of the body; for + Jean Jacques had not a sensual drift in his organism. If there had been a + sensual drift, probably Carmen would still have been the lady of his + manor, and he would still have been a magnate and not a potential + bankrupt; for in her way Carmen had been a kind of balance to his judgment + in the business of life, in spite of her own material and (at the very + last) sensual strain. It was a godsend to Jean Jacques to have such an + inspiration as Virginie Poucette had given him. He could not in these + days, somehow, get the fires of his soul lighted, as he was wont to do in + the old times, and he loved talking—how he loved talking of great + things! He was really going hard, galloping strong, when Virginie + interrupted him, first by an exclamation, then, as insistently he repeated + the words, “It is the epitome of the spirit, the shrine of—” + </p> + <p> + She put out a hand, interrupting him, and said: “Yes, yes, M’sieu’ Jean + Jacques, that’s as good as Moliere, I s’pose, or the Archbishop at Quebec, + but are you going to take it, the two thousand dollars? I made a long + speech, I know, but that was to tell you why I come with the money”—she + drew out a pocketbook—“with the order on my lawyer to hand the cash + over to you. As a woman I had to explain to you, there being lots of ideas + about what a woman should do and what she shouldn’t do; but there’s + nothing at all for you to explain, and Mere Langlois and a lot of others + would think I’m vain enough now without your compliments. I’m a neighbour + if you like, and I offer you a loan. Will you take it—that’s all?” + </p> + <p> + He held out his hand in silence and took the paper from her. Putting his + head a little on one side, he read it. At first he seemed hardly to get + the formal language clear in his mind; however, or maybe his mind was + still away in that abstraction into which he had whisked it when he began + his reply to her fine offer; but he read it out aloud, first quickly, then + very slowly, and he looked at the signature with a deeply meditative air. + </p> + <p> + “Virginie Poucette—that’s a good name,” he remarked; “and also good + for two thousand dollars!” He paused to smile contentedly over his own + joke. “And good for a great deal more than that too,” he added with a nod. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, ten times as much as that,” she responded quickly, her eyes fixed on + his face. She scarcely knew herself what she was thinking when she said + it; but most people who read this history will think she was hinting that + her assets might be united with his, and so enable him to wipe out his + liabilities and do a good deal more besides. Yet, how could that be, since + Carmen Dolores was still his wife if she was alive; and also they both + were Catholics, and Catholics did not recognize divorce! + </p> + <p> + Truth is, Virginie Poucette’s mind did not define her feelings at all + clearly, or express exactly what she wanted. Her actions said one thing + certainly; but if the question had been put to her, whether she was doing + this thing because of a wish to take the place of Carmen Dolores in Jean + Jacques’ life she would have said no at once. She had not come to that—yet. + She was simply moved by a sentiment of pity for Jean Jacques, and as she + had no child, or husband, or sister, or brother, or father, or mother, but + only relatives who tried to impose upon her, she needed an objective for + the emotions of her nature, for the overflow of her unused affection and + her unsatisfied maternal spirit. Here, then, was the most obvious + opportunity—a man in trouble who had not deserved the bitter bad + luck which had come to him. Even old Mere Langlois in the market-place at + Vilray had admitted that, and had said the same later on in Virginie’s + home. + </p> + <p> + For an instant Jean Jacques was fascinated by the sudden prospect which + opened out before him. If he asked her, this woman would probably loan him + five thousand dollars—and she had mentioned nothing about security! + </p> + <p> + “What security do you want?” he asked in a husky voice. + </p> + <p> + “Security? I don’t understand about that,” she replied. “I’d not offer you + the money if I didn’t think you were an honest man, and an honest man + would pay me back. A dishonest man wouldn’t pay me back, security or no + security.” + </p> + <p> + “He’d have to pay you back if the security was right to start with,” Jean + Jacques insisted. “But you don’t want security, because you think I’m an + honest man! Well, for sure you’re right. I am honest. I never took a cent + that wasn’t mine; but that’s not everything. If you lend you ought to have + security. I’ve lost a good deal from not having enough security at the + start. You are willing to lend me money without security—that’s + enough to make me feel thirty again, and I’m fifty—I’m fifty,” he + added, as though with an attempt to show her that she could not think of + him in any emotional way; though the day when his flour-mill was burned he + had felt the touch of her fingers comforting and thrilling. + </p> + <p> + “You think Jean Jacques Barbille’s word as good as his bond?” he + continued. “So it is; but I’m going to pull this thing through alone. + That’s what I said to you and Maitre Fille at his office. I meant it too—help + of God, it is the truth!” + </p> + <p> + He had forgotten that if M. Mornay had not made it easy for him, and had + not refrained from insisting on his pound of flesh, he would now be + insolvent and with no roof over him. Like many another man Jean Jacques + was the occasional slave of formula, and also the victim of phases of his + own temperament. In truth he had not realized how big a thing M. Mornay + had done for him. He had accepted the chance given him as the tribute to + his own courage and enterprise and integrity, and as though it was to the + advantage of his greatest creditor to give him another start; though in + reality it had made no difference to the Big Financier, who knew his man + and, with wide-open eyes, did what he had done. + </p> + <p> + Virginie was not subtle. She did not understand, was never satisfied with + allusions, and she had no gift for catching the drift of things. She could + endure no peradventure in her conversation. She wanted plain speaking and + to be literally sure. + </p> + <p> + “Are you going to take it?” she asked abruptly. + </p> + <p> + He could not bear to be checked in his course. He waved a hand and smiled + at her. Then his eyes seemed to travel away into the distance, the look of + the dreamer in them; but behind all was that strange, ruddy underglow of + revelation which kept emerging from shadows, retreating and emerging, yet + always there now, in much or in little, since the burning of the mill. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve lent a good deal of money without security in my time,” he + reflected, “but the only people who ever paid me back were a deaf and dumb + man and a flyaway—a woman that was tired of selling herself, and + started straight and right with the money I lent her. She had been the + wife of a man who studied with me at Laval. She paid me back every penny, + too, year by year for five years. The rest I lent money to never paid; but + they paid, the dummy and the harlot that was, they paid! But they paid for + the rest also! If I had refused these two because of the others, I’d not + be fit to visit at Neighbourhood House where Virginie Poucette lives.” + </p> + <p> + He looked closely at the order she had given him again, as though to let + it sink in his mind and be registered for ever. “I’m going to do without + any further use of your two thousand dollars,” he continued cheer fully. + “It has done its work. You’ve lent it to me, I’ve used it”—he put + the hand holding it on his breast—“and I’m paying it back to you, + but without interest.” He gave the order to her. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t see what you mean,” she said helplessly, and she looked at the + paper, as though it had undergone some change while it was in his hand. + </p> + <p> + “That you would lend it me is worth ten times two thousand to me, Virginie + Poucette,” he explained. “It gives me, not a kick from behind—I’ve + not had much else lately—but it holds a light in front of me. It + calls me. It says, ‘March on, Jean Jacques—climb the mountain.’ It + summons me to dispose my forces for the campaign which will restore the + Manor Cartier to what it has ever been since the days of the Baron of + Beaugard. It quickens the blood at my heart. It restores—” + </p> + <p> + Virginie would not allow him to go on. “You won’t let me help you? Suppose + I do lose the money—I didn’t earn it; it was earned by Palass + Poucette, and he’d understand, if he knew. I can live without the money, + if I have to, but you would pay it back, I know. You oughtn’t to take any + extra risks. If your daughter should come back and not find you here, if + she returned to the Manor Cartier, and—” + </p> + <p> + He made an insistent gesture. “Hush! Be still, my friend—as good a + friend as a man could have. If my Zoe came back I’d like to feel—I’d + like to feel that I had saved things alone; that no woman’s money made me + safe. If Zoe or if—” + </p> + <p> + He was going to say, “If Carmen came back,” for his mind was moving in + past scenes; but he stopped short and looked around helplessly. Then + presently, as though by an effort, he added with a bravura note in his + voice: + </p> + <p> + “The world has been full of trouble for a long time, but there have always + been men to say to trouble, ‘I am master, I have the mind to get above it + all.’ Well, I am one of them.” + </p> + <p> + There was no note of vanity or bombast in his voice as he said this, and + in his eyes that new underglow deepened and shone. Perhaps in this instant + he saw more of his future than he would speak of to anyone on earth. + Perhaps prevision was given him, and it was as the Big Financier had said + to Maitre Fille, that his philosophy was now, at the last, to be of use to + him. When his wife had betrayed him, and his wife and child had left him, + he had said, “Moi je suis philosophe!” but he was a man of wealth in those + days, and money soothes hurts of that kind in rare degree. Would he still + say, whatever was yet to come, that he was a philosopher? + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’ve done what I thought would help you, and I can’t say more than + that,” Virginie remarked with a sigh, and there was despondency in her + eyes. Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; she looked at + him as she had done in Maitre Fille’s office, and a wave of feeling passed + over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, in response to her look, + the thrill of his fingers in her palm. His face now flushed also, and he + had an impulse to ask her to sit down beside him. He put it away from him, + however, for the present, at any rate-who could tell what to-morrow might + bring forth!—and then he held out his hand to her. His voice shook a + little when he spoke; but it cleared, and began to ring, before he had + said a dozen words. + </p> + <p> + “I’ll never forget what you’ve said and done this morning, Virginie + Poucette,” he declared; “and if I break the back of the trouble that’s in + my way, and come out cock o’ the walk again”—the gold Cock of + Beaugard in the ruins near and the clarion of the bantam of his barnyard + were in his mind and ears—“it’ll be partly because of you. I hug + that thought to me.” + </p> + <p> + “I could do a good deal more than that,” she ventured, with a tremulous + voice, and then she took her warm hand from his nervous grasp, and turned + sharply into the path which led back towards the Manor. She did not turn + around, and she walked quickly away. + </p> + <p> + There was confusion in her eyes and in her mind. It would take some time + to make the confusion into order, and she was now hot, now cold, in all + her frame, when at last she climbed into her wagon. + </p> + <p> + This physical unrest imparted itself to all she did that day. First her + horses were driven almost at a gallop; then they were held down to a slow + walk; then they were stopped altogether, and she sat in the shade of the + trees on the road to her home, pondering—whispering to herself and + pondering. + </p> + <p> + As her horses were at a standstill she saw a wagon approaching. Instantly + she touched her pair with the whip, and moved on. Before the approaching + wagon came alongside, she knew from the grey and the darkbrown horses who + was driving them, and she made a strong effort for composure. She + succeeded indifferently, but her friend, Mere Langlois, did not notice + this fact as her wagon drew near. There was excitement in Mere Langlois’ + face. + </p> + <p> + “There’s been a shindy at the ‘Red Eagle’ tavern,” she said. “That + father-in-law of M’sieu’ Jean Jacques and Rocque Valescure, the landlord, + they got at each other’s throats. Dolores hit Valescure on the head with a + bottle.” + </p> + <p> + “He didn’t kill Valescure, did he?” + </p> + <p> + “Not that—no. But Valescure is hurt bad—as bad. It was six to + one and half a dozen to the other—both no good at all. But of course + they’ll arrest the old man—your great friend! He’ll not give you any + more fur-robes, that’s sure. He got away from the tavern, though, and he’s + hiding somewhere. M’sieu’ Jean Jacques can’t protect him now; he isn’t + what he once was in the parish. He’s done for, and old Dolores will have + to go to trial. They’ll make it hot for him when they catch him. No more + fur-robes from your Spanish friend, Virginie! You’ll have to look + somewhere else for your beaux, though to be sure there are enough that’d + be glad to get you with that farm of yours, and your thrifty ways, if you + keep your character.” + </p> + <p> + Virginie was quite quiet now. The asperity and suggestiveness of the + other’s speech produced a cooling effect upon her. + </p> + <p> + “Better hurry, Mere Langlois, or everybody won’t hear your story before + sundown. If your throat gets tired, there’s Brown’s Bronchial Troches—” + She pointed to an advertisement on the fence near by. “M. Fille’s cook + says they cure a rasping throat.” + </p> + <p> + With that shot, Virginie Poucette whipped up her horses and drove on. She + did not hear what Mere Langlois called after her, for Mere Langlois had + been slow to recover from the unexpected violence dealt by one whom she + had always bullied. + </p> + <p> + “Poor Jean Jacques!” said Virginie Poucette to herself as her horses ate + up the ground. “That’s another bit of bad luck. He’ll not sleep to-night. + Ah, the poor Jean Jacques—and all alone—not a hand to hold; no + one to rumple that shaggy head of his or pat him on the back! His wife and + Ma’m’selle Zoe, they didn’t know a good thing when they had it. No, he’ll + not sleep to-night-ah, my dear Jean Jacques!” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP + </h2> + <p> + But Jean Jacques did sleep well that night; though it would have been + better for him if he had not done so. The contractor’s workmen had arrived + in the early afternoon, he had seen the first ton of debris removed from + the ruins of the historic mill, and it was crowned by the gold Cock of + Beaugard, all grimy with the fire, but jaunty as of yore. The cheerfulness + of the workmen, who sang gaily an old chanson of mill-life as they tugged + at the timbers and stones, gave a fillip to the spirits of Jean Jacques, + to whom had come a red-letter day. + </p> + <p> + Like Mirza on the high hill of Bagdad he had had his philosophic + meditations; his good talk with Virginie Poucette had followed; and the + woman of her lingered in the feeling of his hand all day, as something + kind and homelike and true. Also in the evening had come M. Fille, who + brought him a message from Judge Carcasson, that he must make the world + sing for himself again. + </p> + <p> + Contrary to what Mere Langlois had thought, he had not been perturbed by + the parish noise about the savage incident at “The Red Eagle,” and the + desperate affair which would cause the arrest of his father-in-law. He was + at last well inclined to be rid of Sebastian Dolores, who had ceased to be + a comfort to him, and who brought him hateful and not kindly memories of + his lost women, and the happy hours of the past they represented. + </p> + <p> + M. Fille had come to the Manor in much alarm, lest the news of the + miserable episode at “The Red Eagle” should bring Jean Jacques down again + to the depths. He was infinitely relieved, however, to find that the lord + of the Manor Cartier seemed only to be grateful that Sebastian Dolores did + not return, and nodded emphatically when M. Fille remarked that perhaps it + would be just as well if he never did return. + </p> + <p> + As M. Fille sat with his host at the table in the sunset light, Jean + Jacques seemed quieter and steadier of body and mind than he had been for + a long, long time. He even drank three glasses of the cordial which Mere + Langlois had left for him, with the idea that it might comfort him when he + got the bad news about Sebastian Dolores; and parting with M. Fille at the + door, he waved a hand and said: “Well, good-night, master of the laws. + Safe journey! I’m off to bed, and I’ll sleep without rocking, that’s very + sure and sweet.” + </p> + <p> + He stood and waved his hand several times to M. Fille—till he was + out of sight indeed; and the Clerk of the Court smiled to himself long + afterwards, recalling Jean Jacques’ cheerful face as he had seen it at + their parting in the gathering dusk. As for Jean Jacques, when he locked + up the house at ten o’clock, with Dolores still absent, he had the air of + a man from whose shoulders great weights had fallen. + </p> + <p> + “Now I’ve shut the door on him, it’ll stay shut,” he said firmly. “Let him + go back to work. He’s no good here to me, to himself, or to anyone. And + that business of the fur-robe and Virginie Poucette—ah, that!” + </p> + <p> + He shook his head angrily, then seeing the bottle of cordial still + uncorked on the sideboard, he poured some out and drank it very slowly, + till his eyes were on the ceiling above him and every drop had gone home. + Presently, with the bedroom lamp in his hand, he went upstairs, humming to + himself the chanson the workmen had sung that afternoon as they raised + again the walls of the mill: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Distaff of flax flowing behind her + Margatton goes to the mill + On the old grey ass she goes, + The flour of love it will blind her + Ah, the grist the devil will grind her, + When Margatton goes to the mill! + On the old grey ass she goes, + And the old grey ass, he knows!” + </pre> + <p> + He liked the sound of his own voice this night of his Reconstruction + Period—or such it seemed to him; and he thought that no one heard + his singing save himself. There, however, he was mistaken. Someone was + hidden in the house—in the big kitchen-bunk which served as a bed or + a seat, as needed. This someone had stolen in while Jean Jacques and M. + Fille were at supper. His name was Dolores, and he had a horse just over + the hill near by, to serve him when his work was done, and he could get + away. + </p> + <p> + The constables of Vilray had twice visited the Manor to arrest him that + day, but they had been led in another direction by a clue which he had + provided; and afterwards in the dusk he had doubled back and hid himself + under Jean Jacques’ roof. He had very important business at the Manor + Cartier. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques’ voice ceased one song, and then, after a silence, it took up + another, not so melodious. Sebastian Dolores had impatiently waited for + this later “musicale” to begin—he had heard it often before; and + when it was at last a regular succession of nasal explosions, he crawled + out and began to do the business which had brought him to the Manor + Cartier. + </p> + <p> + He did it all alone and with much skill; for when he was an anarchist in + Spain, those long years ago, he had learned how to use tools with expert + understanding. Of late, Spain had been much in his mind. He wanted to go + back there. Nostalgia had possessed him ever since he had come again to + the Manor Cartier after Zoe had left. He thought much of Spain, and but + little of his daughter. Memory of her was only poignant, in so far as it + was associated with the days preceding the wreck of the Antoine. He had + had far more than enough of the respectable working life of the New World; + but there never was sufficient money to take him back to Europe, even were + it safe to go. Of late, however, he felt sure that he might venture, if he + could only get cash for the journey. He wanted to drift back to the + idleness and adventure and the “easy money” of the old anarchist days in + Cadiz and Madrid. He was sick for the patio and the plaza, for the + bull-fight, for the siesta in the sun, for the lazy glamour of the gardens + and the red wine of Valladolid, for the redolent cigarette of the roadside + tavern. This cold iron land had spoiled him, and he would strive to get + himself home again before it was too late. In Spain there would always be + some woman whom he could cajole; some comrade whom he could betray; some + priest whom he could deceive, whose pocket he could empty by the recital + of his troubles. But if, peradventure, he returned to Spain with money to + spare in his pocket, how easy indeed it would all be, and how happy he + would find himself amid old surroundings and old friends! + </p> + <p> + The way had suddenly opened up to him when Jean Jacques had brought home + in hard cash, and had locked away in the iron-doored cupboard in the + officewall, his last, his cherished, eight thousand dollars. Six thousand + of that eight were still left, and it was concern for this six thousand + which had brought Dolores to the Manor this night when Jean Jacques snored + so loudly. The events of the day at “The Red Eagle” had brought things to + a crisis in the affairs of Carmen’s father. It was a foolish business that + at the tavern—so, at any rate, he thought, when it was all over, and + he was awake to the fact that he must fly or go to jail. From the time he + had, with a bottle of gin, laid Valescure low, Spain was the word which + went ringing through his head, and the way to Spain was by the Six + Thousand Dollar Route, the New World terminal of which was the cupboard in + the wall at the Manor Cartier. + </p> + <p> + Little cared Sebastian Dolores that the theft of the money would mean the + end of all things for Jean Jacques Barbille-for his own daughter’s + husband. He was thinking of himself, as he had always done. + </p> + <p> + He worked for two whole hours before he succeeded in quietly forcing open + the iron door in the wall; but it was done at last. Curiously enough, Jean + Jacques’ snoring stopped on the instant that Sebastian Dolores’ fingers + clutched the money; but it began cheerfully again when the door in the + wall closed once more. + </p> + <p> + Five minutes after Dolores had thrust the six thousand dollars into his + pocket, his horse was galloping away over the hills towards the River St. + Lawrence. If he had luck, he would reach it by the morning. As it + happened, he had the luck. Behind him, in the Manor Cartier, the man who + had had no luck and much philosophy, snored on till morning in unconscious + content. + </p> + <p> + It was a whole day before Jean Jacques discovered his loss. When he had + finished his lonely supper the next evening, he went to the cupboard in + his office to cheer himself with the sight of the six thousand dollars. He + felt that he must revive his spirits. They had been drooping all day, he + knew not why. + </p> + <p> + When he saw the empty pigeon-hole in the cupboard, his sight swam. It was + some time before it cleared, but, when it did, and he knew beyond + peradventure the crushing, everlasting truth, not a sound escaped him. His + heart stood still. His face filled with a panic confusion. He seemed like + one bereft of understanding. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XX. “AU ‘VOIR, M’SIEU’ JEAN JACQUES” + </h2> + <p> + It is seldom that Justice travels as swiftly as Crime, and it is also + seldom that the luck is more with the law than with the criminal. It took + the parish of St. Saviour’s so long to make up its mind who stole Jean + Jacques’ six thousand dollars, that when the hounds got the scent at last + the quarry had reached the water—in other words, Sebastian Dolores + had achieved the St. Lawrence. The criminal had had near a day’s start + before a telegram was sent to the police at Montreal, Quebec, and other + places to look out for the picaroon who had left his mark on the parish of + St. Saviour’s. The telegram would not even then have been sent had it not + been for M. Fille, who, suspecting Sebastian Dolores, still refrained from + instant action. This he did because he thought Jean Jacques would not wish + his beloved Zoe’s grandfather sent to prison. But when other people at + last declared that it must have been Dolores, M. Fille insisted on + telegrams being sent by the magistrate at Vilray without Jean Jacques’ + consent. He had even urged the magistrate to “rush” the wire, because it + came home to him with stunning force that, if the money was not recovered, + Jean Jacques would be a beggar. It was better to jail the father-in-law, + than for the little money-master to take to the road a pauper, or stay on + at St. Saviour’s as an underling where he had been overlord. + </p> + <p> + As for Jean Jacques, in his heart of hearts he knew who had robbed him. He + realized that it was one of the radii of the comedy-tragedy which began on + the Antoine, so many years before; and it had settled in his mind at last + that Sebastian Dolores was but part of the dark machinery of fate, and + that what was now had to be. + </p> + <p> + For one whole day after the robbery he was like a man paralysed—dispossessed + of active being; but when his creditors began to swarm, when M. Mornay + sent his man of business down to foreclose his mortgages before others + could take action, Jean Jacques waked from his apathy. He began an + imitation of his old restlessness, and made essay again to pull the + strings of his affairs. They were, however, so confused that a pull at one + string tangled them all. + </p> + <p> + When the constables and others came to him, and said that they were on the + trail of the robber, and that the rogue would be caught, he nodded his + head encouragingly; but he was sure in his own mind that the flight of + Dolores would be as successful as that of Carmen and Zoe. + </p> + <p> + This is the way he put it: “That man—we will just miss finding him, + as I missed Zoe at the railroad junction when she went away, as I missed + catching Carmen at St. Chrisanthine. When you are at the shore, he will be + on the river; when you are getting into the train, he will be getting out. + It is the custom of the family. At Bordeaux, the Spanish detectives were + on the shore gnashing their teeth, when he was a hundred yards away at sea + on the Antoine. They missed him like that; and we’ll miss him too. What is + the good! It was not his fault—that was the way of his bringing up + beyond there at Cadiz, where they think more of a toreador than of John + the Baptist. It was my fault. I ought to have banked the money. I ought + not to have kept it to look at like a gamin with his marbles. There it was + in the wall; and there was Dolores a long way from home and wanting to get + back. He found the way by a gift of the tools; and I wish I had the same + gift now; for I’ve got no other gift that’ll earn anything for me.” + </p> + <p> + These were the last dark or pessimistic words spoken at St. Saviour’s by + Jean Jacques; and they were said to the Clerk of the Court, who could not + deny the truth of them; but he wrung the hand of Jean Jacques + nevertheless, and would not leave him night or day. M. Fille was like a + little cruiser protecting a fort when gunboats swarm near, not daring to + attack till their battleship heaves in sight. The battleship was the Big + Financier, who saw that a wreck was now inevitable, and was only concerned + that there should be a fair distribution of the assets. That meant, of + course, that he should be served first, and then that those below the salt + should get a share. + </p> + <p> + Revelation after revelation had been Jean Jacques’ lot of late years, but + the final revelation of his own impotence was overwhelming. When he began + to stir about among his affairs, he was faced by the fact that the law + stood in his way. He realized with inward horror his shattered egotism and + natural vanity; he saw that he might just as well be in jail; that he had + no freedom; that he could do nothing at all in regard to anything he + owned; that he was, in effect, a prisoner of war where he had been the + general commanding an army. + </p> + <p> + Yet the old pride intervened, and it was associated with some innate + nobility; for from the hour in which it was known that Sebastian Dolores + had escaped in a steamer bound for France, and could not be overhauled, + and the chances were that he would never have to yield up the six thousand + dollars, Jean Jacques bustled about cheerfully, and as though he had still + great affairs of business to order and regulate. It was a make-believe + which few treated with scorn. Even the workmen at the mill humoured him, + as he came several times every day to inspect the work of rebuilding; and + they took his orders, though they did not carry them out. No one really + carried out any of his orders except Seraphe Corniche, who, weeping from + morning till night, protested that there never was so good a man as + M’sieu’ Jean Jacques; and she cooked his favourite dishes, giving him no + peace until he had eaten them. + </p> + <p> + The days, the weeks went on, with Jean Jacques growing thinner and + thinner, but going about with his head up like the gold Cock of Beaugard, + and even crowing now and then, as he had done of yore. He faced the + inevitable with something of his old smiling volubility; treating nothing + of his disaster as though it really existed; signing off this asset and + that; disposing of this thing and that; stripping himself bare of all the + properties on his life’s stage, in such a manner as might have been his + had he been receiving gifts and not yielding up all he owned. He chatted + as his belongings were, figuratively speaking, being carried away—as + though they were mechanical, formal things to be done as he had done them + every day of a fairly long life; as a clerk would check off the boxes or + parcels carried past him by the porters. M. Fille could hardly bear to see + him in this mood, and the New Cure hovered round him with a mournful and + harmlessly deceptive kindness. But the end had to come, and practically + all the parish was present when it came. That was on the day when the + contents of the Manor were sold at auction by order of the Court. One + thing Jean Jacques refused absolutely and irrevocably to do from the first—refused + it at last in anger and even with an oath: he would not go through the + Bankruptcy Court. No persuasion had any effect. The very suggestion seemed + to smirch his honour. His lawyer pleaded with him, said he would be able + to save something out of the wreck, and that his creditors would be + willing that he should take advantage of the privileges of that court; but + he only said in reply: + </p> + <p> + “Thank you, thank you altogether, monsieur, but it is impossible—‘non + possumus, non possumus, my son,’ as the Pope said to Bonaparte. I owe and + I will pay what I can; and what I can’t pay now I will try to pay in the + future, by the cent, by the dollar, till all is paid to the last copper. + It is the way with the Barbilles. They have paid their way and their debts + in honour, and it is in the bond with all the Barbilles of the past that I + do as they do. If I can’t do it, then that I have tried to do it will be + endorsed on the foot of the bill.” + </p> + <p> + No one could move him, not even Judge Carcasson, who from his armchair in + Montreal wrote a feeble-handed letter begging him to believe that it was + “well within his rights as a gentleman”—this he put in at the + request of M. Mornay—to take advantage of the privileges of the + Bankruptcy Court. Even then Jean Jacques had only a few moments’ + hesitation. What the Judge said made a deep impression; but he had + determined to drink the cup of his misfortune to the dregs. He was set + upon complete renunciation; on going forth like a pilgrim from the place + of his troubles and sorrows, taking no gifts, no mercies save those which + heaven accorded him. + </p> + <p> + When the day of the auction came everything went. Even his best suit of + clothes was sold to a blacksmith, while his fur-coat was bought by a + horse-doctor for fifteen dollars. Things that had been part of his life + for a generation found their way into hands where he would least have + wished them to go—of those who had been envious of him, who had + cheated or deceived him, of people with whom he had had nothing in common. + The red wagon and the pair of little longtailed stallions, which he had + driven for six years, were bought by the owner of a rival flour-mill in + the parish of Vilray; but his best sleigh, with its coon-skin robes, was + bought by the widow of Palass Poucette, who bought also the famous + bearskin which Dolores had given her at Jean Jacques’ expense, and had + been returned by her to its proper owner. The silver fruitdish, once (it + was said) the property of the Baron of Beaugard, which each generation of + Barbilles had displayed with as much ceremony as though it was a chalice + given by the Pope, went to Virginie Poucette. Virginie also bought the + furniture from Zoe’s bedroom as it stood, together with the little upright + piano on which she used to play. The Cure bought Jean Jacques’ + writing-desk, and M. Fille purchased his armchair, in which had sat at + least six Barbilles as owners of the Manor. The beaver-hat which Jean + Jacques wore on state occasions, as his grandfather had done, together + with the bonnet rouge of the habitant, donned by him in his younger days—they + fell to the nod of Mere Langlois, who declared that, as she was a cousin, + she would keep the things in the family. Mere Langlois would have bought + the fruit-dish also if she could have afforded to bid against Virginie + Poucette; but the latter would have had the dish if it had cost her two + hundred dollars. The only time she had broken bread in Jean Jacques’ + house, she had eaten cake from this fruit-dish; and to her, as to the + parish generally, the dish so beautifully shaped, with its graceful depth + and its fine-chased handles, was symbol of the social caste of the + Barbilles, as the gold Cock of Beaugard was sign of their civic and + commercial glory. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques, who had moved about all day with an almost voluble + affability, seeming not to realize the tragedy going on, or, if he + realized it, rising superior to it, was noticed to stand still suddenly + when the auctioneer put up the fruit-dish for sale. Then the smile left + his face, and the reddish glow in his eyes, which had been there since the + burning of the mill, fled, and a touch of amazement and confusion took its + place. All in a moment he was like a fluttered dweller of the wilds to + whom comes some tremor of danger. + </p> + <p> + His mouth opened as though he would forbid the selling of the heirloom; + but it closed again, because he knew he had no right to withhold it from + the hammer; and he took on a look like that which comes to the eyes of a + child when it faces humiliating denial. Quickly as it came, however, it + vanished, for he remembered that he could buy the dish himself. He could + buy it himself and keep it.... Yet what could he do with it? Even so, he + could keep it. It could still be his till better days came. + </p> + <p> + The auctioneer’s voice told off the value of the fruitdish—“As an + heirloom, as an antique; as a piece of workmanship impossible of + duplication in these days of no handicraft; as good pure silver, bearing + the head of Louis Quinze—beautiful, marvellous, historic, + honourable,” and Jean Jacques made ready to bid. Then he remembered he had + no money—he who all his life had been able to take a roll of bills + from his pocket as another man took a packet of letters. His glance fell + in shame, and the words died on his lips, even as M. Manotel, the + auctioneer, was about to add another five-dollar bid to the price, which + already was standing at forty dollars. + </p> + <p> + It was at this moment Jean Jacques heard a woman’s voice bidding, then two + women’s voices. Looking up he saw that one of the women was Mere Langlois + and the other was Virginie Poucette, who had made the first bid. For a + moment they contended, and then Mere Langlois fell out of the contest, and + Virginie continued it with an ambitious farmer from the next county, who + was about to become a Member of Parliament. Presently the owner of a river + pleasure-steamer entered into the costly emulation also, but he soon fell + away; and Virginie Poucette stubbornly raised the bidding by five dollars + each time, till the silver symbol of the Barbilles’ pride had reached one + hundred dollars. Then she raised the price by ten dollars, and her rival, + seeing that he was face to face with a woman who would now bid till her + last dollar was at stake, withdrew; and Virginie was left triumphant with + the heirloom. + </p> + <p> + At the moment when Virginie turned away with the handsome dish from M. + Manotel, and the crowd cheered her gaily, she caught Jean-Jacques’ eye, + and she came straight towards him. She wanted to give the dish to him then + and there; but she knew that this would provide annoying gossip for many a + day, and besides, she thought he would refuse. More than that, she had in + her mind another alternative which might in the end secure the heirloom to + him, in spite of all. As she passed him, she said: + </p> + <p> + “At least we keep it in the parish. If you don’t have it, well, then...” + </p> + <p> + She paused, for she did not quite know what to say unless she spoke what + was really in her mind, and she dared not do that. + </p> + <p> + “But you ought to have an heirloom,” she added, leaving unsaid what was + her real thought and hope. With sudden inspiration, for he saw she was + trying to make it easy for him, he drew the great silver-watch from his + pocket, which the head of the Barbilles had worn for generations, and + said: + </p> + <p> + “I have the only heirloom I could carry about with me. It will keep time + for me as long as I’ll last. The Manor clock strikes the time for the + world, and this watch is set by the Manor clock.” + </p> + <p> + “Well said—well and truly said, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques,” remarked the + lean watchmaker and so-called jeweller of Vilray, who stood near. “It is a + watch which couldn’t miss the stroke of Judgment Day.” + </p> + <p> + It was at that moment, in the sunset hour, when the sale had drawn to a + close, and the people had begun to disperse, that the avocat of Vilray who + represented the Big Financier came to Jean Jacques and said: + </p> + <p> + “M’sieu’, I have to say that there is due to you three hundred and fifty + dollars from the settlement, excluding this sale, which will just do what + was expected of it. I am instructed to give it to you from the creditors. + Here it is.” + </p> + <p> + He took out a roll of bills and offered it to Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “What creditors?” asked Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “All the creditors,” responded the other, and he produced a receipt for + Jean Jacques to sign. “A formal statement will be sent you, and if there + is any more due to you, it will be added then. But now—well, there + it is, the creditors think there is no reason for you to wait.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques did not yet take the roll of bills. “They come from M. + Mornay?” he asked with an air of resistance, for he did not wish to be + under further obligations to the man who would lose most by him. + </p> + <p> + The lawyer was prepared. M. Mornay had foreseen the timidity and + sensitiveness of Jean Jacques, had anticipated his mistaken chivalry—for + how could a man decline to take advantage of the Bankruptcy Court unless + he was another Don Quixote! He had therefore arranged with all the + creditors for them to take responsibility with ‘himself, though he + provided the cash which manipulated this settlement. + </p> + <p> + “No, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques,” the lawyer replied, “this comes from all the + creditors, as the sum due to you from all the transactions, so far as can + be seen as yet. Further adjustment may be necessary, but this is the + interim settlement.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques was far from being ignorant of business, but so bemused was + his judgment and his intelligence now, that he did not see there was no + balance which could possibly be his, since his liabilities vastly exceeded + his assets. Yet with a wave of the hand he accepted the roll of bills, and + signed the receipt with an air which said, “These forms must be observed, + I suppose.” + </p> + <p> + What he would have done if the three hundred and fifty dollars had not + been given him, it would be hard to say, for with gentle asperity he had + declined a loan from his friend M. Fille, and he had but one silver dollar + in his pocket, or in the world. Indeed, Jean Jacques was living in a dream + in these dark days—a dream of renunciation and sacrifice, and in the + spirit of one who gives up all to some great cause. He was not yet even + face to face with the fulness of his disaster. Only at moments had the + real significance of it all come to him, and then he had shivered as + before some terror menacing his path. Also, as M. Mornay had said, his + philosophy was now in his bones and marrow rather than in his words. It + had, after all, tinctured his blood and impregnated his mind. He had + babbled and been the egotist, and played cock o’ the walk; and now at last + his philosophy was giving some foundation for his feet. Yet at this + auction-sale he looked a distracted, if smiling, whimsical, rather + bustling figure of misfortune, with a tragic air of exile, of isolation + from all by which he was surrounded. A profound and wayworn loneliness + showed in his figure, in his face, in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + The crowd thinned in time, and yet very many lingered to see the last of + this drama of lost fortunes. A few of the riff-raff, who invariably attend + these public scenes, were now rather the worse for drink, from the + indifferent liquor provided by the auctioneer, and they were inclined to + horseplay and coarse chaff. More than one ribald reference to Jean Jacques + had been checked by his chivalrous fellow-citizens; indeed, M. Fille had + almost laid himself open to a charge of assault in his own court by + raising his stick at a loafer, who made insulting references to Jean + Jacques. But as the sale drew to a close, an air of rollicking humour + among the younger men would not be suppressed, and it looked as though + Jean Jacques’ exit would be attended by the elements of farce and satire. + </p> + <p> + In this world, however, things do not happen logically, and Jean Jacques + made his exit in a wholly unexpected manner. He was going away by the + train which left a new railway junction a few miles off, having gently yet + firmly declined M. Fille’s invitation, and also the invitations of others—including + the Cure and Mere Langlois—to spend the night with them and start + off the next day. He elected to go on to Montreal that very night, and + before the sale was quite finished he prepared to start. His carpet-bag + containing a few clothes and necessaries had been sent on to the junction, + and he meant to walk to the station in the cool of the evening. + </p> + <p> + M. Manotel, the auctioneer, hoarse with his heavy day’s work, was + announcing that there were only a few more things to sell, and no doubt + they could be had at a bargain, when Jean Jacques began a tour of the + Manor. There was something inexpressibly mournful in this lonely + pilgrimage of the dismantled mansion. Yet there was no show of cheap + emotion by Jean Jacques; and a wave of the hand prevented any one from + following him in his dry-eyed progress to say farewell to these haunts of + childhood, manhood, family, and home. There was a strange numbness in his + mind and body, and he had a feeling that he moved immense and reflective + among material things. Only tragedy can produce that feeling. Happiness + makes the universe infinite and stupendous, despair makes it small and + even trivial. + </p> + <p> + It was when he had reached the little office where he had done the + business of his life—a kind of neutral place where he had ever + isolated himself from the domestic scene—that the final sensation, + save one, of his existence at the Manor came to him. Virginie Poucette had + divined his purpose when he began the tour of the house, and going by a + roundabout way, she had placed herself where she could speak with him + alone before he left the place for ever—if that was to be. She was + not sure that his exit was really inevitable—not yet. + </p> + <p> + When Jean Jacques saw Virginie standing beside the table in his office + where he lead worked over so many years, now marked Sold, and waiting to + be taken away by its new owner, he started and drew back, but she held out + her hand and said: + </p> + <p> + “But one word, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques; only one word from a friend—indeed + a friend.” + </p> + <p> + “A friend of friends,” he answered, still in abstraction, his eyes having + that burnished light which belonged to the night of the fire; but yet + realizing that she was a sympathetic soul who had offered to lend him + money without security. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, indeed yes, as good a friend as you can ever have!” she added. + </p> + <p> + Something had waked the bigger part of her, which had never been awake in + the days of Palass Poucette. Jean Jacques was much older than she, but + what she felt had nothing to do with age, or place or station. It had only + to do with understanding, with the call of nature and of a motherhood + crying for expression. Her heart ached for him. + </p> + <p> + “Well, good-bye, my friend,” he said, and held out his hand. “I must be + going now.” + </p> + <p> + “Wait,” she said, and there was something insistent and yet pleading in + her voice. “I’ve got something to say. You must hear it.... Why should you + go? There is my farm—it needs to be worked right. It has got good + chances. It has water-power and wood and the best flax in the province—they + want to start a flax-mill on it—I’ve had letters from big men in + Montreal. Well, why shouldn’t you do it instead? There it is, the farm, + and there am I a woman alone. I need help. I’ve got no head. I have to + work at a sum of figures all night to get it straight.... Ah, m’sieu’, it + is a need both sides! You want someone to look after you; you want a + chance again to do things; but you want someone to look after you, and it + is all waiting there on the farm. Palass Poucette left behind him seven + sound horses, and cows and sheep, and a threshing-machine and a + fanning-mill, and no debts, and two thousand dollars in the bank. You will + never do anything away from here. You must stay here, where—where I + can look after you, Jean Jacques.” + </p> + <p> + The light in his eyes flamed up, died down, flamed up again, and presently + it covered all his face, as he grasped what she meant. + </p> + <p> + “Wonder of God, do you forget?” he asked. “I am married—married + still, Virginie Poucette. There is no divorce in the Catholic Church—no, + none at all. It is for ever and ever.” + </p> + <p> + “I said nothing about marriage,” she said bravely, though her face + suffused. + </p> + <p> + “Hand of Heaven, what do you mean? You mean to say you would do that for + me in spite of the Cure and—and everybody and everything?” + </p> + <p> + “You ought to be taken care of,” she protested. “You ought to have your + chance again. No one here is free to do it all but me. You are alone. Your + wife that was—maybe she is dead. I am alone, and I’m not afraid of + what the good God will say. I will settle with Him myself. Well, then, do + you think I’d care what—what Mere Langlois or the rest of the world + would say?... I can’t bear to think of you going away with nothing, with + nobody, when here is something and somebody—somebody who would be + good to you. Everybody knows that you’ve been badly used—everybody. + I’m young enough to make things bright and warm in your life, and the + place is big enough for two, even if it isn’t the Manor Cartier.” + </p> + <p> + “Figure de Christ, do you think I’d let you do it—me?” declared Jean + Jacques, with lips trembling now and his shoulders heaving. Misfortune and + pain and penalty he could stand, but sacrifice like this and—and + whatever else it was, were too much for him. They brought him back to the + dusty road and everyday life again; they subtracted him from his big + dream, in which he had been detached from the details of his catastrophe. + </p> + <p> + “No, no, no,” he added. “You go look another way, Virginie. Turn your face + to the young spring, not to the dead winter. To-morrow I’ll be gone to + find what I’ve got to find. I’ve finished here, but there’s many a good + man waiting for you—men who’ll bring you something worth while + besides themselves. Make no mistake, I’ve finished. I’ve done my term of + life. I’m only out on ticket-of-leave now—but there, enough, I shall + always want to think of you. I wish I had something to give you—but + yes, here is something.” He drew from his pocket a silver napkin-ring. + “I’ve had that since I was five years old. My uncle Stefan gave it to me. + I’ve always used it. I don’t know why I put it in my pocket this morning, + but I did. Take it. It’s more than money. It’s got something of Jean + Jacques about it. You’ve got the Barbille fruit-dish-that is a thing I’ll + remember. I’m glad you’ve got it, and—” + </p> + <p> + “I meant we should both eat from it,” she said helplessly. + </p> + <p> + “It would cost too much to eat from it with you, Virginie—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped short, choked, then his face cleared, and his eyes became + steady. + </p> + <p> + “Well then, good-bye, Virginie,” he said, holding out his hand. + </p> + <p> + “You don’t think I’d say to any other living man what I’ve said to you?” + she asked. + </p> + <p> + He nodded understandingly. “That’s the best part of it. It was for me of + all the world,” he answered. “When I look back, I’ll see the light in your + window—the light you lit for the lost one—for Jean Jacques + Barbille.” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly, with eyes that did not see and hands held out before him, he + turned, felt for the door and left the room. + </p> + <p> + She leaned helplessly against the table. “The poor Jean Jacques—the + poor Jean Jacques!” she murmured. “Cure or no Cure, I’d have done it,” she + declared, with a ring to her voice. “Ah, but Jean Jacques, come with me!” + she added with a hungry and compassionate gesture, speaking into space. “I + could make life worth while for us both.” + </p> + <p> + A moment later Virginie was outside, watching the last act in the career + of Jean Jacques in the parish of St. Saviour’s. + </p> + <p> + This was what she saw. + </p> + <p> + The auctioneer was holding up a bird-cage containing a canary-Carmen’s + bird-cage, and Zoe’s canary which had remained to be a vocal memory of her + in her old home. + </p> + <p> + “Here,” said the rhetorical, inflammable auctioneer, “here is the choicest + lot left to the last. I put it away in the bakery, meaning to sell it at + noon, when everybody was eating-food for the soul and food for the body. I + forgot it. But here it is, worth anything you like to anybody that loves + the beautiful, the good, and the harmonious. What do I hear for this + lovely saffron singer from the Elysian fields? What did the immortal poet + of France say of the bird in his garret, in ‘L’Oiseau de Mon Crenier’? + What did he say: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ‘Sing me a song of the bygone hour, + A song of the stream and the sun; + Sing of my love in her bosky bower, + When my heart it was twenty-one.’ +</pre> + <p> + “Come now, who will renew his age or regale her youth with the divine + notes of nature’s minstrel? Who will make me an offer for this vestal + virgin of song—the joy of the morning and the benediction of the + evening? What do I hear? The best of the wine to the last of the feast! + What do I hear?—five dollars—seven dollars—nine dollars—going + at nine dollars—ten dollars—Well, ladies and gentlemen, the + bird can sing—ah, voila!” + </p> + <p> + He stopped short for a moment, for as the evening sun swept its veil of + rainbow radiance over the scene, the bird began to sing. Its little throat + swelled, it chirruped, it trilled, it called, it soared, it lost itself in + a flood of ecstasy. In the applausive silence, the emotional recess of the + sale, as it were, the man to whom the bird and the song meant most, pushed + his way up to the stand where M. Manotel stood. When the people saw who it + was, they fell back, for there was that in his face which needed no + interpretation. It filled them with a kind of awe. + </p> + <p> + He reached up a brown, eager, affectionate hand—it had always been + that—fat and small, but rather fine and certainly emotional, though + not material or sensual. + </p> + <p> + “Go on with your bidding,” he said. + </p> + <p> + He was going to buy the thing which had belonged to his daughter, was + beloved by her—the living oracle of the morning, the muezzin of his + mosque of home. It had been to the girl who had gone as another such a + bird had been to the mother of the girl, the voice that sang, “Praise + God,” in the short summer of that bygone happiness of his. Even this cage + and its homebird were not his; they belonged to the creditors. + </p> + <p> + “Go on. I buy—I bid,” Jean Jacques said in a voice that rang. It had + no blur of emotion. It had resonance. The hammer that struck the bell of + his voice was the hammer of memory, and if it was plaintive it also was + clear, and it was also vibrant with the silver of lost hopes. + </p> + <p> + M. Manotel humoured him, while the bird still sang. “Four dollars—five + dollars: do I hear no more than five dollars?—going once, going + twice, going three times—gone!” he cried, for no one had made a + further bid; and indeed M. Manotel would not have heard another voice than + Jean Jacques’ if it had been as loud as the falls of the Saguenay. He was + a kind of poet in his way, was M. Manotel. He had been married four times, + and he would be married again if he had the chance; also he wrote verses + for tombstones in the churchyard at St. Saviour’s, and couplets for fetes + and weddings. + </p> + <p> + He handed the cage to Jean Jacques, who put it down on the ground at his + feet, and in an instant had handed up five dollars for one of the idols of + his own altar. Anyone else than M. Manotel, or perhaps M. Fille or the New + Cure, would have hesitated to take the five dollars, or, if they had done + so, would have handed it back; but they had souls to understand this Jean + Jacques, and they would not deny him his insistent independence. And so, + in a moment, he was making his way out of the crowd with the cage in his + hand, the bird silent now. + </p> + <p> + As he went, some one touched his arm and slipped a book into his hand. It + was M. Fille, and the book was his little compendium of philosophy which + his friend had retrieved from his bedroom in the early morning. + </p> + <p> + “You weren’t going to forget it, Jean Jacques?” M. Fille said + reproachfully. “It is an old friend. It would not be happy with any one + else.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques looked M. Fille in the eyes. “Moi—je suis philosophe,” + he said without any of the old insistence and pride and egotism, but as + one would make an affirmation or repeat a creed. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, yes, to be sure, always, as of old,” answered M. Fille firmly; for, + from that formula might come strength, when it was most needed, in a sense + other and deeper far than it had been or was now. “You will remember that + you will always know where to find us—eh?” added the little Clerk of + the Court. + </p> + <p> + The going of Jean Jacques was inevitable; all persuasion had failed to + induce him to stay—even that of Virginie; and M. Fille now treated + it as though it was the beginning of a new career for Jean Jacques, + whatever that career might be. It might be he would come back some day, + but not to things as they were, not ever again, nor as the same man. + </p> + <p> + “You will move on with the world outside there,” continued M. Fille, “but + we shall be turning on the same swivel here always; and whenever you come—there, + you understand. With us it is semper fidelis, always the same.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques looked at M. Fille again as though to ask him a question, but + presently he shook his head in negation to his thought. + </p> + <p> + “Well, good-bye,” he said cheerfully—“A la bonne heure!” + </p> + <p> + By that M. Fille knew that Jean Jacques did not wish for company as he + went—not even the company of his old friend who had loved the bright + whimsical emotional Zoe; who had hovered around his life like a protecting + spirit. + </p> + <p> + “A bi’tot,” responded M. Fille, declining upon the homely patois. + </p> + <p> + But as Jean Jacques walked away with his little book of philosophy in his + pocket, and the bird-cage in his hand, someone sobbed. M. Fille turned and + saw. It was Virginie Poucette. Fortunately for Virginie other women did + the same, not for the same reason, but out of a sympathy which was part of + the scene. + </p> + <p> + It had been the intention of some friends of Jean Jacques to give him a + cheer when he left, and even his sullen local creditors, now that the + worst had come, were disposed to give him a good send-off; but the + incident of the canary in its cage gave a turn to the feeling of the crowd + which could not be resisted. They were not a people who could cut and dry + their sentiments; they were all impulse and simplicity, with an obvious + cocksure shrewdness too, like that of Jean Jacques—of the old Jean + Jacques. He had been the epitome of all their faults and all their + virtues. + </p> + <p> + No one cheered. Only one person called, “Au ‘voir, M’sieu’ Jean Jacques!” + and no one followed him—a curious, assertive, feebly-brisk, + shock-headed figure in the brown velveteen jacket, which he had bought in + Paris on his Grand Tour. + </p> + <p> + “What a ridiculous little man!” said a woman from Chalfonte over the + water, who had been buying freely all day for her new “Manor,” her husband + being a member of the provincial legislature. + </p> + <p> + The words were no sooner out of her mouth than two women faced her + threateningly. + </p> + <p> + “For two pins I’d slap your face,” said old Mere Langlois, her great + breast heaving. “Popinjay—you, that ought to be in a cage like his + canary.” + </p> + <p> + But Virginie Poucette also was there in front of the offender, and she + also had come from Chalfonte—was born in that parish; and she knew + what she was facing. + </p> + <p> + “Better carry a bird-cage and a book than carry swill to swine,” she said; + and madame from Chalfonte turned white, for it had been said that her + father was once a swine-herd, and that she had tried her best to forget it + when, with her coarse beauty, she married the well-to-do farmer who was + now in the legislature. + </p> + <p> + “Hold your tongues, all of you, and look at that,” said M. Manotel, who + had joined the agitated group. He was pointing towards the departing Jean + Jacques, who was now away upon his road. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques had raised the cage on a level with his face, and was + evidently speaking to the bird in the way birds love—that soft + kissing sound to which they reply with song. + </p> + <p> + Presently there came a chirp or two, and then the bird thrust up its head, + and out came the full blessedness of its song, exultant, home-like, + intimate. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques walked on, the bird singing by his side; and he did not look + back. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME + </h2> + <p> + Nothing stops when we stop for a time, or for all time, except ourselves. + Everything else goes on—not in the same way; but it does go on. Life + did not stop at St. Saviour’s after Jean Jacques made his exit. Slowly the + ruined mill rose up again, and very slowly indeed the widow of Palass + Poucette recovered her spirits, though she remained a widow in spite of + all appeals; but M. Fille and his sister never were the same after they + lost their friend. They had great comfort in the dog which Jean Jacques + had given to them, and they roused themselves to a malicious pleasure when + Bobon, as he had been called by Zoe, rushed out at the heels of an + importunate local creditor who had greatly worried Jean Jacques at the + last. They waited in vain for a letter from Jean Jacques, but none came; + nor did they hear anything from him, or of him, for a long, long time. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques did not mean that they should. When he went away with his + book of philosophy and his canary he had but one thing in his mind, and + that was to find Zoe and make her understand that he knew he had been in + the wrong. He had illusions about starting life again, in which he + probably did not believe; but the make-believe was good for him. Long + before the crash came, in Zoe’s name—not his own—he had bought + from the Government three hundred and twenty acres of land out near the + Rockies and had spent five hundred dollars in improvements on it. + </p> + <p> + There it was in the West, one remaining asset still his own—or + rather Zoe’s—but worth little if he or she did not develop it. As he + left St. Saviour’s, however, he kept fixing his mind on that “last + domain,” as he called it to himself. If this was done intentionally, that + he might be saved from distraction and despair, it was well done; if it + was a real illusion—the old self-deception which had been his bane + so often in the past—it still could only do him good at the present. + It prevented him from noticing the attention he attracted on the railway + journey from St. Saviour’s to Montreal, cherishing his canary and his book + as he went. + </p> + <p> + He was not so self-conscious now as in the days when he was surprised that + Paris did not stop to say, “Bless us, here is that fine fellow, Jean + Jacques Barbille of St. Saviour’s!” He could concentrate himself more now + on things that did not concern the impression he was making on the world. + At present he could only think of Zoe and of her future. + </p> + <p> + When a patronizing and aggressive commercial traveller in the little hotel + on a side-street where he had taken a room in Montreal said to him, “Bien, + mon vieux” (which is to say, “Well, old cock”), “aren’t you a long way + from home?” something of a new dignity came into Jean Jacques’ bearing, + very different from the assurance of the old days, and in reply he said: + </p> + <p> + “Not so far that I need be careless about my company.” This made the + landlady of the little hotel laugh quite hard, for she did not like the + braggart “drummer” who had treated her with great condescension for a + number of years. Also Madame Glozel liked Jean Jacques because of his + canary. She thought there must be some sentimental reason for a man of + fifty or more carrying a bird about with him; and she did not rest until + she had drawn from Jean Jacques that he was taking the bird to his + daughter in the West. There, however, madame was stayed in her search for + information. Jean Jacques closed up, and did but smile when she adroitly + set traps for him, and at last asked him outright where his daughter was. + </p> + <p> + Why he waited in Montreal it would be hard to say, save that it was a kind + of middle place between the old life and the new, and also because he must + decide what was to be his plan of search. First the West—first + Winnipeg, but where after that? He had at last secured information of + where Zoe and Gerard Fynes had stayed while in Montreal; and now he + followed clues which would bring him in touch with folk who knew them. He + came to know one or two people who were with Zoe and Gerard in the last + days they spent in the metropolis, and he turned over and over in his mind + every word said about his girl, as a child turns a sweetmeat in its mouth. + This made him eager to be off; but on the very day he decided to start at + once for the West, something strange happened. + </p> + <p> + It was towards the late afternoon of a Saturday, when the streets were + full of people going to and from the shops in a marketing quarter, that + Madame Glozel came to him and said: + </p> + <p> + “M’sieu’, I have an idea, and you will not think it strange, for you have + a kind heart. There is a woman—look you, it is a sad, sad story + hers. She is ill and dying in a room a little way down the street. But + yes, I am sure she is dying—of heart disease it is. She came here + first when the illness took her, but she could not afford to stay. She + went to those cheaper lodgings down the street. She used to be on the + stage over in the States, and then she came back here, and there was a man—married + to him or not I do not know, and I will not think. Well, the man—the + brute—he left her when she got ill—but yes, forsook her + absolutely! He was a land-agent or something like that, and all very fine + to your face, to promise and to pretend—just make-believe. When her + sickness got worse, off he went with ‘Au revoir, my dear—I will be + back to supper.’ Supper! If she’d waited for her supper till he came back, + she’d have waited as long as I’ve done for the fortune the gipsy promised + me forty years ago. Away he went, the rogue, without a thought of her, and + with another woman. That’s what hurt her most of all. Straight from her + that could hardly drag herself about—ah, yes, and has been as + handsome a woman as ever was!—straight from her he went to a slut. + She was a slut, m’sieu’—did I not know her? Did Ma’m’selle Slut not + wait at table in this house and lead the men a dance here night and + day-day and night till I found it out! Well, off he went with the slut, + and left the lady behind.... You men, you treat women so.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques put out a hand as though to argue with her. “Sometimes it is + the other way,” he retorted. “Most of us have seen it like that.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, for sure, you’re right enough there, m’sieu’,” was the response. + “I’ve got nothing to say to that, except that it’s a man that runs away + with a woman, or that gets her to leave her husband when she does go. + There’s always a man that says, ‘Come along, I’m the better chap for + you.’” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques wearily turned his head away towards the cage where his + canary was beginning to pipe its evening lay. + </p> + <p> + “It all comes to the same thing in the end,” he said pensively; and then + he who had been so quiet since he came to the little hotel—Glozel’s, + it was called—began to move about the room excitedly, running his + fingers through his still bushy hair, which, to his credit, was always as + clean as could be, burnished and shiny even at his mid-century period. He + began murmuring to himself, and a frown settled on his fore head. Mme. + Glozel saw that she had perturbed him, and that no doubt she had roused + some memories which made sombre the sunny little room where the canary + sang; where, to ravish the eyes of the pessimist, was a picture of Louis + XVI. going to heaven in the arms of St. Peter. + </p> + <p> + When started, however, the good woman could no more “slow down” than her + French pony would stop when its head was turned homewards from market. So + she kept on with the history of the woman down the street. + </p> + <p> + “Heart disease,” she said, nodding with assurance and finality; “and we + know what that is—a start, a shock, a fall, a strain, and pht! off + the poor thing goes. Yes, heart disease, and sometimes with such awful + pain. But so; and yesterday she told me she had only a hundred dollars + left. ‘Enough to last me through,’ she said to me. Poor thing, she lifted + up her eyes with a way she has, as if looking for something she couldn’t + find, and she says, as simple as though she was asking about the price of + a bed-tick, ‘It won’t cost more than fifty dollars to bury me, I s’pose?’ + Well, that made me squeamish, for the poor dear’s plight came home to me + so clear, and she young enough yet to get plenty out of life, if she had + the chance. So I asked her again about her people—whether I couldn’t + send for someone belonging to her. ‘There’s none that belongs to me,’ she + says, ‘and there’s no one I belong to.’ + </p> + <p> + “I thought very likely she didn’t want to tell me about herself; perhaps + because she had done wrong, and her family had not been good to her. Yet + it was right I should try and get her folks to come, if she had any folks. + So I said to her, ‘Where was your home?’ And now, what do you think she + answered, m’sieu’?’ ‘Look there,’ she said to me, with her big eyes + standing out of her head almost—for that’s what comes to her + sometimes when she is in pain, and she looks more handsome then than at + any other time—‘Look there,’ she said to me, ‘it was in heaven, + that’s where—my home was; but I didn’t know it. I hadn’t been taught + to know the place when I saw it.’ + </p> + <p> + “Well, I felt my skin go goosey, for I saw what was going on in her mind, + and how she was remembering what had happened to her some time, somewhere; + but there wasn’t a tear in her eyes, and I never saw her cry-never once, + m’sieu’—well, but as brave as brave. Her eyes are always dry—burning. + They’re like two furnaces scorching up her face. So I never found out her + history, and she won’t have the priest. I believe that’s because she wants + to die unknown, and doesn’t want to confess. I never saw a woman I was + sorrier for, though I think she wasn’t married to the man that left her. + But whatever she was, there’s good in her—I haven’t known hundreds + of women and had seven sisters for nothing. Well, there she is—not a + friend near her at the last; for it’s coming soon, the end—no one to + speak to her, except the woman she pays to come in and look after her and + nurse her a bit. Of course there’s the landlady too, Madame Popincourt, a + kind enough little cricket of a woman, but with no sense and no head for + business. And so the poor sick thing has not a single pleasure in the + world. She can’t read, because it makes her head ache, she says; and she + never writes to any one. One day she tried to sing a little, but it seemed + to hurt her, and she stopped before she had begun almost. Yes, m’sieu’, + there she is without a single pleasure in the long hours when she doesn’t + sleep.” + </p> + <p> + “There’s my canary—that would cheer her up,” eagerly said Jean + Jacques, who, as the story of the chirruping landlady continued, became + master of his agitation, and listened as though to the tale of some life + for which he had concern. “Yes, take my canary to her, madame. It picked + me up when I was down. It’ll help her—such a bird it is! It’s the + best singer in the world. It’s got in its throat the music of Malibran and + Jenny Lind and Grisi, and all the stars in heaven that sang together. + Also, to be sure, it doesn’t charge anything, but just as long as there’s + daylight it sings and sings, as you know.” + </p> + <p> + “M’sieu’—oh, m’sieu’, it was what I wanted to ask you, and I didn’t + dare!” gushingly declared madame. “I never heard a bird sing like that—just + as if it knew how much good it was doing, and with all the airs of a grand + seigneur. It’s a prince of birds, that. If you mean it, m’sieu’, you’ll do + as good a thing as you have ever done.” + </p> + <p> + “It would have to be much better, or it wouldn’t be any use,” remarked + Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + The woman made a motion of friendliness with both hands. “I don’t believe + that. You may be queer, but you’ve got a kind eye. It won’t be for long + she’ll need the canary, and it will cheer her. There certainly was never a + bird so little tied to one note. Now this note, now that, and so amusing. + At times it’s as though he was laughing at you.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s because, with me for his master, he has had good reason to laugh,” + remarked Jean Jacques, who had come at last to take a despondent view of + himself. + </p> + <p> + “That’s bosh,” rejoined Mme. Glozel; “I’ve seen several people odder than + you.” + </p> + <p> + She went over to the cage eagerly, and was about to take it away. “Excuse + me,” interposed Jean Jacques, “I will carry 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.” + </p> + <p> + “This minute?” asked madame. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + 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.” + </p> + <p> + 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. + </p> + <p> + “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.” + </p> + <p> + With a stifled cry Jean Jacques pushed her aside and entered the room. As + he did so, the sick woman in the big armchair, so pale yet so splendid in + her death-beauty, raised herself up. With eyes that Francesca might have + turned to the vision of her fate, she looked at the opening door, as + though to learn if he who came was one she had wished to see through long, + relentless days. + </p> + <p> + “Jean Jacques—ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!” she cried out + presently in a voice like a wisp of sound, for she had little breath; and + then with a smile she sank back, too late to hear, but not too late to + know, what Jean Jacques said to her. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY + </h2> + <p> + However far Jean Jacques went, however long the day since leaving the + Manor Cartier, he could not escape the signals from his past. He heard + more than once the bells of memory ringing at the touch of the invisible + hand of Destiny which accepts no philosophy save its own. At Montreal, for + one hallowed instant, he had regained his lost Carmen, but he had turned + from her grave—the only mourners being himself, Mme. Glozel and Mme. + Popincourt, together with a barber who had coiffed her wonderful hair once + a week—with a strange burning at his heart. That iceberg which most + mourners carry in their breasts was not his, as he walked down the + mountainside from Carmen’s grave. Behind him trotted Mme. Glozel and Mme. + Popincourt, like little magpies, attendants on this eagle of sorrow whose + life-love had been laid to rest, her heart-troubles over. Passion or ennui + would no more vex her. + </p> + <p> + She had had a soul, had Carmen Dolores, though she had never known it till + her days closed in on her, and from the dusk she looked out of the + casements of life to such a glowing as Jean Jacques had seen when his + burning mill beatified the evening sky. She had known passion and vivid + life in the days when she went hand-in-hand with Carvillho Gonzales + through the gardens of Granada; she had known the smothering home-sickness + which does not alone mean being sick for a distant home, but a sickness of + the home that is; and she had known what George Masson gave her for one + thrilling hour, and then—then the man who left her in her + death-year, taking not only the last thread of hope which held her to + life. This vulture had taken also little things dear to her daily life, + such as the ring Carvillho Gonzales had given her long ago in Cadiz, also + another ring, a gift of Jean Jacques, and things less valuable to her, + such as money, for which she knew surely she would have no long use. + </p> + <p> + As she lay waiting for the day when she must go from the garish scene, she + unconsciously took stock of life in her own way. There intruded on her + sight the stages of the theatres where she had played and danced, and she + heard again the music of the paloma and those other Spanish airs which had + made the world dance under her girl’s feet long ago. At first she kept + seeing the faces of thousands looking up at her from the stalls, down at + her from the gallery, over at her from the boxes; and the hot breath of + that excitement smote her face with a drunken odour that sent her mad. + Then, alas! somehow, as disease took hold of her, there were the colder + lights, the colder breath from the few who applauded so little. And always + the man who had left her in her day of direst need; who had had the last + warm fires of her life, the last brief outrush of her soul, eager as it + was for a joy which would prove she had not lost all when she fled from + the Manor Cartier—a joy which would make her forget! + </p> + <p> + What she really did feel in this last adventure of passion only made her + remember the more when she was alone now, her life at the Manor Cartier. + She was wont to wake up suddenly in the morning—the very early + morning—with the imagined sound of the gold Cock of Beaugard crowing + in her ears. Memory, memory, memory—yet never a word, and never a + hearsay of what had happened at the Manor Cartier since she had left it! + Then there came a time when she longed intensely to see Jean Jacques + before she died, though she could not bring herself to send word to him. + She dreaded what the answer might be—not Jean Jacques’ answer, but + the answer of Life. Jean Jacques and her child, her Zoe—more his + than hers in years gone by—one or both might be dead! She dared not + write, but she cherished a desire long denied. Then one day she saw + everything in her life more clearly than she had ever done. She found an + old book of French verse, once belonging to Mme. Popincourt’s husband, who + had been a professor. Some lines therein opened up a chamber of her being + never before unlocked. At first only the feeling of the thing came, then + slowly the spiritual meaning possessed her. She learnt it by heart and let + it sing to her as she lay half-sleeping and half-waking, half-living and + half-dying: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o’er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home. + + “A land that triumphs over shame and pain, + Penitence and passion and the parting breath, + Over the former and the latter rain, + The birth-morn fire and the frost of death. + + “From its safe shores the white boats ride away, + Salving the wreckage of the portless ships + The light desires of the amorous day, + The wayward, wanton wastage of the lips. + + “Star-mist and music and the pensive moon + These when I harboured at that perfumed shore; + And then, how soon! the radiance of noon, + And faces of dear children at the door. + + “Land of the Greater Love—men call it this; + No light-o’-love sets here an ambuscade; + No tender torture of the secret kiss + Makes sick the spirit and the soul afraid. + + “Bright bowers and the anthems of the free, + The lovers absolute—ah, hear the call! + Beyond the long island and the sheltering sea, + That World I found which holds my world in thrall. + + “There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o’er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home.” + </pre> + <p> + At last the inner thought of it got into her heart, and then it was in + reply to Mme. Glozel, who asked her where her home was, she said: “In + Heaven, but I did not know it!” And thus it was, too, that at the very + last, when Jean Jacques followed the singing bird into her death-chamber, + she cried out, “Ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!” + </p> + <p> + And because Jean Jacques knew that, at the last, she had been his, soul + and body, he went down from the mountain-side, the two black magpies + fluttering mournfully and yet hopefully behind him, with more warmth at + his heart than he had known for years. It never occurred to him that the + two elderly magpies would jointly or severally have given the rest of + their lives and their scant fortunes to have him with them either as + husband, or as one who honourably hires a home at so much a day. + </p> + <p> + Though Jean Jacques did not know this last fact, when he fared forth again + he left behind his canary with Mme. Glozel; also all Carmen’s clothes, + except the dress she died in, he gave to Mme. Popincourt, on condition + that she did not wear them till he had gone. The dress in which Carmen + died he wrapped up carefully, with her few jewels and her wedding-ring, + and gave the parcel to Mme. Glozel to care for till he should send for it + or come again. + </p> + <p> + “The bird—take him on my birthday to sing at her grave,” he said to + Mme. Glozel just before he went West. “It is in summer, my birthday, and + you shall hear how he will sing there,” he added in a low voice at the + very door. Then he took out a ten-dollar bill, and would have given it to + her to do this thing for him; but she would have none of his money. She + only wiped her eyes and deplored his going, and said that if ever he + wanted a home, and she was alive, he would know where to find it. It + sounded and looked sentimental, yet Jean Jacques was never less + sentimental in a very sentimental life. This particular morning he was + very quiet and grave, and not in the least agitated; he spoke like one + from a friendly, sun-bright distance to Mme. Glozel, and also to Mme. + Popincourt as he passed her at the door of her house. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques had no elation as he took the Western trail; there was not + much hope in his voice; but there was purpose and there was a little + stream of peace flowing through his being—and also, mark, a stream + of anger tumbling over rough places. He had read two letters addressed to + Carmen by the man—Hugo Stolphe—who had left her to her fate; + and there was a grim devouring thing in him which would break loose, if + ever the man crossed his path. He would not go hunting him, but if he + passed him or met him on the way—! Still he would go hunting—to + find his Carmencita, his little Carmen, his Zoe whom he had unwittingly, + God knew! driven forth into the far world of the millions of acres—a + wide, wide hunting-ground in good sooth. + </p> + <p> + So he left his beloved province where he no longer had a home, and though + no letters came to him from St. Saviour’s, from Vilray or the Manor + Cartier, yet he heard the bells of memory when the Hand Invisible arrested + his footsteps. One day these bells rang so loud that he would have heard + them were he sunk in the world’s deepest well of shame; but, as it was, he + now marched on hills far higher than the passes through the mountains + which his patchwork philosophy had ever provided. + </p> + <p> + It was in the town of Shilah on the Watloon River that the bells boomed + out—not because he had encountered one he had ever known far down by + the Beau Cheval, or in his glorious province, not because he had found his + Zoe, but because a man, the man—not George Masson, but the other—met + him in the way. + </p> + <p> + Shilah was a place to which, almost unconsciously, he had deviated his + course, because once Virginie Poucette had read him a letter from there. + That was in the office of the little Clerk of the Court at Vilray. The + letter was from Virginie’s sister at Shilah, and told him that Zoe and her + husband had gone away into farther fields of homelessness. Thus it was + that Shilah ever seemed to him, as he worked West, a goal in his quest—not + the last goal perhaps, but a goal. + </p> + <p> + He had been far past it by another route, up, up and out into the more + scattered settlements, and now at last he had come to it again, having + completed a kind of circle. As he entered it, the past crowded on to him + with a hundred pictures. Shilah—it was where Virginie Poucette’s + sister lived; and Virginie had been a part of the great revelation of his + life at St. Saviour’s. + </p> + <p> + As he was walking by the riverside at Shilah, a woman spoke to him, + touching his arm as she did so. He was in a deep dream as she spoke, but + there certainly was a look in her face that reminded him of someone + belonging to the old life. For an instant he could not remember. For a + moment he did not even realize that he was at Shilah. His meditation had + almost been a trance, and it took him time to adjust himself to the + knowledge of the conscious mind. His subconsciousness was very powerfully + alive in these days. There was not the same ceaselessly active eye, nor + the vibration of the impatient body which belonged to the money-master and + miller of the Manor Cartier. Yet the eye had more depth and force, and the + body was more powerful and vigorous than it had ever been. The long + tramping, the everlasting trail on false scents, the mental battling with + troubles past and present, had given a fortitude and vigour to the body + beyond what it had ever known. In spite of his homelessness and pilgrim + equipment he looked as though he had a home—far off. The eyes did + not smile; but the lips showed the goodness of his heart—and its + hardness too. Hardness had never been there in the old days. It was, + however, the hardness of resentment, and not of cruelty. It was not his + wife’s or his daughter’s flight that he resented, nor yet the loss of all + he had, nor the injury done him by Sebastian Dolores. No, his resentment + was against one he had never seen, but was now soon to see. As his mind + came back from the far places where it had been, and his eyes returned to + the concrete world, he saw what the woman recalled to him. It was—yes, + it was Virginie Poucette—the kind and beautiful Virginie—for + her goodness had made him remember her as beautiful, though indeed she was + but comely, like this woman who stayed him as he walked by the river. + </p> + <p> + “You are M’sieu’ Jean Jacques Barbille?” she said questioningly. + </p> + <p> + “How did you know?” he asked.... “Is Virginie Poucette here?” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, you knew me from her?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “There was something about her—and you have it also—and the + look in the eyes, and then the lips!” he replied. + </p> + <p> + Certainly they were quite wonderful, luxurious lips, and so shapely too—like + those of Virginie. + </p> + <p> + “But how did you know I was Jean Jacques Barbille?” he repeated. + </p> + <p> + “Well, then it is quite easy,” she replied with a laugh almost like a + giggle, for she was quite as simple and primitive as her sister. “There is + a photographer at Vilray, and Virginie got one of your pictures there, and + sent, it to me. ‘He may come your way,’ said Virginie to me, ‘and if he + does, do not forget that he is my friend.’” + </p> + <p> + “That she is my friend,” corrected Jean Jacques. “And what a friend—merci, + what a friend!” Suddenly he caught the woman’s arm. “You once wrote to + your sister about my Zoe, my daughter, that married and ran away—” + </p> + <p> + “That ran away and got married,” she interrupted. + </p> + <p> + “Is there any more news—tell me, do you know-?” + </p> + <p> + But Virginie’s sister shook her head. “Only once since I wrote Virginie + have I heard, and then the two poor children—but how helpless they + were, clinging to each other so! Well, then, once I heard from Faragay, + but that was much more than a year ago. Nothing since, and they were going + on—on to Fort Providence to spend the winter—for his health—his + lungs.” + </p> + <p> + “What to do—on what to live?” moaned Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “His grandmother sent him a thousand dollars, so your Madame Zoe wrote + me.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques raised a hand with a gesture of emotion. “Ah, the blessed + woman! May there be no purgatory for her, but Heaven at once and always!” + </p> + <p> + “Come home with me—where are your things?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “I have only a knapsack,” he replied. “It is not far from here. But I + cannot stay with you. I have no claim. No, I will not, for—” + </p> + <p> + “As to that, we keep a tavern,” she returned. “You can come the same as + the rest of the world. The company is mixed, but there it is. You needn’t + eat off the same plate, as they say in Quebec.” + </p> + <p> + Quebec! He looked at her with the face of one who saw a vision. How like + Virginie Poucette—the brave, generous Virginie—how like she + was! + </p> + <p> + In silence now he went with her, and seeing his mood she did not talk to + him. People stared as they walked along, for his dress was curious and his + head was bare, and his hair like the coat of a young lion. Besides, this + woman was, in her way, as brave and as generous as Virginie Poucette. In + the very doorway of the tavern by the river a man jostled them. He did not + apologize. He only leered. It made his foreign-looking, coarsely handsome + face detestable. + </p> + <p> + “Pig!” exclaimed Virginie Poucette’s sister. “That’s a man—well, + look out! There’s trouble brewing for him. If he only knew! If suspicion + comes out right and it’s proved—well, there, he’ll jostle the + door-jamb of a jail.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques stared after the man, and somehow every nerve in his body + became angry. He had all at once a sense of hatred. He shook the shoulder + against which the man had collided. He remembered the leer on the + insolent, handsome face. + </p> + <p> + “I’d like to see him thrown into the river,” said Virginie Poucette’s + sister. “We have a nice girl here—come from Ireland—as good as + can be. Well, last night—but there, she oughtn’t to have let him + speak to her. ‘A kiss is nothing,’ he said. Well, if he kissed me I would + kill him—if I didn’t vomit myself to death first. He’s a mongrel—a + South American mongrel with nigger blood.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques kept looking after the man. “Why don’t you turn him out?” he + asked sharply. + </p> + <p> + “He’s going away to-morrow anyhow,” she replied. “Besides, the girl, she’s + so ashamed—and she doesn’t want anyone to know. ‘Who’d want to kiss + me after him’ she said, and so he stays till to-morrow. He’s not in the + tavern itself, but in the little annex next door-there, where he’s going + now. He’s only had his meals here, though the annex belongs to us as well. + He’s alone there on his dung-hill.” + </p> + <p> + She brought Jean Jacques into a room that overlooked the river—which, + indeed, hung on its very brink. From the steps at its river-door, a little + ferry-boat took people to the other side of the Watloon, and very near—just + a few hand-breadths away—was the annex where was the man who had + jostled Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO + </h2> + <p> + A single lighted lamp, turned low, was suspended from the ceiling of the + raftered room, and through the open doorway which gave on to a little + wooden piazza with a slight railing and small, shaky gate came the swish + of the Watloon River. No moon was visible, but the stars were radiant and + alive—trembling with life. There was something soothing, something + endlessly soothing in the sound of the river. It suggested the ceaseless + movement of life to the final fulness thereof. + </p> + <p> + So still was the room that it might have seemed to be without life, were + it not for a faint sound of breathing. The bed, however, was empty, and no + chair was occupied; but on a settle in a corner beside an unused fireplace + sat a man, now with hands clasped between his knees, again with arms + folded across his breast; but with his head always in a listening + attitude. The whole figure suggested suspense, vigilance and preparedness. + The man had taken off his boots and stockings, and his bare feet seemed to + grip the floor; also the sleeves of his jacket were rolled up a little. It + was not a figure you would wish to see in your room at midnight unasked. + Once or twice he sighed heavily, as he listened to the river slishing past + and looked out to the sparkle of the skies. It was as though the infinite + had drawn near to the man, or else that the man had drawn near to the + infinite. Now and again he brought his fists down on his knees with a + savage, though noiseless, force. The peace of the river and the night + could not contend successfully against a dark spirit working in him. When, + during his vigil, he shook his shaggy head and his lips opened on his set + teeth, he seemed like one who would take toll at a gateway of forbidden + things. + </p> + <p> + He started to his feet at last, hearing footsteps outside upon the stairs. + Then he settled back again, drawing near to the chimney-wall, so that he + should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently there was the + click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smoke invaded + the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspended oil-lamp and + twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, there was a slight + noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, the man under the lamp + saw at the door the man who had been sitting in the corner. The man had a + key in his hand. Exit now could only be had through the door opening on to + the river. + </p> + <p> + “Who are you? What the hell do you want here?” asked the fellow under the + lamp, his swarthy face drawn with fear and yet frowning with anger. + </p> + <p> + “Me—I am Jean Jacques Barbille,” said the other in French, putting + the key of the door in his pocket. The other replied in French, with a + Spanish-English accent. “Barbille—Carmen’s husband! Well, who would + have thought—!” + </p> + <p> + He ended with a laugh not pleasant to hear, for it was coarse with + sardonic mirth; yet it had also an unreasonable apprehension; for why + should he fear the husband of the woman who had done that husband such an + injury! + </p> + <p> + “She treated you pretty bad, didn’t she—not much heart, had Carmen!” + he added. + </p> + <p> + “Sit down. I want to talk to you,” said Jean Jacques, motioning to two + chairs by a table at the side of the room. This table was in the middle of + the room when the man under the lamp-Hugo Stolphe was his name—had + left it last. Why had the table been moved? + </p> + <p> + “Why should I sit down, and what are you doing here?—I want to know + that,” Stolphe demanded. Jean Jacques’ hands were opening and shutting. + “Because I want to talk to you. If you don’t sit down, I’ll give you no + chance at all.... Sit down!” Jean Jacques was smaller than Stolphe, but he + was all whipcord and leather; the other was sleek and soft, but powerful + too; and he had one of those savage natures which go blind with hatred, + and which fight like beasts. He glanced swiftly round the room. + </p> + <p> + “There is no weapon here,” said Jean Jacques, nodding. “I have put + everything away—so you could not hurt me if you wanted.... Sit + down!” + </p> + <p> + To gain time Stolphe sat down, for he had a fear that Jean Jacques was + armed, and might be a madman armed—there were his feet bare on the + brown painted boards. They looked so strange, so uncanny. He surely must + be a madman if he wanted to do harm to Hugo Stolphe; for Hugo Stolphe had + only “kept” the woman who had left her husband, not because of himself, + but because of another man altogether—one George Masson. Had not + Carmen herself told him that before she and he lived together? What grudge + could Carmen’s husband have against Hugo Stolphe? + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques sat down also, and, leaning on the table said: “Once I was a + fool and let the other man escape-George Masson it was. Because of what he + did, my wife left me.” + </p> + <p> + His voice became husky, but he shook his throat, as it were, cleared it, + and went on. “I won’t let you go. I was going to kill George Masson—I + had him like that!” He opened and shut his hand with a gesture of fierce + possession. “But I did not kill him. I let him go. He was so clever—cleverer + than you will know how to be. She said to me—my wife said to me, + when she thought I had killed him, ‘Why did you not fight him? Any man + would have fought him.’ That was her view. She was right—not to kill + without fighting. That is why I did not kill you at once when I knew.” + </p> + <p> + “When you knew what?” Stolphe was staring at the madman. + </p> + <p> + “When I knew you were you. First I saw that ring—that ring on your + hand. It was my wife’s. I gave it to her the first New Year after we + married. I saw it on your hand when you were drinking at the bar next + door. Then I asked them your name. I knew it. I had read your letters to + my wife—” + </p> + <p> + “Your wife once on a time!” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques’ eyes swam red. “My wife always and always—and at the + last there in my arms.” Stolphe temporized. “I never knew you. She did not + leave you because of me. She came to me because—because I was there + for her to come to, and you weren’t there. Why do you want to do me any + harm?” He still must be careful, for undoubtedly the man was mad—his + eyes were too bright. + </p> + <p> + “You were the death of her,” answered Jean Jacques, leaning forward. “She + was most ill-ah, who would not have been sorry for her! She was poor. She + had been to you—but to live with a woman day by day, but to be by + her side when the days are done, and then one morning to say, ‘Au revoir + till supper’ and then go and never come back, and to take money and rings + that belonged to her!... That was her death—that was the end of + Carmen Barbille; and it was your fault.” + </p> + <p> + “You would do me harm and not hurt her! Look how she treated you—and + others.” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques half rose from his seat in sudden rage, but he restrained + himself, and sat down again. “She had one husband—only one. It was + Jean Jacques Barbille. She could only treat one as she treated me—me, + her husband. But you, what had you to do with that! You used her—so!” + He made a motion as though to stamp out an insect with his foot. + “Beautiful, a genius, sick and alone—no husband, no child, and you + used her so! That is why I shall kill you to-night. We will fight for it.” + </p> + <p> + Yes, but surely the man was mad, and the thing to do was to humour him, to + gain time. To humour a madman—that is what one always advised, + therefore Stolphe would make the pourparler, as the French say. + </p> + <p> + “Well, that’s all right,” he rejoined, “but how is it going to be done? + Have you got a pistol?” He thought he was very clever, and that he would + now see whether Jean Jacques Barbille was armed. If he was not armed, + well, then, there would be the chances in his favour; it wasn’t easy to + kill with hands alone. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques ignored the question, however. He waved a hand impatiently, + as though to dismiss it. “She was beautiful and splendid; she had been a + queen down there in Quebec. You lied to her, and she was blind at first—I + can see it all. She believed so easily—but yes, always! There she + was what she was, and you were what you are, not a Frenchman, not + Catholic, and an American—no, not an American—a South + American. But no, not quite a South American, for there was the Portuguese + nigger in you—Sit down!” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques was on his feet bending over the enraged mongrel. He had + spoken the truth, and Carmen’s last lover had been stung as though a + serpent’s tooth was in his flesh. Of all things that could be said about + him, that which Jean Jacques said was the worst—that he was not all + white, that he had nigger blood! Yet it was true; and he realized that + Jean Jacques must have got his information in Shilah itself where he had + been charged with it. Yet, raging as he was, and ready to take the Johnny + Crapaud—that is the name by which he had always called Carmen’s + husband—by the throat, he was not yet sure that Jean Jacques was + unarmed. He sat still under an anger greater than his own, for there was + in it that fanaticism which only the love or hate of a woman could breed + in a man’s mind. + </p> + <p> + Suddenly Stolphe laughed outright, a crackling, mirthless, ironical laugh; + for it really was absurdity made sublime that this man, who had been + abandoned by his wife, should now want to kill one who had abandoned her! + This outdid Don Quixote over and over. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what do you want?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I want you to fight,” said Jean Jacques. “That is the way. That was + Carmen’s view. You shall have your chance to live, but I shall throw you + in the river, and you can then fight the river. The current is swift, the + banks are steep and high as a house down below there. Now, I am ready...!” + </p> + <p> + He had need to be, for Stolphe was quick, kicking the chair from beneath + him, and throwing himself heavily on Jean Jacques. He had had his day at + that in South America, and as Jean Jacques Barbille had said, the water + was swift and deep, and the banks of the Watloon high and steep! + </p> + <p> + But Jean Jacques was unconscious of everything save a debt to be collected + for a woman he had loved, a compensation which must be taken in flesh and + blood. Perhaps at the moment, as Stolphe had said to himself, he was a + little mad, for all his past, all his plundered, squandered, spoiled life + was crying out at him like a hundred ghosts, and he was fighting with + beasts at Ephesus. An exaltation possessed him. Not since the day when his + hand was on the lever of the flume with George Masson below; not since the + day he had turned his back for ever on the Manor Cartier had he been so + young and so much his old self-an egotist, with all the blind confidence + of his kind; a dreamer inflamed into action with all a mad dreamer’s wild + power. He was not fifty-two years of age, but thirty-two at this moment, + and all the knowledge got of the wrestling river-drivers of his boyhood, + when he had spent hours by the river struggling with river-champions, came + back to him. It was a relief to his sick soul to wrench and strain, and + propel and twist and force onward, step by step, to the door opening on + the river, this creature who had left his Carmen to die alone. + </p> + <p> + “No, you don’t—not yet. The jail before the river!” called a cool, + sharp, sour voice; and on the edge of the trembling platform overhanging + the river, Hugo Stolphe was dragged back from the plunge downward he was + about to take, with Jean Jacques’ hand at his throat. + </p> + <p> + Stolphe had heard the door of the bedroom forced, but Jean Jacques had not + heard it; he was only conscious of hands dragging him back just at the + moment of Stolphe’s deadly peril. + </p> + <p> + “What is it?” asked Jean Jacques, seeing Stolphe in the hands of two men, + and hearing the snap of steel. “Wanted for firing a house for insurance—wanted + for falsifying the accounts of a Land Company—wanted for his own + good, Mr. Hugo Stolphe, C.O.D.—collect on delivery!” said the + officer of the law. “And collected just in time!” + </p> + <p> + “We didn’t mean to take him till to-morrow,” the officer added, “but out + on the river one of us saw this gladiator business here in the red-light + zone, and there wasn’t any time to lose.... I don’t know what your + business with him was,” the long-moustached detective said to Jean + Jacques, “but whatever the grudge is, if you don’t want to appear in court + in the morning, the walking’s good out of town night or day—so + long!” + </p> + <p> + He hustled his prisoner out. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques did not want to appear in court, and as the walking was + officially good at dawn, he said good-bye to Virginie Poucette’s sister + through the crack of a door, and was gone before she could restrain him. + </p> + <p> + “Well, things happen that way,” he said, as he turned back to look at + Shilah before it disappeared from view. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, the poor, handsome vaurien!” the woman at the tavern kept saying to + her husband all that day; and she could not rest till she had written to + Virginie how Jean Jacques came to Shilah in the evening, and went with the + dawn. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED + </h2> + <p> + The Young Doctor of Askatoon had a good heart, and he was exercising it + honourably one winter’s day near three years after Jean Jacques had left + St. Saviour’s. + </p> + <p> + “There are many French Canadians working on the railway now, and a good + many habitant farmers live hereabouts, and they have plenty of children—why + not stay here and teach school? You are a Catholic, of course, monsieur?” + </p> + <p> + This is what the Young Doctor said to one who had been under his anxious + care for a few, vivid days. The little brown-bearded man with the + grey-brown hair nodded in reply, but his gaze was on the billowing waste + of snow, which stretched as far as eye could see to the pine-hills in the + far distance. He nodded assent, but it was plain to be seen that the Young + Doctor’s suggestion was not in tune with his thought. His nod only + acknowledged the reasonableness of the proposal. In his eyes, however, was + the wanderlust which had possessed him for three long years, in which he + had been searching for what to him was more than Eldorado, for it was hope + and home. Hope was all he had left of the assets which had made him so + great a figure—as he once thought—in his native parish of St. + Saviour’s. It was his fixed idea—une idee fixe, as he himself said. + Lands, mills, manor, lime-kilns, factories, store, all were gone, and his + wife Carmen also was gone. He had buried her with simple magnificence in + Montreal—Mme. Glozel had said to her neighbours afterwards that the + funeral cost over seventy-five dollars—and had set up a stone to her + memory on which was carved, “Chez nous autrefois, et chez Dieu maintenant”—which + was to say, “Our home once, and God’s Home now.” + </p> + <p> + That done, with a sorrow which still had the peace of finality in his + mind, he had turned his face to the West. His long, long sojourning had + brought him to Shilah where a new chapter of his life was closed, and at + last to Askatoon, where another chapter still closed an epoch in his life, + and gave finality to all. There he had been taken down with congestion of + the lungs, and, fainting at the door of a drug-store, had been taken + possession of by the Young Doctor, who would not send him to the hospital. + He would not send him there because he found inside the waistcoat of this + cleanest tramp—if he was a tramp—that he had ever seen, a book + of philosophy, the daguerreotype photo of a beautiful foreign-looking + woman, and some verses in a child’s handwriting. The book of philosophy + was underlined and interlined on every page, and every margin had comment + which showed a mind of the most singular simplicity, searching wisdom, and + hopeless confusion, all in one. + </p> + <p> + The Young Doctor was a man of decision, and he had whisked the little + brown-grey sufferer to his own home, and tended him there like a brother + till the danger disappeared; and behold he was rewarded for his humanity + by as quaint an experience as he had ever known. He had not succeeded—though + he tried hard—in getting at the history of his patient’s life; but + he did succeed in reading the fascinating story of a mind; for Jean + Jacques, if not so voluble as of yore, had still moments when he seemed to + hypnotize himself, and his thoughts were alive in an atmosphere of + intellectual passion ill in accord with his condition. + </p> + <p> + Presently the little brown man withdrew his eyes from the window of the + Young Doctor’s office and the snowy waste beyond. They had a curious red + underglow which had first come to them an evening long ago, when they + caught from the sky the reflection of a burning mill. There was distance + and the far thing in that underglow of his eyes. It had to do with the + horizon, not with the place where his feet were. It said, “Out there, + beyond, is what I go to seek, what I must find, what will be home to me.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, I must be getting on,” he said in a low voice to the Young Doctor, + ignoring the question which had been asked. + </p> + <p> + “If you want work, there’s work to be had here, as I said,” responded the + Young Doctor. “You are a man of education—” + </p> + <p> + “How do you know that?” asked Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “I hear you speak,” answered the other, and then Jean Jacques drew himself + up and threw back his head. He had ever loved appreciation, not to say + flattery, and he had had very little of it lately. + </p> + <p> + “I was at Laval,” he remarked with a flash of pride. “No degree, but a + year there, and travel abroad—the Grand Tour, and in good style, + with plenty to do it with. Oh, certainly, no thought for sous, hardly for + francs! It was gold louis abroad and silver dollars at home—that was + the standard.” + </p> + <p> + “The dollars are much scarcer now, eh?” asked the Young Doctor + quizzically. + </p> + <p> + “I should think I had just enough to pay you,” said the other, bridling up + suddenly; for it seemed to him the Young Doctor had become ironical and + mocking; and though he had been mocked much in his day, there were times + when it was not easy to endure it. + </p> + <p> + The truth is the Young Doctor was somewhat of an expert in human nature, + and he deeply wanted to know the history of this wandering habitant, + because he had a great compassionate liking for him. If he could get the + little man excited, he might be able to find out what he wanted. During + the days in which the wanderer had been in his house, he had been far from + silent, for he joked at his own suffering and kept the housekeeper + laughing at his whimsical remarks; while he won her heart by the + extraordinary cleanliness of his threadbare clothes, and the perfect order + of his scantily-furnished knapsack. It had the exactness of one who was + set upon a far course and would carry it out on scientific calculation. He + had been full of mocking quips and sallies at himself, but from first to + last he never talked. The things he said were nothing more than surface + sounds, as it were—the ejaculations of a mind, not its language or + its meanings. + </p> + <p> + “He’s had some strange history, this queer little man,” said the + housekeeper to the Young Doctor; “and I’d like to know what it is. Why, we + don’t even know his name.” + </p> + <p> + “So would I,” rejoined the Young Doctor, “and I’ll have a good try for + it.” + </p> + <p> + He had had his try more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps a + little torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rather + tactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look was + incredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to pay the fee. + </p> + <p> + “When you searched me you forgot to look in the right place,” continued + Jean Jacques; and he drew from the lining of the hat he held in his hand a + little bundle of ten-dollar bills. “Here—take your pay from them,” + he said, and held out the roll of bills. “I suppose it won’t be more than + four dollars a day; and there’s enough, I think. I can’t pay you for your + kindness to me, and I don’t want to. I’d like to owe you that; and it’s a + good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness. He remembers it when he + gets older. It helps him to forgive himself more or less for what he’s + sorry for in life. I’ve enough in this bunch to pay for board and + professional attendance, or else the price has gone up since I had a + doctor before.” + </p> + <p> + He laughed now, and the laugh was half-ironical, half-protesting. It + seemed to come from the well of a hidden past; and no past that is hidden + has ever been a happy past. + </p> + <p> + The Young Doctor took the bills, looked at them as though they were + curios, and then returned them with the remark that they were of a kind + and denomination of no use to him. There was a twinkle in his eye as he + said it. Then he added: + </p> + <p> + “I agree with you that it’s a good thing for a man to lay up a little + credit of kindness here and there for his old age. Well, anything I did + for you was meant for kindness and nothing else. You weren’t a bit of + trouble, and it was simply your good constitution and a warm room and a + few fly-blisters that pulled you through. It wasn’t any skill of mine. Go + and thank my housekeeper if you like. She did it all.” + </p> + <p> + “I did my best to thank her,” answered Jean Jacques. “I said she reminded + me of Virginie Palass Poucette, and I could say nothing better than that, + except one thing; and I’m not saying that to anybody.” + </p> + <p> + The Young Doctor had a thrill. Here was a very unusual man, with mystery + and tragedy, and yet something above both, in his eyes. + </p> + <p> + “Who was Virginie Palass Poucette?” he asked. Jean Jacques threw out a + hand as though to say, “Attend—here is a great thing,” and he began, + “Virginie Poucette—ah, there...!” + </p> + <p> + Then he paused, for suddenly there spread out before him that past, now so + far away, in which he had lived—and died. Strange that when he had + mentioned Virginie’s name to the housekeeper he had no such feeling as + possessed him now. It had been on the surface, and he had used her name + without any deep stir of the waters far down in his soul. But the Young + Doctor was fingering the doors of his inner life—all at once this + conviction came to him—and the past rushed upon him with all its + disarray and ignominy, its sorrow, joy, elation and loss. Not since he had + left the scene of his defeat, not since the farewell to his dead Carmen, + that sweet summer day when he had put the lovely, ruined being away with + her words, “Jean Jacques—ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques,” ringing in + his ears, had he ever told anyone his story. He had had a feeling that, as + Carmen had been restored to him without his crying out, or vexing others + with his sad history, so would Zoe also come back to him. Patience and + silence was his motto. + </p> + <p> + Yet how was it that here and now there came an overpowering feeling, that + he must tell this healer of sick bodies the story of an invalid soul? This + man with the piercing dark-blue eyes before him, who looked so resolute, + who had the air of one who could say, + </p> + <p> + “This is the way to go,” because he knew and was sure; he was not to be + denied. + </p> + <p> + “Who was Virginie Poucette?” repeated the Young Doctor insistently, yet + ever so gently. “Was she such a prize among women? What did she do?” + </p> + <p> + A flood of feeling passed over Jean Jacques’ face. He looked at his hat + and his knapsack lying in a chair, with a desire to seize them and fly + from the inquisitor; then a sense of fatalism came upon him. As though he + had received an order from within his soul, he said helplessly: + </p> + <p> + “Well, if it must be, it must.” + </p> + <p> + Then he swept the knapsack and his hat from the chair to the floor, and + sat down. + </p> + <p> + “I will begin at the beginning,” he said with his eyes fixed on those of + the Young Doctor, yet looking beyond him to far-off things. “I will start + from the time when I used to watch the gold Cock of Beaugard turning on + the mill, when I sat in the doorway of the Manor Cartier in my pinafore. I + don’t know why I tell you, but maybe it was meant I should. I obey + conviction. While you are able to keep logic and conviction hand in hand + then everything is all right. I have found that out. Logic, philosophy are + the props of life, but still you must obey the impulse of the soul—oh, + absolutely! You must—” + </p> + <p> + He stopped short. “But it will seem strange to you,” he added after a + moment, in which the Young Doctor gestured to him to proceed, “to hear me + talk like this—a wayfarer—a vagabond you may think. But in + other days I was in places—” + </p> + <p> + The Young Doctor interjected with abrupt friendliness that there was no + need to say he had been in high places. It would still be apparent, if he + were in rags. + </p> + <p> + “Then, there, I will speak freely,” rejoined Jean Jacques, and he took the + cherry-brandy which the other offered him, and drank it off with gusto. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that—that,” he said, “is like the cordials Mere Langlois used + to sell at Vilray. She and Virginie Poucette had a place together on the + market—none better than Mere Langlois except Virginie Poucette, and + she was like a drink of water in the desert.... Well, there, I will begin. + Now my father was—” + </p> + <p> + It was lucky there were no calls for the Young Doctor that particular + early morning, else the course of Jean Jacques’ life might have been + greatly different from what it became. He was able to tell his story from + the very first to the last. Had it been interrupted or unfinished one name + might not have been mentioned. When Jean Jacques used it, the Young Doctor + sat up and leaned forward eagerly, while a light came into his face-a + light of surprise, of revelation and understanding. + </p> + <p> + When Jean Jacques came to that portion of his life when manifest tragedy + began—it began of course on the Antoine, but then it was not + manifest—when his Carmen left him after the terrible scene with + George Masson, he paused and said: “I don’t know why I tell you this, for + it is not easy to tell; but you saved my life, and you have a right to + know what it is you have saved, no matter how hard it is to put it all + before you.” + </p> + <p> + It was at this point that he mentioned Zoe’s name—he had hitherto + only spoken of her as “my daughter”; and here it was the Young Doctor + showed startled interest, and repeated the name after Jean Jacques. “Zoe! + Zoe!—ah!” he said, and became silent again. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques had not noticed the Young Doctor’s pregnant interruption, he + was so busy with his own memories of the past; and he brought the tale to + the day when he turned his face to the West to look for Zoe. Then he + paused. + </p> + <p> + “And then?” the Young Doctor asked. “There is more—there is the + search for Zoe ever since.” + </p> + <p> + “What is there to say?” continued Jean Jacques. “I have searched till now, + and have not found.” + </p> + <p> + “How have you lived?” asked the other. + </p> + <p> + “Keeping books in shops and factories, collecting accounts for + storekeepers, when they saw they could trust me, working at threshings and + harvests, teaching school here and there. Once I made fifty dollars at a + railway camp telling French Canadian tales and singing chansons + Canadiennes. I have been insurance agent, sold lightning-rods, and been + foreman of a gang building a mill—but I could not bear that. Every + time I looked up I could see the Cock of Beaugard where the roof should + be. And so on, so on, first one thing and then another till now—till + I came to Askatoon and fell down by the drug-store, and you played the + good Samaritan. So it goes, and I step on from here again, looking—looking.” + </p> + <p> + “Wait till spring,” said the Young Doctor. “What is the good of going on + now! You can only tramp to the next town, and—” + </p> + <p> + “And the next,” interposed Jean Jacques. “But so it is my orders.” He put + his hand on his heart, and gathered up his hat and knapsack. + </p> + <p> + “But you haven’t searched here at Askatoon.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah?... Ah-well, surely that is so,” answered Jean Jacques wistfully. “I + had forgotten that. Perhaps you can tell me, you who know all. Have you + any news about my Zoe for me? Do you know—was she ever here? Madame + Gerard Fynes would be her name. My name is Jean Jacques Barbille.” + </p> + <p> + “Madame Zoe was here, but she has gone,” quietly answered the Young + Doctor. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques dropped the hat and the knapsack. His eyes had a glad, yet + staring and frightened look, for the Young Doctor’s face was not the + bearer of good tidings. + </p> + <p> + “Zoe—my Zoe! You are sure?... When was she here?” he added huskily. + </p> + <p> + “A month ago.” + </p> + <p> + “When did she go?” Jean Jacques’ voice was almost a whisper. + </p> + <p> + “A month ago.” + </p> + <p> + “Where did she go?” asked Jean Jacques, holding himself steady, for he had + a strange dreadful premonition. + </p> + <p> + “Out of all care at last,” answered the Young Doctor, and took a step + towards the little man, who staggered, then recovered himself. + </p> + <p> + “She—my Zoe is dead! How?” questioned Jean Jacques in a ghostly sort + of voice, but there was a steadiness and control unlike what he had shown + in other tragic moments. + </p> + <p> + “It was a blizzard. She was bringing her husband’s body in a sleigh to the + railway here. He had died of consumption. She and the driver of the sleigh + went down in the blizzard. Her body covered the child and saved it. The + driver was lost also.” + </p> + <p> + “Her child—Zoe’s child?” quavered Jean Jacques. “A little girl—Zoe. + The name was on her clothes. There were letters. One to her father—to + you. Your name is Jean Jacques Barbille, is it not? I have that letter to + you. We buried her and her husband in the graveyard yonder.” He pointed. + “Everybody was there—even when they knew it was to be a Catholic + funeral.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah! she was buried a Catholic?” Jean Jacques’ voice was not quite so + blurred now. + </p> + <p> + “Yes. Her husband had become Catholic too. A priest who had met them in + the Peace River Country was here at the time.” + </p> + <p> + At that, with a moan, Jean Jacques collapsed. He shed no tears, but he sat + with his hands between his knees, whispering his child’s name. + </p> + <p> + The Young Doctor laid a hand on his shoulder gently, but presently went + out, shutting the door after him. As he left the room, however, he turned + and said, “Courage, Monsieur Jean Jacques! Courage!” + </p> + <p> + When the Young Doctor came back a half-hour later he had in his hand the + letters found in Zoe’s pocket. “Monsieur Jean Jacques,” he said gently to + the bowed figure still sitting as he left him. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques got up slowly and looked at him as though scarce + understanding where he was. + </p> + <p> + “The child—the child—where is my Zoe’s child? Where is Zoe’s + Zoe?” he asked in agitation. His whole body seemed to palpitate. His eyes + were all red fire. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE? + </h2> + <p> + The Young Doctor did not answer Jean Jacques at once. As he looked at this + wayworn fugitive he knew that another, and perhaps the final crisis of his + life, was come to Jean Jacques Barbille, and the human pity in him shrank + from the possible end to it all. It was an old-world figure this, with the + face of a peasant troubadour and the carriage of an aboriginal—or an + aristocrat. Indeed, the ruin, the lonely wandering which had been Jean + Jacques’ portion, had given him that dignity which often comes to those + who defy destiny and the blows of angry fate. Once there had been in his + carriage something jaunty. This was merely life and energy and a little + vain confidence; now there was the look of courage which awaits the worst + the world can do. The life which, according to the world’s logic, should + have made Jean Jacques a miserable figure, an ill-nourished vagabond, had + given him a physical grace never before possessed by him. The face, + however, showed the ravages which loss and sorrow had made. It was lined + and shadowed with dark reflection, yet the forehead had a strange + smoothness and serenity little in accord with the rest of the countenance. + It was like the snow-summit of a mountain below which are the ragged + escarpments of trees and rocks, making a look of storm and warfare. + </p> + <p> + “Where is she—the child of my Zoe?” Jean Jacques repeated with an + almost angry emphasis; as though the Young Doctor were hiding her from + him. + </p> + <p> + “She is with the wife of Nolan Doyle, my partner in horse-breeding, not + very far from here. Norah Doyle was married five years, and she had no + child. This was a grief to her, even more than to Nolan, who, like her, + came of a stock that was prolific. It was Nolan who found your daughter on + the prairie—the driver dead, but she just alive when found. To give + her ease of mind, Nolan said he would make the child his own. When he said + that, she smiled and tried to speak, but it was too late, and she was + gone.” + </p> + <p> + In sudden agony Jean Jacques threw up his hands. “So young and so soon to + be gone!” he exclaimed. “But a child she was and had scarce tasted the + world. The mercy of God—what is it!” + </p> + <p> + “You can’t take time as the measure of life,” rejoined the Young Doctor + with a compassionate gesture. “Perhaps she had her share of happiness—as + much as most of us get, maybe, in a longer course.” + </p> + <p> + “Share! She was worth a hundred years of happiness!” bitterly retorted + Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps she knew her child would have it?” gently remarked the Young + Doctor. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, that—that!... Do you think that possible, m’sieu’? Tell me, do + you think that was in her mind—to have loved, and been a mother, and + given her life for the child, and then the bosom of God. Answer that to + me, m’sieu’?” + </p> + <p> + There was intense, poignant inquiry in Jean Jacques’ face, and a light + seemed to play over it. The Young Doctor heeded the look and all that was + in the face. It was his mission to heal, and he knew that to heal the mind + was often more necessary than to heal the body. Here he would try to heal + the mind, if only in a little. + </p> + <p> + “That might well have been in her thought,” he answered. “I saw her face. + It had a wonderful look of peace, and a smile that would reconcile anyone + she loved to her going. I thought of that when I looked at her. I recall + it now. It was the smile of understanding.” + </p> + <p> + He had said the only thing which could have comforted Jean Jacques at that + moment. Perhaps it was meant to be that Zoe’s child should represent to + him all that he had lost—home, fortune, place, Carmen and Zoe. + Perhaps she would be home again for him and all that home should mean—be + the promise of a day when home would again include that fled from Carmen, + and himself, and Carmen’s child. Maybe it was sentiment in him, maybe it + was sentimentality—and maybe it was not. + </p> + <p> + “Come, m’sieu’,” Jean Jacques said impatiently: “let us go to the house of + that M’sieu’ Doyle. But first, mark this: I have in the West here some + land—three hundred and twenty acres. It may yet be to me a home, + where I shall begin once more with my Zoe’s child—with my Zoe of Zoe—the + home-life I lost down by the Beau Cheval.... Let us go at once.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, at once,” answered the Young Doctor. Yet his feet were laggard, for + he was not so sure that there would be another home for Jean Jacques with + his grandchild as its star. He was thinking of Norah, to whom a waif of + the prairie had made home what home should be for herself and Nolan Doyle. + </p> + <p> + “Read these letters first,” he said, and he put the letters found on Zoe + in Jean Jacques’ eager hands. + </p> + <p> + A half-hour later, at the horse-breeding ranch, the Young Doctor + introduced Jean Jacques to Norah Doyle, and instantly left the house. He + had no wish to hear the interview which must take place between the two. + Nolan Doyle was not at home, but in the room where they were shown to + Norah was a cradle. Norah was rocking it with one foot while, standing by + the table, she busied herself with sewing. + </p> + <p> + The introduction was of the briefest. “Monsieur Barbille wishes a word + with you, Mrs. Doyle,” said the Young Doctor. “It’s a matter that doesn’t + need me. Monsieur has been in my care, as you know.... Well, there, I hope + Nolan is all right. Tell him I’d like to see him to-morrow about the bay + stallion and the roans. I’ve had an offer for them. Good-bye—good-bye, + Mrs. Doyle”—he was at the door—“I hope you and Monsieur + Barbille will decide what’s best for the child without difficulty.” + </p> + <p> + The door opened quickly and shut again, and Jean Jacques was alone with + the woman and the child. “What’s best for the child!” + </p> + <p> + That was what the Young Doctor had said. Norah stopped rocking the cradle + and stared at the closed door. What had this man before her, this tramp + habitant of whom she had heard, of course, to do with little Zoe in the + cradle—her little Zoe who had come just when she was most needed; + who had brought her man and herself close together again after an + estrangement which neither had seemed able to prevent. + </p> + <p> + “What’s best for the child!” How did the child in the cradle concern this + man? Then suddenly his name almost shrieked in her brain. Barbille—that + was the name on the letter found on the body of the woman who died and + left Zoe behind—M. Jean Jacques Barbille. + </p> + <p> + Yes, that was the name. What was going to happen? Did the man intend to + try and take Zoe from her? + </p> + <p> + “What is your name—all of it?” she asked sharply. She had a very + fine set of teeth, as Jean Jacques saw mechanically; and subconsciously he + said to himself that they seemed cruel, they were so white and regular—and + cruel. The cruelty was evident to him as she bit in two the thread for the + waistcoat she was mending, and then plied her needle again. Also the + needle in her fingers might have been intended to sew up his shroud, so + angry did it appear at the moment. But her teeth had something almost + savage about them. If he had seen them when she was smiling, he would have + thought them merely beautiful and rare, atoning for her plain face and + flat breast—not so flat as it had been; for since the child had come + into her life, her figure, strangely enough, had rounded out, and lines + never before seen in her contour appeared. + </p> + <p> + He braced himself for the contest he knew was at hand, and replied to her. + “My name is Jean Jacques Barbille. I was of the Manor Cartier, in St. + Saviour’s parish, Quebec. The mother of the child Zoe, there, was born at + the Manor Cartier. I was her father. I am the grandfather of this Zoe.” He + motioned towards the cradle. + </p> + <p> + Then, with an impulse he could not check and did not seek to check—why + should he? was not the child his own by every right?—he went to the + cradle and looked down at the tiny face on its white pillow. There could + be no mistake about it; here was the face of his lost Zoe, with something, + too, of Carmen, and also the forehead of the Barbilles. As though the + child knew, it opened its eyes wide-big, brown eyes like those of Carmen + Dolores. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, the beautiful, beloved thing!” he exclaimed in a low-voice, ere Norah + stepped between and almost pushed him back. An outstretched arm in front + of her prevented him from stooping to kiss the child. “Stand back. The + child must not be waked,” she said. “It must sleep another hour. It has + its milk at twelve o’clock. Stand aside. I won’t have my child disturbed.” + </p> + <p> + “Have my child disturbed”—that was what she had said, and Jean + Jacques realized what he had to overbear. Here was the thing which must be + fought out at once. + </p> + <p> + “The child is not yours, but mine,” he declared. “Here is proof—the + letter found on my Zoe when she died—addressed to me. The doctor + knew. There is no mistake.” + </p> + <p> + He held out the letter for her to see. “As you can read here, my daughter + was on her way back to the Manor Cartier, to her old home at St. + Saviour’s. She was on her way back when she died. If she had lived I + should have had them both; but one is left, according to the will of God. + And so I will take her—this flower of the prairie—and begin + life again.” + </p> + <p> + The face Norah turned on him had that look which is in the face of an + animal, when its young is being forced from it—fierce, hungering, + furtive, vicious. + </p> + <p> + “The child is mine,” she exclaimed—“mine and no other’s. The prairie + gave it to me. It came to me out of the storm. ‘Tis mine-mine only. I was + barren and wantin’, and my man was slippin’ from me, because there was + only two of us in our home. I was older than him, and yonder was a girl + with hair like a sheaf of wheat in the sun, and she kept lookin’ at him, + and he kept goin’ to her. ‘Twas a man she wanted, ‘twas a child he wanted, + and there they were wantin’, and me atin’ my heart out with passion and + pride and shame and sorrow. There was he wantin’ a child, and the girl + wantin’ a man, and I only wantin’ what God should grant all women that + give themselves to a man’s arms after the priest has blessed them. And + whin all was at the worst, and it looked as if he was away with her—the + girl yonder—then two things happened. A man—he was me own + brother and a millionaire if I do say it—he took her and married + her; and then, too, Heaven’s will sent this child’s mother to her last end + and the child itself to my Nolan’s arms. To my husband’s arms first it + came, you understand; and he give the child to me, as it should be, and + said he, ‘We’ll make believe it is our own.’ But I said to him, ‘There’s + no make-believe. ‘Tis mine. ‘Tis mine. It came to me out of the storm from + the hand of God.’ And so it was and is; and all’s well here in the home, + praise be to God. And listen to me: you’ll not come here to take the child + away from me. It can’t be done. I’ll not have it. Yes, you can let that + sink down into you—I’ll not have it.” + </p> + <p> + During her passionate and defiant appeal Jean Jacques was restless with + the old unrest of years ago, and his face twitched with emotion; but + before she had finished he had himself in some sort of control. + </p> + <p> + “You—madame, you are only thinking of yourself in this. You are only + thinking what you want, what you and your man need. But it’s not to be + looked at that way only, and—” + </p> + <p> + “Well, then it isn’t to be looked at that way only,” she interrupted. “As + you say, it isn’t Nolan and me alone to be considered. There’s—” + </p> + <p> + “There’s me,” he interrupted sharply. “The child is bone of my bone. It is + bone of all the Barbilles back to the time of Louis XI.”—he had said + that long ago to Zoe first, and it was now becoming a fact in his mind. + “It is linked up in the chain of the history of the Barbilles. It is one + with the generations of noblesse and honour and virtue. It is—” + </p> + <p> + “It’s one with Abel the son of Adam, if it comes to that, and so am I,” + Norah bitingly interjected, while her eyes flashed fire, and she rocked + the cradle more swiftly than was good for the child’s sleep. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques flared up. “There were sons and daughters of the family of + Adam that had names, but there were plenty others you whistled to as you + would to a four-footer, and they’d come. The Barbilles had names—always + names of their own back to Adam. The child is a Barbille—Don’t rock + the cradle so fast,” he suddenly added with an irritable gesture, breaking + off from his argument. “Don’t you know better than that when a child’s + asleep? Do you want it to wake up and cry?” + </p> + <p> + She flushed to the roots of her hair, for he had said something for which + she had no reply. She had undoubtedly disturbed the child. It stirred in + its sleep, then opened its eyes, and at once began to cry. + </p> + <p> + “There,” said Jean Jacques, “what did I tell you? Any one that had ever + had children would know better than that.” + </p> + <p> + Norah paid no attention to his mocking words, to the undoubted-truth of + his complaint. Stooping over, she gently lifted the child up. With hungry + tenderness she laid it against her breast and pressed its cheek to her + own, murmuring and crooning to it. + </p> + <p> + “Acushla! Acushla! Ah, the pretty bird—mother’s sweet—mother’s + angel!” she said softly. + </p> + <p> + She rocked backwards and forwards. Her eyes, though looking at Jean + Jacques as she crooned and coaxed and made lullaby, apparently did not see + him. She was as concentrated as though it were a matter of life and death. + She was like some ancient nurse of a sovereign-child, plainly dressed, + while the dainty white clothes of the babe in her arms—ah, hadn’t + she raided the hoard she had begun when first married, in the hope of a + child of her own, to provide this orphan with clothes good enough for a + royal princess! + </p> + <p> + The flow of the long, white dress of the waif on the dark blue of Norah’s + gown, which so matched the deep sapphire of her eyes, caught Jean Jacques’ + glance, allured his mind. It was the symbol of youth and innocence and + home. Suddenly he had a vision of the day when his own Zoe had been given + to the cradle for the first time, and he had done exactly what Norah had + done—rocked too fast and too hard, and waked his little one; and + Carmen had taken her up in her long white draperies, and had rocked to and + fro, just like this, singing a lullaby. That lullaby he had himself sung + often afterwards; and now, with his grandchild in Norah’s arms there + before him—with this other Zoe—the refrain of it kept lilting + in his brain. In the pause ensuing, when Norah stooped to put the pacified + child again in its nest, he also stooped over the cradle and began to hum + the words of the lullaby: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Sing, little bird, of the whispering leaves, + Sing a song of the harvest sheaves; + Sing a song to my Fanchonette, + Sing a song to my Fanchonette! + Over her eyes, over her eyes, over her eyes of violet, + See the web that the weaver weaves, + The web of sleep that the weaver weaves— + Weaves, weaves, weaves! + Over those eyes of violet, + Over those eyes of my Fanchonette, + Weaves, weaves, weaves— + See the web that the weaver weaves!” + </pre> + <p> + For quite two minutes Jean Jacques and Norah Doyle stooped over the + cradle, looking at Zoe’s rosy, healthy, pretty face, as though unconscious + of each other, and only conscious of the child. When Jean Jacques had + finished the long first verse of the chanson, and would have begun + another, Norah made a protesting gesture. + </p> + <p> + “She’s asleep, and there’s no more need,” she said. “Wasn’t it a good + lullaby, madame?” Jean Jacques asked. + </p> + <p> + “So, so,” she replied, on her defence again. + </p> + <p> + “It was good enough for her mother,” he replied, pointing to the cradle. + </p> + <p> + “It’s French and fanciful,” she retorted—“both music and words.” + </p> + <p> + “The child’s French—what would you have?” asked Jean Jacques + indignantly. + </p> + <p> + “The child’s father was English, and she’s goin’ to be English, the + darlin’, from now on and on and on. That’s settled. There’s manny an + English and Irish lullaby that’ll be sung to her hence and onward; and + there’s manny an English song she’ll sing when she’s got her voice, and is + big enough. Well, I think she’ll sing like a canary.” + </p> + <p> + “Do the birds sing in English?” exclaimed Jean Jacques, with anger in his + face now. Was there ever any vanity like the vanity of these people who + had made the conquest of Quebec, when sixteen Barbilles lost their lives, + one of them being aide-de-camp to M. Vaudreuil, the governor! + </p> + <p> + “All the canaries I ever heard sung in English,” she returned stubbornly. + </p> + <p> + “How do Frenchmen understand their singing, then?” irritably questioned + Jean Jacques. + </p> + <p> + “Well, in translation only,” she retorted, and with her sharp white teeth + she again bit the black thread of her needle, tied the end into a little + knot, and began to mend the waistcoat which she had laid down in the first + moments of the interview. + </p> + <p> + “I want the child,” Jean Jacques insisted abruptly. “I’ll wait till she + wakes, and then I’ll wrap her up and take her away.” + </p> + <p> + “Didn’t you hear me say she was to be brought up English?” asked Norah, + with a slowness which clothed her fiercest impulses. + </p> + <p> + “Name of God, do you think I’ll let you have her!” returned Jean Jacques + with asperity and decision. “You say you are alone, you and your M’sieu’ + Nolan. Well, I am alone—all alone in the world, and I need her—Mother + of God, I need her more than I ever needed anything in my life! You have + each other, but I have only myself, and it is not good company. Besides, + the child is mine, a Barbille of Barbilles, une legitime—a rightful + child of marriage. But if it was a love-child only it would still be mine, + being my daughter’s child. Look you, it is no such thing. It is of those + who can claim inheritance back to Louis XI. She will be to me the gift of + God in return for the robbery of death.” + </p> + <p> + He leaned over the cradle, and his look was like that of one who had found + a treasure in the earth. + </p> + <p> + Now she struck hard. Yet very subtly too did she attack him. “You—you + are thinking of yourself, m’sieu’, only of yourself. Aren’t you going to + think of the child at all? It isn’t yourself that counts so much. You’ve + had your day, or the part of it that matters most. But her time is not yet + even begun. It’s all—all—before her. You say you’ll take her + away—well, to what? To what will you take her? What have you got to + give her? What—” + </p> + <p> + “I have the three hundred and twenty acres out there”—he pointed + westward—“and I will make a home and begin again with her.” + </p> + <p> + “Three hundred and twenty acres—‘out there’!” she exclaimed in + scorn. “Any one can have a farm here for the askin’. What is that? Is it a + home? What have you got to start a home with? Do you deny you are no + better than a tramp? Have you got a hundred dollars in the world? Have you + got a roof over your head? Have you got a trade? You’ll take her where—to + what? Even if you had a home, what then? You would have to get someone to + look after her—some old crone, a wench maybe, who’d be as fit to + bring up a child as I would be to—” she paused and looked round in + helpless quest for a simile, when, in despair, she caught sight of Jean + Jacques’ watch-chain—“as I would be to make a watch!” she added. + </p> + <p> + Instinctively Jean Jacques drew out the ancient timepiece he had worn on + the Grand Tour; which had gone down with the Antoine and come up with + himself. It gave him courage to make the fight for his own. + </p> + <p> + “The good God would see that—” he began. + </p> + <p> + “The good God doesn’t interfere in bringing up babies,” she retorted. + “That’s the work for the fathers and mothers, or godfathers and + godmothers.” + </p> + <p> + “You are neither,” exclaimed Jean Jacques. “You have no rights at all.” + </p> + <p> + “I have no rights—eh? I have no rights! Look at the child. Look at + the way she’s clothed. Look at the cradle in which it lies. It cost + fifteen dollars; and the clothes—what they cost would keep a family + half a year. I have no rights, is it?—I who stepped in and took the + child without question, without bein’ asked, and made it my own, and + treated it as if it was me own. No, by the love of God, I treated it far, + far better than if it had been me own. Because a child was denied me, the + hunger of the years made me love the child as a mother would on a desert + island with one child at her knees.” + </p> + <p> + “You can get another-one not your own, as this isn’t,” argued Jean Jacques + fiercely. + </p> + <p> + She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly. She chose her + own course to convince. “Nolan loves this child as if it was his,” she + declared, her eyes all afire, “but he mightn’t love another—men are + queer creatures. Then where would I be? and what would the home be but + what it was before—as cold, as cold and bitter! It was the hand of + God brought the child to the door of two people who had no child and who + prayed for one. Do you deny it was the hand of God that brought your + daughter here away, that put the child in my arms? Not its mother, am I + not? But I love her better than twenty mothers could. It’s the hunger—the + hunger—the hunger in me. She’s made a woman of me. She has a home + where everything is hers—everything. To see Nolan play with her, + tossin’ her up and down in his arms as if he’d done it all his life—as + natural as natural! To take her away from that—all the comfort here + where she can have anything she wants! With my old mother to care for her, + if so be I was away to market or whereabouts—one that brought up six + children, a millionaire among them, praise be to God as my mother did—to + take this delicate little thing away from here, what a sin and crime + ‘twould be! She herself ‘d never forgive you for it, if ever she grew up—though + that’s not likely, things bein’ as they are with you, and you bein’ what + you are. Ah, there—there she is awake and smilin’, and kickin’ up + her pretty toes this minute! There she is, the lovely little Zoe, with + eyes like black pearls.... See now—see now which she’ll come to—to + you or me, m’sieu’. There, put out your arms to her, and I’ll put out + mine, and see which she’ll take. I’ll stand by that—I’ll stand by + that. Let the child decide. Hold out your arms, and so will I.” + </p> + <p> + With an impassioned word Jean Jacques reached down his arms to the child, + which lay laughing up at them and kicking its pink toes into the air, and + Norah Doyle did the same, murmuring an Irish love-name for a child. Jean + Jacques was silent, but in his face was the longing of a soul sick for + home, of one who desires the end of a toilsome road. + </p> + <p> + The laughing child crooned and spluttered and shook its head, as though it + was playing some happy game. It looked first at Norah, then at Jean + Jacques, then at Norah again, and then, with a little gurgle of pleasure, + stretched out its arms to her and half-raised itself from the pillow. With + a glad cry Norah gathered it to her bosom, and triumph shone in her face. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, there, you see!” she said, as she lifted her face from the blossom at + her breast. + </p> + <p> + “There it is,” said Jean Jacques with shaking voice. + </p> + <p> + “You have nothing to give her—I have everything,” she urged. “My + rights are that I would die for the child—oh, fifty times!... What + are you going to do, m’sieu’?” + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques slowly turned and picked up his hat. He moved with the + dignity of a hero who marches towards a wall to meet the bullets of a + firing-squad. + </p> + <p> + “You are going?” Norah whispered, and in her eyes was a great relief and + the light of victory. The golden link binding Nolan and herself was in her + arms, over her heart. + </p> + <p> + Jean Jacques did not speak a word in reply, though his lips moved. She + held out the little one to him for a good-bye, but he shook his head. If + he did that—if he once held her in his arms—he would not be + able to give her up. Gravely and solemnly, however, he stooped over and + kissed the lips of the child lying against Norah’s breast. As he did so, + with a quick, mothering instinct Norah impulsively kissed his shaggy head, + and her eyes filled with tears. She smiled too, and Jean Jacques saw how + beautiful her teeth were—cruel no longer. + </p> + <p> + He moved away slowly. At the door he turned, and looked back at the two—a + long, lingering look he gave. Then he faced away from them again. + </p> + <p> + “Moi je suis philosophe,” he said gently, and opened the door and stepped + out and away into the frozen world. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_EPIL" id="link2H_EPIL"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + EPILOGUE. + </h2> + <p> + Change might lay its hand on the parish of St. Saviour’s, and it did so on + the beautiful sentient living thing, as on the thing material and + man-made; but there was no change in the sheltering friendship of Mont + Violet or the flow of the illustrious Beau Cheval. The autumns also + changed not at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scene + which Jean Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom. + </p> + <p> + One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but a + rainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring, a + traveller came back to St. Saviour’s after a long journey. He came by boat + to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train to the + railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles to Vilray. + At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of the days of + Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which covered the hands + but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meek crinoline. + </p> + <p> + “Ah, Fille—ah, dear Fille!” said the little fragment of an antique + day, as the Clerk of the Court—rather, he that had been for so many + years Clerk of the Court—stepped from the boat. “I can scarce + believe that you are here once more. Have you good news?” + </p> + <p> + “It was to come back with good news that I went,” her brother answered + smiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation. + </p> + <p> + “Dear, dear Fille!” She always called him that now, and not by his + Christian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since the + Government had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honoured + him with the degree of doctor of laws. + </p> + <p> + She was leading him to the pony-carriage in which she had come to meet + him, when he said: + </p> + <p> + “Do you think you could walk the distance, my dear?... It would be like + old times,” he added gently. + </p> + <p> + “I could walk twice as far to-day,” she answered, and at once gave + directions for the young coachman to put “His Honour’s” bag into the + carriage. In spite of Fille’s reproofs she insisted in calling him that to + the servants. They had two servants now, thanks to the legacy left them by + the late Judge Carcasson. Presently M. Fille took her by the hand. “Before + we start—one look yonder,” he murmured, pointing towards the mill + which had once belonged to Jean Jacques, now rebuilt and looking almost as + of old. “I promised Jean Jacques that I would come and salute it in his + name, before I did aught else, and so now I do salute it.” + </p> + <p> + He waved a hand and made a bow to the gold Cock of Beaugard, the pride of + all the vanished Barbilles. “Jean Jacques Barbille says that his head is + up like yours, M. le Coq, and he wishes you many, many winds to come,” he + recited quite seriously, and as though it was not out of tune with the + modern world. + </p> + <p> + The gold Cock of Beaugard seemed to understand, for it swung to the left, + and now a little to the right, and then stood still, as if looking at the + little pair of exiles from an ancient world—of which the only + vestiges remaining may be found in old Quebec. + </p> + <p> + This ceremony over, they walked towards Mont Violet, averting their heads + as they passed the Manor Cartier, in a kind of tribute to its departed + master—as a Stuart Legitimist might pass the big palace at the end + of the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister’s hand. + </p> + <p> + “I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear,” he said. “There they + are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie—that best of best women.” + </p> + <p> + “To think—married to Virginie Poucette—to think of that!” His + sister’s voice fluttered as she spoke. “But entirely. There was nothing in + the way—and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame + her, for at bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him + ‘That dear fool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all,’ and + our Judge was always right—but yes, nearly always right.” + </p> + <p> + After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. “Well, when Virginie + sold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah in the + West, she said, ‘If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the land which + was Zoe’s, which he bought for her. If he is alive—then!’ So it was, + and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like Virginie, + who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they met on that + three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of Jean Jacques to + have done that one right thing which would save him in the end—a + thing which came out of his love for his child—the emotion of an + hour. Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his salvation after + he learned of Zoe’s death, and the other little Zoe, his grandchild, was + denied to him—to close his heart against what seemed that last hope, + was it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward of his own soul—a + home at last once more.” + </p> + <p> + “With Virginie Poucette—Fille, Fille, how things come round!” + exclaimed the little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings. + </p> + <p> + “More than Virginie came round,” he replied almost oracularly. “Who, think + you, brought him the news that coal was found on his acres—who but + the husband of Virginie’s sister! Then came Virginie. On the day Jean + Jacques saw her again, he said to her, ‘What you would have given me at + such cost, now let me pay for with the rest of my life. It is the great + thought which was in your heart that I will pay for with the days left to + me.’” + </p> + <p> + A flickering smile brightened the sensitive ascetic face, and humour was + in the eyes. “What do you think Virginie said to that? Her sister told me. + Virginie said to that, ‘You will have more days left, Jean Jacques, if you + have a better cook. What do you like best for supper?’ And Jean Jacques + laughed much at that. Years ago he would have made a speech at it!” + </p> + <p> + “Then he is no more a philosopher?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh always, always, but in his heart, and not with his tongue. I cried, + and so did he, when we met and when we parted. I think I am getting old, + for indeed I could not help it: yet there was peace in his eyes—peace.” + </p> + <p> + “His eyes used to rustle so.” + </p> + <p> + “Rustle—that is the word. Now, that is what, he has learned in life—the + way to peace. When I left him, it was with Virginie close beside him, and + when I said to him, ‘Will you come back to us one day, Jean Jacques?’ he + said, ‘But no, Fille, my friend; it is too far. I see it—it is a + million miles away—too great a journey to go with the feet, but with + the soul I will visit it. The soul is a great traveller. I see it always—the + clouds and the burnings and the pitfalls gone—out of sight—in + memory as it was when I was a child. Well, there it is, everything has + changed, except the child-memory. I have had, and I have had not; and + there it is. I am not the same man—but yes, in my love just the + same, with all the rest—’ He did not go on, so I said, ‘If not the + same, then what are you, Jean Jacques?’” + </p> + <p> + “Ah, Fille, in the old days he would have said that he was a philosopher”—said + his sister interrupting. “Yes, yes, one knows—he said it often + enough and had need enough to say it. Well, said he to me, ‘Me, I am a’—then + he stopped, shook his head, and so I could scarcely hear him, murmured, + ‘Me—I am a man who has been a long journey with a pack on his back, + and has got home again.’ Then he took Virginie’s hand in his.” + </p> + <p> + The old man’s fingers touched the corner of his eye as though to find + something there; then continued. “‘Ah, a pedlar!’ said I to him, to hear + what he would answer. ‘Follies to sell for sous of wisdom,’ he answered. + Then he put his arm around Virginie, and she gave him his pipe.” + </p> + <p> + “I wish M. Carcasson knew,” the little grey lady remarked. + </p> + <p> + “But of course he knows,” said the Clerk of the Court, with his face + turned to the sunset. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: + + Air of certainty and universal comprehension + Always calling to something, for something outside ourselves + Being generous with other people’s money + Came of a race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers + Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit often + Courage which awaits the worst the world can do + Enjoy his own generosity + Good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness + Grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter + Grow more intense, more convinced, more thorough, as they talk + Had the slight flavour of the superior and the paternal + He had only made of his wife an incident in his life + He was in fact not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist + He was not always sorry when his teasing hurt + He admired, yet he wished to be admired + He hated irony in anyone else + I had to listen to him, and he had to pay me for listening + I can’t pay you for your kindness to me, and I don’t want to + I said I was not falling in love—I am in love + If you have a good thought, act on it + Inclined to resent his own insignificance + Lacks a balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough + Law. It is expensive whether you win or lose + Lyrical in his enthusiasms + Man who tells the story in a new way, that is genius + Missed being a genius by an inch + No past that is hidden has ever been a happy past + No man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced + Not content to do even the smallest thing ill + Of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with self-creation + Philosophers are often stupid in human affairs + Protest that it is right when it knows that it is wrong + She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly + Spurting out little geysers of other people’s cheap wisdom + That iceberg which most mourners carry in their breasts + The beginning of the end of things was come for him + The soul is a great traveller + Untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life + You can’t take time as the measure of life + You went north towards heaven and south towards hell +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s The Money Master, Complete, by Gilbert Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 6280-h.htm or 6280-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/8/6280/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Money Master, Complete + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Last Updated: March 14, 2009 +Release Date: October 18, 2006 [EBook #6280] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, COMPLETE *** + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE MONEY MASTER, Complete + +By Gilbert Parker + + + + +CONTENTS + + EPOCH THE FIRST + I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE + II. THE REST OF THE STORY "TO-MORROW" + III. "TO-MORROW" + + EPOCH THE SECOND + IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A STORY + V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY + VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY + VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP + VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL + IX. "MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE" + X. "QUIEN SABE"--WHO KNOWS! + XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE + XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM + + EPOCH THE THIRD + XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE + XIV. "I DO NOT WANT TO GO" + XV. BON MARCHE + + EPOCH THE FOURTH + XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY + XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET + XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER + XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP + XX. "AU 'VOIR, M'SIEU' JEAN JACQUES" + XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME + + EPOCH THE FIFTH + XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY + XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO + XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED. + XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE + EPILOGUE + + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +This book is in a place by itself among the novels I have written. Many +critics said that it was a welcome return to Canada, where I had made my +first success in the field of fiction. This statement was only meagrely +accurate, because since 'The Right of Way' was published in 1901 I had +written, and given to the public, 'Northern Lights', a book of short +stories, 'You Never Know Your Luck', a short novel, and 'The World for +Sale', though all of these dealt with life in Western Canada, and not +with the life of the French Canadians, in which field I had made my +first firm impression upon the public. In any case, The Money Master was +favourably received by the press and public both in England and America, +and my friends were justified in thinking, and in saying, that I was at +home in French Canada and gave the impression of mastery of my material. +If mastery of material means a knowledge of the life, and a sympathy +with it, then my friends are justified; for I have always had an intense +sympathy with, and admiration for, French Canadian life. I think the +French Canadian one of the most individual, original, and distinctive +beings of the modern world. He has kept his place, with his own +customs, his own Gallic views of life, and his religious habits, with an +assiduity and firmness none too common. He is essentially a man of +the home, of the soil, and of the stream; he has by nature instinctive +philosophy and temperamental logic. As a lover of the soil of Canada he +is not surpassed by any of the other citizens of the country, English or +otherwise. + +It would almost seem as though the pageantry of past French Canadian +history, and the beauty and vigour of the topographical surroundings +of French Canadian life, had produced an hereditary pride and +exaltation--perhaps an excessive pride and a strenuous exaltation, but, +in any case, there it was, and is. The French Canadian lives a more +secluded life on the whole than any other citizen of Canada, though the +native, adventurous spirit has sent him to the Eastern States of +the American Union for work in the mills and factories, or up to the +farthest reaches of the St. Lawrence, Ottawa, and their tributaries in +the wood and timber trade. + +Domestically he is perhaps the most productive son of the North American +continent. Families of twenty, or even twenty-five, are not unknown, +and, when a man has had more than one wife, it has even exceeded that. +Life itself is full of camaraderie and good spirit, marked by religious +traits and sacerdotal influence. + +The French Canadian is on the whole sober and industrious; but when he +breaks away from sobriety and industry he becomes a vicious element +in the general organism. Yet his vices are of the surface, and do not +destroy the foundations of his social and domestic scheme. A French +Canadian pony used to be considered the most virile and lasting stock +on the continent, and it is fair to say that the French Canadians +themselves are genuinely hardy, long-lived, virile, and enduring. + +It was among such people that the hero of The Money Master, Jean Jacques +Barbille, lived. He was the symbol or pattern of their virtues and +of their weaknesses. By nature a poet, a philosopher, a farmer and an +adventurer, his life was a sacrifice to prepossession and race instinct; +to temperament more powerful than logic or common sense, though he was +almost professionally the exponent of both. + +There is no man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced as +the French Canadian. He is at once modest and vain; he is even lyrical +in his enthusiasms; he is a child in the intrigues and inventions +of life; but he has imagination, he has a heart, he has a love of +tradition, and is the slave of legend. To him domestic life is the +summum bonum of being. His four walls are the best thing which the world +has to offer, except the cheerful and sacred communion of the Mass, and +his dismissal from life itself under the blessing of his priest and with +the promise of a good immortality. + +Jean Jacques Barbille had the French Canadian life of pageant, pomp, and +place extraordinarily developed. His love of history and tradition +was abnormal. A genius, he was, within an inch, a tragedy to the last +button. Probably the adventurous spirit of his forefathers played +a greater part in his development and in the story of his days than +anything else. He was wide-eyed, and he had a big soul. He trained +himself to believe in himself and to follow his own judgment; therefore, +he invited loss upon loss, he made mistake upon mistake, he heaped +financial adventure upon financial adventure, he ran great risks; and +it is possible that his vast belief in himself kept him going when other +men would have dropped by the wayside. He loved his wife and daughter, +and he lost them both. He loved his farms, his mills and his manor, and +they disappeared from his control. + +It must be remembered that the story of The Money Master really runs for +a generation, and it says something for Jean Jacques Barbille that he +could travel through scenes, many of them depressing, for long years, +and still, in the end, provoke no disparagement, by marrying the +woman who had once out of the goodness of her heart offered him +everything--herself, her home, her honour; and it was to Jean Jacques's +credit that he took neither until the death of his wife made him free; +but the tremendous gift offered him produced a powerful impression upon +his mind and heart. + +One of the most distinguished men of the world to-day wrote me in praise +and protest concerning The Money Master. He declared that the first half +of the book was as good as anything that had been done by anybody, +and then he bemoaned the fact, which he believed, that the author had +sacrificed his two heroines without real cause and because he was tired +of them. There he was wrong. In the author's mind the story was planned +exactly as it worked out. He was never tired; he was resolute. He was +intent to produce, if possible, a figure which would breed and develop +its own disasters, which would suffer profoundly for its own mistakes; +but which, in the end, would triumph over the disasters of life and +time. It was all deliberate in the main intention and plan. Any failures +that exist in the book are due to the faults of the author, and to +nothing else. + +Some critics have been good enough to call 'The Money Master' a +beautiful book, and there are many who said that it was real, true, and +faithful. Personally I think it is real and true, and as time goes on, +and we get older, that is what seems to matter to those who love life +and wish to see it well harvested. + +I do not know what the future of the book may be; what the future of +any work of mine will be; but I can say this, that no one has had the +pleasure in reading my books which I have had in making them. They have +been ground out of the raw material of the soul. I have a hope that they +will outlast my brief day, but, in any case, it will not matter. They +have given me a chance of showing to the world life as I have seen it, +and indirectly, and perhaps indistinctly, my own ideas of that life. +'The Money Master' is a vivid and somewhat emotional part of it. + + + + +EPOCH THE FIRST + + + + +CHAPTER I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE + +"Peace and plenty, peace and plenty"--that was the phrase M. Jean +Jacques Barbille, miller and moneymaster, applied to his home-scene, +when he was at the height of his career. Both winter and summer the +place had a look of content and comfort, even a kind of opulence. There +is nothing like a grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter +and an air of coolness in summer, so does the slightest breeze make the +pine-needles swish like the freshening sea. But to this scene, where +pines made a friendly background, there were added oak, ash, and hickory +trees, though in less quantity on the side of the river where were +Jean Jacques Barbille's house and mills. They flourished chiefly on the +opposite side of the Beau Cheval, whose waters flowed so waywardly--now +with a rush, now silently away through long reaches of country. Here +the land was rugged and bold, while farther on it became gentle and +spacious, and was flecked or striped with farms on which low, white +houses with dormer-windows and big stoops flashed to the passer-by the +message of the pioneer, "It is mine. I triumph." + +At the Manor Cartier, not far from the town of Vilray, where Jean +Jacques was master, and above it and below it, there had been battles +and the ravages of war. At the time of the Conquest the stubborn +habitants, refusing to accept the yielding of Quebec as the end of +French power in their proud province, had remained in arms and active, +and had only yielded when the musket and the torch had done their work, +and smoking ruins marked the places where homes had been. They took +their fortune with something of the heroic calm of men to whom an +idea was more than aught else. Jean Jacques' father, grandfather, and +great-great-grandfather had lived here, no one of them rising far, but +none worthless or unnoticeable. They all had had "a way of their own," +as their neighbours said, and had been provident on the whole. Thus it +was that when Jean Jacques' father died, and he came into his own, he +found himself at thirty a man of substance, unmarried, who "could +have had the pick of the province." This was what the Old Cure said in +despair, when Jean Jacques did the incomprehensible thing, and married +l'Espagnole, or "the Spanische," as the lady was always called in the +English of the habitant. + +When she came it was spring-time, and all the world was budding, exuding +joy and hope, with the sun dancing over all. It was the time between +the sowing and the hay-time, and there was a feeling of alertness in +everything that had life, while even the rocks and solid earth seemed to +stir. The air was filled with the long happy drone of the mill-stones as +they ground the grain; and from farther away came the soft, stinging +cry of a saw-mill. Its keen buzzing complaint was harmonious with the +grumble of the mill-stones, as though a supreme maker of music had tuned +it. So said a master-musician and his friend, a philosopher from Nantes, +who came to St. Saviour's in the summer just before the marriage, and +lodged with Jean Jacques. Jean Jacques, having spent a year at Laval +University at Quebec, had almost a gift of thought, or thinking; and he +never ceased to ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questions +which he proceeded to answer himself before they could do so; his +quaint, sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening while +they amused his guests. They saddened the musician more than the other +because he knew life, while the philosopher only thought it and saw it. + +But even the musician would probably have smiled in hope that day +when the young "Spanische" came driving up the river-road from the +steamboat-landing miles away. She arrived just when the clock struck +noon in the big living-room of the Manor. As she reached the open +doorway and the wide windows of the house which gaped with shady +coolness, she heard the bell summoning the workers in the mills and on +the farm--yes, M. Barbille was a farmer, too--for the welcome home to +"M'sieu' Jean Jacques," as he was called by everyone. + +That the wedding had taken place far down in Gaspe and not in St. +Saviour's was a reproach and almost a scandal; and certainly it was +unpatriotic. It was bad enough to marry the Spanische, but to marry +outside one's own parish, and so deprive that parish and its young +people of the week's gaiety, which a wedding and the consequent +procession and tour through the parish brings, was little less than +treason. But there it was; and Jean Jacques was a man who had power to +hurt, to hinder, or to help; for the miller and the baker are nearer to +the hearthstone of every man than any other, and credit is a good thing +when the oven is empty and hard times are abroad. The wedding in Gaspe +had not been attended by the usual functions, for it had all been +hurriedly arranged, as the romantic circumstances of the wooing +required. Romance indeed it was; so remarkable that the master-musician +might easily have found a theme for a comedy--or tragedy--and the +philosopher would have shaken his head at the defiance it offered to the +logic of things. + +Now this is the true narrative, though in the parish of St. Saviour's it +is more highly decorated and has many legends hanging to it like tassels +to a curtain. Even the Cure of to-day, who ought to know all the truth, +finds it hard to present it in its bare elements; for the history +of Jean Jacques Barbille affected the history of many a man in St. +Saviour's; and all that befel him, whether of good or evil, ran through +the parish in a thousand invisible threads. + + ....................... + +What had happened was this. After the visit of the musician and the +philosopher, Jean Jacques, to sustain his reputation and to increase it, +had decided to visit that Normandy from which his people had come at the +time of Frontenac. He set forth with much 'eclat' and a little innocent +posturing and ritual, in which a cornet and a violin figured, together +with a farewell oration by the Cure. + +In Paris Jean Jacques had found himself bewildered and engulfed. He had +no idea that life could be so overbearing, and he was inclined to resent +his own insignificance. However, in Normandy, when he read the names on +the tombstones and saw the records in the baptismal register of other +Jean Jacques Barbilles, who had come and gone generations before, his +self-respect was somewhat restored. This pleasure was dashed, however, +by the quizzical attitude of the natives of his ancestral parish, +who walked round about inspecting him as though he were a zoological +specimen, and who criticized his accent--he who had been at Laval for +one whole term; who had had special instruction before that time from +the Old Cure and a Jesuit brother; and who had been the friend of +musicians and philosophers! + +His cheerful, kindly self-assurance stood the test with difficulty, but +it became a kind of ceremonial with him, whenever he was discomfited, to +read some pages of a little dun-coloured book of philosophy, picked up +on the quay at Quebec just before he sailed, and called, "Meditations in +Philosophy." He had been warned by the bookseller that the Church had no +love for philosophy; but while at Laval he had met the independent minds +that, at eighteen to twenty-two, frequent academic groves; and he +was not to be put off by the pious bookseller--had he not also had a +philosopher in his house the year before, and was he not going to Nantes +to see this same savant before returning to his beloved St. Saviour's +parish. + +But Paris and Nantes and Rouen and Havre abashed and discomfited him, +played havoc with his self-esteem, confused his brain, and vexed him +by formality, and, more than all, by their indifference to himself. He +admired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished all +people and things to be humble with him. When he halted he wanted the +world to halt; when he entered a cathedral--Notre Dame or any other; or +a great building--the Law Courts at Rouen or any other; he simply +wanted people to say, wanted the cathedral, or at least the cloister, to +whisper to itself, "Here comes Jean Jacques Barbille." + +That was all he wanted, and that would have sufficed. He would not have +had them whisper about his philosophy and his intellect, or the mills +and the ash-factory which he meant to build, the lime-kilns he had +started even before he left, and the general store he intended to open +when he returned to St. Saviour's. Not even his modesty was recognized; +and, in his grand tour, no one was impressed by all that he was, except +once. An ancestor, a grandmother of his, had come from the Basque +country; and so down to St. Jean Pied de Port he went; for he came of a +race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers. At St. Jean Pied +de Port he was more at home. He was, in a sense, a foreigner among +foreigners there, and the people were not quizzical, since he was +an outsider in any case and not a native returned, as he had been in +Normandy. He learned to play pelota, the Basque game taken from the +Spaniards, and he even allowed himself a little of that oratory which, +as they say, has its habitat chiefly in Gascony. And because he had +found an audience at last, he became a liberal host, and spent freely +of his dollars, as he had never done either in Normandy, Paris, or +elsewhere. So freely did he spend, that when he again embarked at +Bordeaux for Quebec, he had only enough cash left to see him through the +remainder of his journey in the great world. Yet he left France with +his self-respect restored, and he even waved her a fond adieu, as the +creaking Antoine broke heavily into the waters of the Bay of Biscay, +while he cried: + + "My little ship, + It bears me far + From lights of home + To alien star. + O vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, dear land, + Provence, adieu." + +Then a further wave of sentiment swept over him, and he was vaguely +conscious of a desire to share the pains of parting which he saw in +labour around him--children from parents, lovers from loved. He could +not imagine the parting from a parent, for both of his were in the bosom +of heaven, having followed his five brothers, all of whom had died in +infancy, to his good fortune, for otherwise his estate would now be only +one-sixth of what it was. But he could imagine a parting with some sweet +daughter of France, and he added another verse to the thrilling of the +heart of Casimir Delavigne: + + "Beloved Isaure, + Her hand makes sign-- + No more, no more, + To rest in mine. + O vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, dear land, + Isaure, adieu!" + +As he murmured with limpid eye the last words, he saw in the forecastle +not far from him a girl looking at him. There was unmistakable sadness +in her glance of interest. In truth she was thinking of just such a man +as Jean Jacques, whom she could never see any more, for he had paid with +his life the penalty of the conspiracy in which her father, standing now +behind her on the leaky Antoine, had been a tool, and an evil tool. Here +in Jean Jacques was the same ruddy brown face, black restless eye, +and young, silken, brown beard. Also there was an air of certainty and +universal comprehension, and though assertion and vanity were apparent, +there was no self-consciousness. The girl's dead and gone conspirator +had not the same honesty of face, the same curve of the ideal in the +broad forehead, the same poetry of rich wavy brown hair, the same +goodness of mind and body so characteristic of Jean Jacques--he was but +Jean Jacques gone wrong at the start; but the girl was of a nature +that could see little difference between things which were alike +superficially, and in the young provincial she only saw one who looked +like the man she had loved. True, his moustaches did not curl upwards at +the ends as did those of Carvillho Gonzales, and he did not look out of +the corner of his eyes and smoke black cigarettes; but there he was, her +Carvillho with a difference--only such a difference that made him to her +Carvillho II., and not the ghost of Carvillho I. + +She was a maiden who might have been as good as need be for all life, +so far as appearances went. She had a wonderful skin, a smooth, velvety +cheek, where faint red roses came and went, as it might seem at will; +with a deep brown eye; and eh, but she was grandly tall--so Jean Jacques +thought, while he drew himself up to his full five feet, six and a half +with a determined air. Even at his best, however, Jean Jacques could not +reach within three inches of her height. + +Yet he did not regard her as at all overdone because of that. He thought +her hair very fine, as it waved away from her low forehead in a grace +which reminded him of the pictures of the Empress Eugenie, and of the +sister of that monsieur le duc who had come fishing to St. Saviour's +a few years before. He thought that if her hair was let down it would +probably reach to her waist, and maybe to her ankles. She had none of +the plump, mellow softness of the beauties he had seen in the Basque +country. She was a slim and long limbed Diana, with fine lines and a +bosom of extreme youth, though she must have been twenty-one her last +birthday. The gown she wore was a dark green well-worn velvet, which +seemed of too good a make and quality for her class; and there was no +decoration about her anywhere, save at the ears, where two drops of gold +hung on little links an inch and a half long. + +Jean Jacques Barbille's eyes took it all in with that observation of +which he was so proud and confident, and rested finally on the drops of +gold at her ears. Instinctively he fingered the heavy gold watch-chain +he had bought in Paris to replace the silver chain with a little +crucifix dangling, which his father and even his great-grandfather had +worn before him. He had kept the watch, however--the great fat-bellied +thing which had never run down in a hundred years. It was his mascot. +To lose that watch would be like losing his share in the promises of the +Church. So his fingers ran along the new gold-fourteen-carat-chain, to +the watch at the end of it; and he took it out a little ostentatiously, +since he saw that the eyes of the girl were on him. Involuntarily he +wished to impress her. + +He might have saved himself the trouble. She was impressed. It was quite +another matter however, whether he would have been pleased to know that +the impression was due to his resemblance to a Spanish conspirator, +whose object was to destroy the Monarchy and the Church, as had been the +object of the middle-aged conspirator--the girl's father--who had the +good fortune to escape from justice. It is probable that if Jean Jacques +had known these facts, his story would never have been written, and he +would have died in course of time with twenty children and a seat in the +legislature; for, in spite of his ardent devotion to philosophy and its +accompanying rationalism, he was a devout monarchist and a child of the +Church. + +Sad enough it was that, as he shifted his glance from the watch, which +ticked loud enough to wake a farmhand in the middle of the day, he found +those Spanish eyes which had been so lost in studying him. In the glow +and glisten of the evening sun setting on the shores of Bordeaux, and +flashing reflected golden light to the girl's face, he saw that they +were shining with tears, and though looking at him, appeared not to +see him. In that moment the scrutiny of the little man's mind was +volatilized, and the Spanische, as she was ultimately called, began her +career in the life of the money-master of St. Saviour's. + +It began by his immediately resenting the fact that she should be +travelling in the forecastle. His mind imagined misfortune and a lost +home through political troubles, for he quickly came to know that the +girl and her father were Spanish; and to him, Spain was a place of +martyrs and criminals. Criminals these could not be--one had but to look +at the girl's face; while the face of her worthless father might have +been that of a friend of Philip IV. in the Escorial, so quiet and +oppressed it seemed. Nobility was written on the placid, apathetic +countenance, except when it was not under observation, and then the look +of Cain took its place. Jean Jacques, however, was not likely to see +that look; since Sebastian Dolores--that was his name--had observed from +the first how the master-miller was impressed by his daughter, and he +was set to turn it to account. + +Not that the father entered into an understanding with the girl. He knew +her too well for that. He had a wholesome respect, not to say fear, +of her; for when all else had failed, it was she who had arranged his +escape from Spain, and who almost saved Carvillho Gonzales from being +shot. She could have saved Gonzales, might have saved him, would +have saved him, had she not been obliged to save her father. In the +circumstances she could not save both. + +Before the week was out Jean Jacques was possessed of as fine a tale +of political persecution as mind could conceive, and, told as it was by +Sebastian Dolores, his daughter did not seek to alter it, for she had +her own purposes, and they were mixed. These refugees needed a friend, +for they would land in Canada with only a few dollars, and Carmen +Dolores loved her father well enough not to wish to see him again in +such distress as he had endured in Cadiz. Also, Jean Jacques, the +young, verdant, impressionable French Catholic, was like her Carvillho +Gonzales, and she had loved her Carvillho in her own way very +passionately, and--this much to her credit--quite chastely. So that she +had no compunction in drawing the young money-master to her side, and +keeping him there by such arts as such a woman possesses. These are +remarkable after their kind. They are combined of a frankness as to the +emotions, and such outer concessions to physical sensations, as make a +painful combination against a mere man's caution; even when that caution +has a Norman origin. + +More than once Jean Jacques was moved to tears, as the Ananias of Cadiz +told his stories of persecution. + +So that one day, in sudden generosity, he paid the captain the necessary +sum to transfer the refugees from the forecastle to his own select +portion of the steamer, where he was so conspicuous a figure among a +handful of lower-level merchant folk and others of little mark who were +going to Quebec. To these latter Jean Jacques was a gift of heaven, for +he knew so much, and seemed to know so much more, and could give them +the information they desired. His importance lured him to pose as a +seigneur, though he had no claim to the title. He did not call himself +Seigneur in so many words, but when others referred to him as the +Seigneur, and it came to his ears, he did not correct it; and when he +was addressed as such he did not reprove. + +Thus, when he brought the two refugees from the forecastle and assured +his fellow-passengers that they were Spanish folk of good family exiled +by persecution, his generosity was acclaimed, even while all saw he was +enamoured of Carmen. Once among the first-class passengers, father and +daughter maintained reserve, and though there were a few who saw that +they were not very far removed above peasants, still the dress of +the girl, which was good--she had been a maid in a great nobleman's +family--was evidence in favour of the father's story. Sebastian Dolores +explained his own workman's dress as having been necessary for his +escape. + +Only one person gave Jean Jacques any warning. This was the captain +of the Antoine. He was a Basque, he knew the Spanish people well--the +types, the character, the idiosyncrasies; and he was sure that Sebastian +Dolores and his daughter belonged to the lower clerical or higher +working class, and he greatly inclined towards the former. In that he +was right, because Dolores, and his father before him, had been employed +in the office of a great commercial firm in Cadiz, and had repaid much +consideration by stirring up strife and disloyalty in the establishment. +But before the anarchist subtracted himself from his occupation, he had +appropriated certain sums of money, and these had helped to carry him +on, when he attached himself to the revolutionaries. It was on his +daughter's savings that he was now travelling, with the only thing he +had saved from the downfall, which was his head. It was of sufficient +personal value to make him quite cheerful as the Antoine plunged and +shivered on her way to the country where he could have no steady work as +a revolutionist. + +With reserve and caution the Basque captain felt it his duty to tell +Jean Jacques of his suspicions, warning him that the Spaniards were the +choicest liars in the world, and were not ashamed of it; but had +the same pride in it as had their greatest rivals, the Arabs and the +Egyptians. + +His discreet confidences, however, were of no avail; he was not discreet +enough. If he had challenged the bona fides of Sebastian Dolores only, +he might have been convincing, but he used the word "they" constantly, +and that roused the chivalry of Jean Jacques. That the comely, careful +Carmen should be party to an imposture was intolerable. Everything about +her gave it the lie. Her body was so perfect and complete, so finely +contrived and balanced, so cunningly curved with every line filled in; +her eye was so full of lustre and half-melancholy too; her voice had +such a melodious monotone; her mouth was so ripe and yet so distant in +its luxury, that imposture was out of the question. + +Ah, but Jean Jacques was a champion worth while! He did nothing +by halves. He was of the breed of men who grow more intense, more +convinced, more thorough, as they talk. One adjective begets another, +one warm allusion gives birth to a warmer, one flashing impulse evokes a +brighter confidence, till the atmosphere is flaming with conviction. If +Jean Jacques started with faint doubt regarding anything, and allowed +himself betimes the flush of a declaration of belief, there could be but +one end. He gathered fire as he moved, impulse expanded into momentum, +and momentum became an Ariel fleeing before the dark. He would start +by offering a finger to be pricked, and would end by presenting his own +head on a charger. He was of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow +with self-creation, who flower and bloom without pollen. + +His rejection of the captain's confidence even had a dignity. He +took out his watch which represented so many laborious hours of other +Barbilles, and with a decision in which the strong pulse of chivalry was +beating hard, he said: + +"I can never speak well till I have ate. That is my hobby. Well, so +it is. And I like good company. So that is why I sit beside Senor and +Senorita Dolores at table--the one on the right, the other on the left, +myself between, like this, like that. It is dinner-time now here, and +my friends--my dear friends of Cadiz--they wait me. Have you heard +the Senorita sing the song of Spain, m'sieu'? What it must be with the +guitar, I know not; but with voice alone it is ravishing. I have learned +it also. The Senorita has taught me. It is a song of Aragon. It is sung +in high places. It belongs to the nobility. Ah, then, you have not heard +it--but it is not too late! The Senorita, the unhappy ma'm'selle, driven +from her ancestral home by persecution, she will sing it to you as she +has sung it to me. It is your due. You are the master of the ship. But, +yes, she shall of her kindness and of her grace sing it to you. You do +not know how it runs? Well, it is like this--listen and tell me if it +does not speak of things that belong to the old regime, the ancient +noblesse--listen, m'sieu' le captainne, how it runs: + + "Have you not heard of mad Murcie? + Granada gay and And'lousie? + There's where you'll see the joyous rout, + When patios pour their beauties out; + Come, children, come, the night gains fast, + And Time's a jade too fair to last. + My flower of Spain, my Juanetta, + Away, away to gay Jota! + Come forth, my sweet, away, my queen, + Though daybreak scorns, the night's between. + The Fete's afoot--ah! ah! ah! ah! + De la Jota Ar'gonesa. + Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! + De la Jota Ar'gonesa." + +Before he had finished, the captain was more than ready to go, for he +had no patience with such credulity, simplicity and sentimentalism. He +was Basque, and to be Basque is to lack sentiment and feel none, to play +ever for the safe thing, to get without giving, and to mind your own +business. It had only been an excessive sense of duty which had made the +captain move in this, for he liked Jean Jacques as everyone aboard his +Antoine did; and he was convinced that the Spaniards would play the +"Seigneur" to the brink of disaster at least, though it would have been +hard to detect any element of intrigue or coquetry in Carmen Dolores. + +That was due partly to the fact that she was still in grief for her +Gonzales, whose heart had been perforated by almost as many bullets +as the arrows of Cupid had perforated it in his short, gay life of +adventure and anarchy; also partly because there was no coquetry needed +to interest Jean Jacques. If he was interested it was not necessary to +interest anyone else, nor was it expedient to do so, for the biggest +fish in the net on the Antoine was the money-master of St. Saviour's. + +Carmen had made up her mind from the first to marry Jean Jacques, and +she deported herself accordingly--with modesty, circumspection and +skill. It would be the easiest way out of all their difficulties. Since +her heart, such as it was, fluttered, a mournful ghost, over the Place +d'Armes, where her Gonzales was shot, it might better go to Jean Jacques +than anyone else; for he was a man of parts, of money, and of looks, and +she loved these all; and to her credit she loved his looks better +than all the rest. She had no real cupidity, and she was not greatly +enamoured of brains. She had some real philosophy of life learned in a +hard school; and it was infinitely better founded than the smattering of +conventional philosophy got by Jean Jacques from his compendium picked +up on the quay at Quebec. + +Yet Jean Jacques' cruiser of life was not wholly unarmed. From his +Norman forebears he had, beneath all, a shrewdness and an elementary +alertness not submerged by his vain, kind nature. He was quite a good +business man, and had proved himself so before his father died--very +quick to see a chance, and even quicker to see where the distant, sharp +corners in the road were; though not so quick to see the pitfalls, for +his head was ever in the air. And here on the Antoine, there crossed his +mind often the vision of Carmen Dolores and himself in the parish of St. +Saviour's, with the daily life of the Beau Cheval revolving about him. +Flashes of danger warned him now and then, just at the beginning of the +journey, as it were; just before he had found it necessary to become +her champion against the captain and his calumnies; but they were of the +instant only. But champion as he became, and worshipping as his manner +seemed, it all might easily have been put down to a warm, chivalrous, +and spontaneous nature, which had not been bitted or bridled, and he +might have landed at Quebec without committing himself, were it not for +the fact that he was not to land at Quebec. + +That was the fact which controlled his destiny. He had spent many, many +hours with the Dona Dolores, talking, talking, as he loved to talk, and +only saving himself from the betise of boring her by the fact that his +enthusiasm had in it so fresh a quality, and because he was so like +her Gonzales that she could always endure him. Besides, quick of +intelligence as she was, she was by nature more material than she +looked, and there was certainly something physically attractive in +him--some curious magnetism. She had a well of sensuousness which might +one day become sensuality; she had a richness of feeling and a contour +in harmony with it, which might expand into voluptuousness, if given +too much sun, or if untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married +life. There was an earthquake zone in her being which might shake down +the whole structure of her existence. She was unsafe, not because she +was deceiving Jean Jacques now as to her origin and as to her feelings +for him; she was unsafe because of the natural strain of the light of +love in her, joined to a passion for comfort and warmth and to a natural +self-indulgence. She was determined to make Jean Jacques offer himself +before they landed at Quebec. + +But they did not land at Quebec. + + + + +CHAPTER II. "THE REST OF THE STORY TO-MORROW" + +The journey wore on to the coast of Canada. Gaspe was not far off when, +still held back by the constitutional tendency of the Norman not to +close a bargain till compelled to do so, Jean Jacques sat with Carmen +far forward on the deck, where the groaning Antoine broke the waters +into sullen foam. There they silently watched the sunset, golden, purple +and splendid--and ominous, as the captain knew. + +"Look, the end of life--like that!" said Jean Jacques oratorically with +a wave of the hand towards the prismatic radiance. + +"All the way round, the whole circle--no, it would be too much," Carmen +replied sadly. "Better to go at noon--or soon after. Then the only +memory of life would be of the gallop. No crawling into the night for +me, if I can help it. Mother of Heaven, no! Let me go at the top of the +flight." + +"It is all the same to me," responded Jean Jacques, "I want to know it +all--to gallop, to trot, to walk, to crawl. Me, I'm a philosopher. I +wait." + +"But I thought you were a Catholic," she replied, with a kindly, lurking +smile, which might easily have hardened into scoffing. + +"First and last," he answered firmly. + +"A Catholic and a philosopher--together in one?" She shrugged a shoulder +to incite him to argument, for he was interesting when excited; +when spurting out little geysers of other people's cheap wisdom and +philosophy, poured through the kind distortion of his own intelligence. + +He gave a toss of his head. "Ah, that is my hobby--I reconcile, I unite, +I adapt! It is all the nature of the mind, the far-look, the all-round +sight of the man. I have it all. I see." + +He gazed eloquently into the sunset, he swept the horizon with his hand. +"I have the all-round look. I say the Man of Calvary, He is before all, +the sun; but I say Socrates, Plato, Jean Jacques--that is my name, and +it is not for nothing, that--Jean Jacques Rousseau, Descartes, Locke, +they are stars that go round the sun. It is the same light, but not the +same sound. I reconcile. In me all comes together like the spokes to +the hub of a wheel. Me--I am a Christian, I am philosophe, also. In St. +Saviour's, my home in Quebec, if the crops are good, what do men say? +'C'est le bon Dieu--it is the good God,' that is what they say. If the +crops are bad, what do they say? 'It is the good God'--that is what they +say. It is the good God that makes crops good or bad, and it is the +good God that makes men say, 'C'est le bon Dieu.' The good God makes the +philosophy. It is all one." + +She appeared to grow agitated, and her voice shook as she spoke. "Tsh, +it is only a fool that says the good God does it, when the thing that is +done breaks you or that which you love all to pieces. No, no, no, it is +not religion, it is not philosophy that makes one raise the head when +the heart is bowed down, when everything is snatched away that was all +in all. That the good God does it is a lie. Santa Maria, what a lie!" + +"Why 'Santa Maria,' then, if it is a lie?" he asked triumphantly. He did +not observe how her breast was heaving, how her hands were clenched; for +she was really busy with thoughts of her dead Carvillho Gonzales; but +for the moment he could only see the point of an argument. + +She made a gesture of despair. "So--that's it. Habit in us is so strong. +It comes through the veins of our mothers to us. We say that God is +a lie one minute, and then the next minute we say, 'God guard you!' +Always--always calling to something, for something outside ourselves. +That is why I said Santa Maria, why I ask her to pray for the soul of +my friend, to pray to the God that breaks me and mine, and sends us over +the seas, beggars without a home." + +Now she had him back out of the vanities of his philosophy. He was up, +inflamed, looking at her with an excitement on which she depended for +her future. She knew the caution of his nature, she realized how he +would take one step forward and another step back, and maybe get nowhere +in the end, and she wanted him--for a home, for her father's sake, for +what he could do for them both. She had no compunctions. She thought +herself too good for him, in a way, for in her day men of place and mark +had taken notice of her; and if it had not been for her Gonzales she +would no doubt have listened to one of them sometime or another. She +knew she had ability, even though she was indolent, and she thought she +could do as much for him as any other girl. If she gave him a handsome +wife and handsome children, and made men envious of him, and filled him +with good things, for she could cook more than tortillas-she felt he +would have no right to complain. She meant him to marry her--and Quebec +was very near! + +"A beggar in a strange land, without a home, without a friend--oh, my +broken life!" she whispered wistfully to the sunset. + +It was not all acting, for the past reached out and swept over her, +throwing waves of its troubles upon the future. She was that saddest of +human beings, a victim of dual forces which so fought for mastery +with each other that, while the struggle went on, the soul had no firm +foothold anywhere. That, indeed, was why her Carvillho Gonzales, who +also had been dual in nature, said to himself so often, "I am a devil," +and nearly as often, "I have the heart of an angel." + +"Tell me all about your life, my friend," Jean Jacques said eagerly. +Now his eyes no longer hurried here and there, but fastened on hers and +stayed thereabouts--ah, her face surely was like pictures he had seen in +the Louvre that day when he had ambled through the aisles of great men's +glories with the feeling that he could not see too much for nothing in +an hour. + +"My life? Ah, m'sieu', has not my father told you of it?" she asked. + +He waved a hand in explanation, he cocked his head quizzically. +"Scraps--like the buttons on a coat here and there--that's all," +he answered. "Born in Andalusia, lived in Cadiz, plenty of money, +a beautiful home,"--Carmen's eyes drooped, and her face flushed +slightly--"no brothers or sisters--visits to Madrid on political +business--you at school--then the going of your mother, and you at home +at the head of the house. So much on the young shoulders, the kitchen, +the parlour, the market, the shop, society--and so on. That is the way +it was, so he said, except in the last sad times, when your father, for +the sake of Don Carlos and his rights, near lost his life--ah, I can +understand that: to stand by the thing you have sworn to! France is a +republic, but I would give my life to put a Napoleon or a Bourbon on the +throne. It is my hobby to stand by the old ship, not sign on to a new +captain every port." + +She raised her head and looked at him calmly now. The flush had gone +from her face, and a light of determination was in her eyes. To that was +added suddenly a certain tinge of recklessness and abandon in carriage +and manner, as one flings the body loose from the restraints of clothes, +and it expands in a free, careless, defiant joy. + +Jean Jacques' recital of her father's tale had confused her for a +moment, it was so true yet so untrue, so full of lies and yet so +solid in fact. "The head of the house--visits to Madrid on political +business--the parlour, the market, society--all that!" It suggested the +picture of the life of a child of a great house; it made her a lady, +and not a superior servant as she had been; it adorned her with a credit +which was not hers; and for a moment she was ashamed. Yet from the first +she had lent herself to the general imposture that they had fled from +Spain for political reasons, having lost all and suffered greatly; and +it was true while yet it was a lie. She had suffered, both her father +and herself had suffered; she had been in danger, in agony, in sorrow, +in despair--it was only untrue that they were of good birth and blood, +and had had position and comfort and much money. Well, what harm did +that do anybody? What harm did it do this little brown seigneur from +Quebec? Perhaps he too had made himself out to be more than he was. +Perhaps he was no seigneur at all, she thought. When one is in distant +seas and in danger of his life, one will hoist any flag, sail to any +port, pay homage to any king. So would she. Anyhow, she was as good as +this provincial, with his ancient silver watch, his plump little hands, +and his book of philosophy. + +What did it matter, so all came right in the end! She would justify +herself, if she had the chance. She was sick of conspiracy, and danger, +and chicanery--and blood. She wanted her chance. She had been badly +shaken in the last days in Spain, and she shrank from more worry and +misery. She wanted to have a home and not to wander. And here was a +chance--how good a chance she was not sure; but it was a chance. She +would not hesitate to make it hers. After all, self-preservation was the +thing which mattered. She wanted a bright fire, a good table, a horse, +a cow, and all such simple things. She wanted a roof over her and a warm +bed at night. She wanted a warm bed at night--but a warm bed at night +alone. It was the price she would have to pay for her imposture, that if +she had all these things, she could not be alone in the sleep-time. She +had not thought of this in the days when she looked forward to a home +with her Gonzales. To be near him was everything; but that was all +dead and done for; and now--it was at this point that, shrinking, she +suddenly threw off all restraining thoughts. With abandon of the +mind came a recklessness of body, which gave her, all at once, a +voluptuousness more in keeping with the typical maid of Andalusia. It +got into the eyes and senses of Jean Jacques, in a way which had nothing +to do with the philosophy of Descartes, or Kant, or Aristotle, or Hegel. + +"It was beautiful in much--my childhood," she said in a low voice, +dropping her eyes before his ardent gaze, "as my father said. My mother +was lovely to see, but not bigger than I was at twelve--so petite, and +yet so perfect in form--like a lark or a canary. Yes, and she could +sing--anything. Not like me with a voice which has the note of a drum or +an organ--" + +"Of a flute, bright Senorita," interposed Jean Jacques. + +"But high, and with the trills in the skies, and all like a laugh with a +tear in it. When she went to the river to wash--" + +She was going to say "wash the clothes," but she stopped in time and +said instead, "wash her spaniel and her pony"--her face was flushed +again with shame, for to lie about one's mother is a sickening thing, +and her mother never had a spaniel or a pony--"the women on the shore +wringing their clothes, used to beg her to sing. To the hum of the river +she would make the music which they loved--" + +"La Manola and such?" interjected Jean Jacques eagerly. "That's a fine +song as you sing it." + +"Not La Manola, but others of a different sort--The Love of Isabella, +The Flight of Bobadil, Saragosse, My Little Banderillero, and so on, and +all so sweet that the women used to cry. Always, always she was singing +till the time when my father became a rebel. Then she used to cry too; +and she would sing no more; and when my father was put against a wall to +be shot, and fell in the dust when the rifles rang out, she came at the +moment, and seeing him lying there, she threw up her hands, and fell +down beside him dead--" + +"The poor little senora, dead too--" + +"Not dead too--that was the pity of it. You see my father was not dead. +The officer"--she did not say sergeant--"who commanded the firing squad, +he was what is called a compadre of my father--" + +"Yes, I understand--a made-brother, sealed with an oath, which binds +closer than a blood-brother. It is that, is it not?" + +"So--like that. Well, the compadre had put blank cartridges in their +rifles, and my father pretended to fall dead; and the soldiers were +marched away; and my father, with my mother, was carried to his home, +still pretending to be dead. It had been all arranged except the awful +thing, my mother's death. Who could foresee that? She ought to have been +told; but who could guess that she would hear of it all, and come at the +moment like that? So, that was the way she went, and I was left alone +with my father." She had told the truth in all, except in conveying that +her mother was not of the lower orders, and that she went to the river +to wash her spaniel and her pony instead of her clothes. + +"Your father--did they not arrest him again? Did they not know?" + +She shrugged her shoulders. "That is not the way in Spain. He was shot, +as the orders were, with his back to the wall by a squad of soldiers +with regulation bullets. If he chose to come to life again, that was +his own affair. The Government would take no notice of him after he was +dead. He could bury himself, or he could come alive--it was all the same +to them. So he came alive again." + +"That is a story which would make a man's name if he wrote it down," +said Jean Jacques eloquently. "And the poor little senora, but my heart +bleeds for her! To go like that in such pain, and not to know--If she +had been my wife I think I would have gone after her to tell her it was +all right, and to be with her--" + +He paused confused, for that seemed like a reflection on her father's +chivalry, and for a man who had risked his life for his banished +king--what would he have thought if he had been told that Sebastian +Dolores was an anarchist who loathed kings!--it was an insult to suggest +that he did not know the right thing to do, or, knowing, had not done +it. + +She saw the weakness of his case at once. "There was his duty to the +living," she said indignantly. + +"Ah, forgive me--what a fool I am!" Jean Jacques said repentantly at +once. "There was his little girl, his beloved child, his Carmen Dolores, +so beautiful, with the voice like a flute, and--" + +He drew nearer to her, his hand was outstretched to take hers; his eyes +were full of the passion of the moment; pity was drowning all caution, +all the Norman shrewdness in him, when the Antoine suddenly stopped +almost dead with a sudden jolt and shock, then plunged sideways, jerked, +and trembled. + +"We've struck a sunk iceberg--the rest of the story to-morrow, +Senorita," he cried, as they both sprang to their feet. + +"The rest of the story to-morrow," she repeated, angry at the stroke +of fate which had so interrupted the course of her fortune. She said it +with a voice also charged with fear; for she was by nature a landfarer, +not a sea-farer, though on the rivers of Spain she had lived almost as +much as on land, and she was a good swimmer. + +"The rest to-morrow," she repeated, controlling herself. + + + + +CHAPTER III. "TO-MORROW" + +The rest came to-morrow. When the Antoine struck the sunken iceberg she +was not more than one hundred and twenty miles from the coast of Gaspe. +She had not struck it full on, or she would have crumpled up, but had +struck and glanced, mounting the berg, and sliding away with a small +gaping wound in her side, broken internally where she had been weakest. +Her condition was one of extreme danger, and the captain was by no means +sure that he could make the land. If a storm or a heavy sea came on, +they were doomed. + +As it was, with all hands at the pumps the water gained on her, and she +moaned and creaked and ached her way into the night with no surety that +she would show a funnel to the light of another day. Passengers and crew +alike worked, and the few boats were got ready to lower away when +the worst should come to the worst. Below, with the crew, the little +moneymaster of St. Saviour's worked with an energy which had behind it +some generations of hardy qualities; and all the time he refused to be +downcast. There was something in his nature or in his philosophy after +all. He had not much of a voice, but it was lusty and full of good +feeling; and when cursing began, when a sailor even dared to curse his +baptism--the crime of crimes to a Catholic mind--Jean Jacques began to +sing a cheery song with which the habitants make vocal their labours or +their playtimes: + + "A Saint-Malo, beau port de mer, + Trois gros navir's sont arrives, + Trois gros navir's sont arrives + Charges d'avoin', charges de ble. + Charges d'avoin', charges de ble: + Trois dam's s'en vont les marchander." + +And so on through many verses, with a heartiness that was a good +antidote to melancholy, even though it was no specific for a shipwreck. +It played its part, however; and when Jean Jacques finished it, he +plunged into that other outburst of the habitant's gay spirits, 'Bal +chez Boule': + + "Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule, + The vespers o'er, we'll away to that; + With our hearts so light, and our feet so gay, + We'll dance to the tune of 'The Cardinal's Hat' + The better the deed, the better the day + Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule!" + +And while Jean Jacques worked "like a little French pony," as they say +in Canada of every man with the courage to do hard things in him, he +did not stop to think that the scanty life-belts had all been taken, +and that he was a very poor swimmer indeed: for, as a child, he had been +subject to cramp, and so had made the Beau Cheval River less his friend +than would have been useful now. + +He realized it, however, soon after daybreak, when, within a few hundred +yards of the shores of Gaspe, to which the good Basque captain had been +slowly driving the Antoine all night, there came the cry, "All hands +on deck!" and "Lower the boats!" for the Antoine's time had come, and +within a hand-reach of shore almost she found the end of her rickety +life. Not more than three-fourths of the passengers and crew were got +into the boats. Jean Jacques was not one of these; but he saw Carmen +Dolores and her father safely bestowed, though in different boats. To +the girl's appeal to him to come he gave a nod of assent, and said he +would get in at the last moment; but this he did not do, pushing into +the boat instead a crying lad of fifteen, who said he was afraid to die. + +So it was that Jean Jacques took to the water side by side with the +Basque captain, when the Antoine groaned and shook, and then grew still, +and presently, with some dignity, dipped her nose into the shallow sea +and went down. + +"The rest of the story to-morrow," Jean Jacques had said when the vessel +struck the iceberg the night before; and so it was. + +The boat in which Carmen had been placed was swamped not far from shore, +but she managed to lay hold of a piece of drifting wreckage, and began +to fight steadily and easily landward. Presently she was aware, however, +of a man struggling hard some little distance away to the left of her, +and from the tousled hair shaking in the water she was sure that it was +Jean Jacques. + +So it proved to be; and thus it was that, at his last gasp almost, when +he felt he could keep up no longer, the wooden seat to which Carmen +clung came to his hand, and a word of cheer from her drew his head up +with what was almost a laugh. + +"To think of this!" he said presently when he was safe, with her +swimming beside him without support, for the wooden seat would not +sustain the weight of two. "To think that it is you who saves me!" he +again declared eloquently, as they made the shore in comparative ease, +for she was a fine swimmer. + +"It is the rest of the story," he said with great cheerfulness and +aplomb as they stood on the shore in the morning sun, shoeless, +coatless, but safe: and she understood. + +There was nothing else for him to do. The usual process of romance had +been reversed. He had not saved her life, she had saved his. The least +that he could do was to give her shelter at the Manor Cartier yonder +at St. Saviour's, her and, if need be, her father. Human gratitude +must have play. It was so strong in this case that it alone could have +overcome the Norman caution of Jean Jacques, and all his worldly wisdom +(so much in his own eyes). Added thereto was the thing which had been +greatly stirred in him at the instant the Antoine struck; and now he +kept picturing Carmen in the big living-room and the big bedroom of the +house by the mill, where was the comfortable four-poster which had come +from the mansion of the last Baron of Beaugard down by St. Laurent. + +Three days after the shipwreck of the Antoine, and as soon as sufficient +finery could be got in Quebec, it was accomplished, the fate of Jean +Jacques. How proud he was to open his cheque-book before the young +Spanish maid, and write in cramped, characteristic hand a cheque for +a hundred dollars or so at a time! A moiety of this money was given +to Sebastian Dolores, who could scarcely believe his good fortune. A +situation was got for him by the help of a good abbe at Quebec, who +was touched by the tale of the wreck of the Antoine, and by the no less +wonderful tale of the refugees of Spain, who naturally belonged to the +true faith which "feared God and honoured the King." Sebastian Dolores +was grateful for the post offered him, though he would rather have gone +to St. Saviour's with his daughter, for he had lost the gift of work, +and he desired peace after war. In other words, he had that fatal trait +of those who strive to make the world better by talk and violence, the +vice of indolence. + +But when Jean Jacques and his handsome bride started for St. Saviour's, +the new father-in-law did not despair of following soon. He would +greatly have enjoyed the festivities which, after all, did follow the +home-coming of Jean Jacques Barbille and his Spanische; for while they +lacked enthusiasm because Carmen was a foreigner, the romance of the +story gave the whole proceedings a spirit and interest which spread into +adjoining parishes: so that people came to mass from forty miles away to +see the pair who had been saved from the sea. + +And when the Quebec newspapers found their way into the parish, with a +thrilling account of the last hours of the Antoine; and of Jean Jacques' +chivalrous act in refusing to enter a boat to save himself, though he +was such a bad swimmer and was in danger of cramp; and how he sang Bal +chez Boule while the men worked at the pumps; they permitted the apres +noces of M'sieu' and Madame Jean Jacques Barbille to be as brilliant +as could be, with the help of lively improvisation. Even speech-making +occurred again in an address of welcome some days later. This was +followed by a feast of Spanish cakes and meats made by the hands of +Carmen Dolores, "the lady saved from the sea"--as they called her; not +knowing that she had saved herself, and saved Jean Jacques as well. It +was not quite to Jean Jacques' credit that he did not set this error +right, and tell the world the whole exact truth. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A +STORY + +It was hard to say which was the more important person in the parish, +the New Cure or M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille. When the Old Cure was +alive Jean Jacques was a lesser light, and he accepted his degree of +illumination with content. But when Pere Langon was gathered to his +fathers, and thousands had turned away from the graveyard, where he who +had baptised them, confirmed them, blessed them, comforted them, and +firmly led them was laid to rest, they did not turn at once to his +successor with confidence and affection. The new cure, M. Savry, was +young; the Old Cure had lived to be eighty-five, bearing wherever he +went a lamp of wisdom at which the people lighted their small souls. The +New Cure could command their obedience, but he could not command their +love and confidence until he had earned them. + +So it was that, for a time, Jean Jacques took the place of the Old Cure +in the human side of the life of the district, though in a vastly lesser +degree. Up to the death of M. Langon, Jean Jacques had done very well +in life, as things go in out-of-the-way places of the world. His mill, +which ground good flour, brought him increasing pence; his saw-mill more +than paid its way; his farms made a small profit, in spite of a +cousin who worked one on halves, but who had a spendthrift wife; the +ash-factory which his own initiative had started made no money, but the +loss was only small; and he had even made profit out of his lime-kilns, +although Sebastian Dolores, Carmen's father, had at one time mismanaged +them--but of that anon. Jean Jacques himself managed the business +of money-lending and horse-dealing; and he also was agent for fire +insurance and a dealer in lightning rods. + +In the thirteen years since he married he had been able to keep a good +many irons in the fire, and also keep them more or less hot. Many people +in his and neighbouring parishes were indebted to him, and it was worth +their while to stand well with him. If he insisted on debts being paid, +he was never exacting or cruel. If he lent money, he never demanded +more than eight per cent.; and he never pressed his debtors unduly. His +cheerfulness seldom deserted him, and he was notably kind to the poor. +Not seldom in the winter time a poor man, here and there in the parish, +would find dumped down outside his door in the early morning a half-cord +of wood or a bag of flour. + +It could not be said that Jean Jacques did not enjoy his own generosity. +His vanity, however, did not come from an increasing admiration of his +own personal appearance, a weakness which often belongs to middle age; +but from the study of his so-called philosophy, which in time became an +obsession with him. In vain the occasional college professors, who spent +summer months at St. Saviour's, sought to interest him in science and +history, for his philosophy had large areas of boredom; but science +marched over too jagged a road for his tender intellectual feet; the +wild places where it led dismayed him. History also meant numberless +dates and facts. Perhaps he could have managed the dates, for he was +quick at figures, but the facts were like bees in their hive,--he could +scarcely tell one from another by looking at them. + +So it was that Jean Jacques kept turning his eyes, as he thought, to the +everlasting meaning of things, to "the laws of Life and the decrees +of Destiny." He was one of those who had found, as he thought, what he +could do, and was sensible enough to do it. Let the poor fellows, +who gave themselves to science, trouble their twisted minds with +trigonometry and the formula of some grotesque chemical combination; let +the dull people rub their noses in the ink of Greek and Latin, which was +no use for everyday consumption; let the heads of historians ache with +the warring facts of the lives of nations; it all made for sleep. But +philosophy--ah, there was a field where a man could always use knowledge +got from books or sorted out of his own experiences! + +It happened, therefore, that Jean Jacques, who not too vaguely realized +that there was reputation to be got from being thought a philosopher, +always carried about with him his little compendium from the quay at +Quebec, which he had brought ashore inside his redflannel shirt, with +the antique silver watch, when the Antoine went down. + +Thus also it was that when a lawyer in court at Vilray, four miles from +St. Saviour's, asked him one day, when he stepped into the witness-box, +what he was, meaning what was his occupation, his reply was, "Moi-je +suis M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe--(Me--I am M'sieu' Jean Jacques, +philosopher)." + +A little later outside the court-house, the Judge who had tried the +case--M. Carcasson--said to the Clerk of the Court: + +"A curious, interesting little man, that Monsieur Jean Jacques. What's +his history?" + +"A character, a character, monsieur le juge," was the reply of M. Amand +Fille. "His family has been here since Frontenac's time. He is a figure +in the district, with a hand in everything. He does enough foolish +things to ruin any man, yet swims along--swims along. He has many kinds +of business--mills, stores, farms, lime-kilns, and all that, and keeps +them all going; and as if he hadn't enough to do, and wasn't risking +enough, he's now organizing a cheese-factory on the co-operative +principle, as in Upper Canada among the English." + +"He has a touch of originality, that's sure," was the reply of the +Judge. + +The Clerk of the Court nodded and sighed. "Monseigneur Giron of Laval, +the greatest scholar in Quebec, he said to me once that M'sieu' Jean +Jacques missed being a genius by an inch. But, monsieur le juge, not to +have that inch is worse than to be an ignoramus." + +Judge Carcasson nodded. "Ah, surely! Your Jean Jacques lacks a +balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough. He has vision, but it is +not steady; he has argument, but it breaks down just where it should be +most cohesive. He interested me. I took note of every turn of his mind +as he gave evidence. He will go on for a time, pulling his strings, +doing this and doing that, and then, all at once, when he has got a +train of complications, his brain will not be big enough to see the +way out. Tell me, has he a balance-wheel in his home--a sensible wife, +perhaps?" + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully and seemed to hesitate. +Then he said, "Comme ci, comme ca--but no, I will speak the truth about +it. She is a Spaniard--the Spanische she is called by the neighbours. I +will tell you all about that, and you will wonder that he has carried on +as well as he has, with his vanity and his philosophy." + +"He'll have need of his philosophy before he's done, or I don't know +human nature; he'll get a bad fall one of these days," responded the +Judge. "'Moi-je suis M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe'--that is what he +said. Bumptious little man, and yet--and yet there's something in him. +There's a sense of things which everyone doesn't have--a glimmer of life +beyond his own orbit, a catching at the biggest elements of being, a +hovering on the confines of deep understanding, as it were. Somehow +I feel almost sorry for him, though he annoyed me while he was in the +witness-box, in spite of myself. He was as the English say, so 'damn +sure.'" + +"So damn sure always," agreed the Clerk of the Court, with a sense of +pleasure that his great man, this wonderful aged little judge, should +have shown himself so human as to use such a phrase. + +"But, no doubt, the sureness has been a good servant in his business," +returned the Judge. "Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit +often. But tell me about his wife--the Spanische. Tell me the how and +why, and everything. I'd like to trace our little money-man wise to his +source." + +Again M. Fille was sensibly agitated. "She is handsome, and she has +great, good gifts when she likes to use them," he answered. "She can do +as much in an hour as most women can do in two; but then she will not +keep at it. Her life is but fits and starts. Yet she has a good head for +business, yes, very good. She can see through things. Still, there it +is--she will not hold fast from day to day." + +"Yes, yes, but where did she come from? What was the field where she +grew?" + +"To be sure, monsieur. It was like this," responded the other. + +Thereupon M. Fille proceeded to tell the history, musical with legend, +of Jean Jacques' Grand Tour, of the wreck of the Antoine, of the +marriage of the "seigneur," the home-coming, and the life that followed, +so far as rumour, observation, and a mind with a gift for narrative, +which was not to be incomplete for lack of imagination, could make it. +It was only when he offered his own reflections on Carmen Dolores, now +Carmen Barbille, and on women generally, that Judge Carcasson pulled him +up. + +"So, so, I see. She has temperament and so on, but she's unsteady, +and regarded by her neighbours not quite as one that belongs. Bah, +the conceit of every race! They are all the same. The English are the +worst--as though the good God was English. But the child--so beautiful, +you say, and yet more like the father than the mother. He is not +handsome, that Jean Jacques, but I can understand that the little one +should be like him and yet beautiful too. I should like to see the +child." + +Suddenly the Clerk of the Court stopped and touched the arm of his +distinguished friend and patron. "That is very easy, monsieur," he said +eagerly, "for there she is in the red wagon yonder, waiting for her +father. She adores him, and that makes trouble sometimes. Then the +mother gets fits, and makes things hard at the Manor Cartier. It is not +all a bed of roses for our Jean Jacques. But there it is. He is very +busy all the time. Something doing always, never still, except when you +will find him by the road-side, or in a tavern with all the people round +him, talking, jesting, and he himself going into a trance with his book +of philosophy. It is very strange that everlasting going, going, going, +and yet that love of his book. I sometimes think it is all pretence, and +that he is all vanity--or almost so. Heaven forgive me for my want of +charity!" + +The little round judge cocked his head astutely. "But you say he is kind +to the poor, that he does not treat men hardly who are in debt to him, +and that he will take his coat off his back to give to a tramp--is it +so?" + +"As so, as so, monsieur." + +"Then he is not all vanity, and because of that he will feel the blow +when it comes--alas, so much he will feel it!" + +"What blow, monsieur le juge?--but ah, look, monsieur!" He pointed +eagerly. "There she is, going to the red wagon--Madame Jean Jacques. +Is she not a figure of a woman? See the walk of her--is it not +distinguished? She is half a hand-breadth taller than Jean Jacques. And +her face, most sure it is a face to see. If Jean Jacques was not so busy +with his farms and his mills and his kilns and his usury, he would see +what a woman he has got. It is his good fortune that she has such +sense in business. When Jean Jacques listens to her, he goes right. +She herself did not want her father to manage the lime-kilns--the old +Sebastian Dolores. She was for him staying at Mirimachi, where he kept +the books of the lumber firm. But no, Jean Jacques said that he could +make her happy by having her father near her, and he would not believe +she meant what she said. He does not understand her; that is the +trouble. He knows as much of women or men as I know of--" + +"Of the law--hein?" laughed the great man. + +"Monsieur--ah, that is your little joke! I laugh, yes, but I laugh," +responded the Clerk of the Court a little uncertainly. "Now once when +she told him that the lime-kilns--" + +The Judge, who had retraced his steps down the street of the town--it +was little more than a large village, but because it had a court-house +and a marketplace it was called a town--that he might have a good look +at Madame Jean Jacques and her child before he passed them, suddenly +said: + +"How is it you know so much about it all, Maitre Fille--as to what +she says and of the inner secrets of the household? Ah, ha, my little +Lothario, I have caught you--a bachelor too, with time on his hands, +and the right side of seventy as well! The evidence you have given of a +close knowledge of the household of our Jean Jacques does not have its +basis in hearsay, but in acute personal observation. Tut-tut! Fie-fie! +my little gay Clerk of the Court. Fie! Fie!" + +M. Fille was greatly disconcerted. He had never been a Lothario. In +forty years he had never had an episode with one of "the other sex," +but it was not because he was impervious to the softer emotions. An +intolerable shyness had ever possessed him when in the presence of +women, and even small girl children had frightened him, till he had made +friends with little Zoe Barbille, the daughter of Jean Jacques. Yet +even with Zoe, who was so simple and companionable and the very soul of +childish confidence, he used to blush and falter till she made him talk. +Then he became composed, and his tongue was like a running stream, and +on that stream any craft could sail. On it he became at ease with madame +the Spanische, and he even went so far as to look her full in the eyes +on more than one occasion. + +"Answer me--ah, you cannot answer!" teasingly added the Judge, who loved +his Clerk of the Court, and had great amusement out of his discomfiture. +"You are convicted. At an age when a man should be settling down, you +are gallivanting with the wife of a philosopher." + +"Monsieur--monsieur le juge!" protested M. Fille with slowly heightening +colour. "I am innocent, yes, altogether. There is nothing, believe me. +It is the child, the little Zoe--but a maid of charm and kindness. She +brings me cakes and the toffy made by her own hands; and if I go to the +Manor Cartier, as I often do, it is to be polite and neighbourly. If +Madame says things to me, and if I see what I see, and hear what I hear, +it is no crime; it is no misdemeanour; it is within the law--the perfect +law." + +Suddenly the Judge linked his arm within that of the other, for he also +was little, and he was fat and round and ruddy, and even smaller than M. +Fille, who was thin, angular and pale. + +"Ah, my little Confucius," he said gently, "have you seen and heard me +so seldom that you do not know me yet, or what I really think? Of +course it is within the law--the perfect law--to visit at m'sieu' the +philosopher's house and talk at length also to m'sieu' the philosopher's +wife; while to make the position regular by friendship with the +philosopher's child is a wisdom which I can only ascribe to"--his +voice was charged with humour and malicious badinage "to an extended +acquaintance with the devices of human nature, as seen in those episodes +of the courts with which you have been long familiar." + +"Oh, monsieur, dear monsieur!" protested the Clerk of the Court, "you +always make me your butt." + +"My friend," said the Judge, squeezing his arm, "if I could have you no +other way, I would make you my butler!" + +Then they both laughed at the inexpensive joke, and the Clerk of the +Court was in high spirits, for on either side of the street were people +with whom he lived every day, and they could see the doyen of the Bench, +the great Judge Carcasson, who had refused to be knighted, arm in arm +with him. Aye, and better than all, and more than all, here was Zoe +Barbille drawing her mother's attention to him almost in the embrace of +the magnificent jurist. + +The Judge, with his small, round, quizzical eyes which missed nothing, +saw too; and his attention was strangely arrested by the faces of both +the mother and the child. His first glance at the woman's face made +him flash an inward light on the memory of Jean Jacques' face in the +witness-box, and a look of reflective irony came into his own. The face +of Carmen Dolores, wife of the philosophic miller and money-master, did +not belong to the world where she was placed--not because she was so +unlike the habitant women, or even the wives of the big farmers, or the +sister of the Cure, or the ladies of the military and commercial exiles +who lived in that portion of the province; but because of an alien +something in her look--a lonely, distant sense of isolation, a something +which might hide a companionship and sympathy of a rare kind, or might +be but the mask of a furtive, soulless nature. In the child's face was +nothing of this. It was open as the day, bright with the cheerfulness of +her father's countenance, alive with a humour which that countenance +did not possess. The contour was like that of Jean Jacques, but with a +fineness and delicacy to its fulness absent from his own; and her eyes +were a deep and lustrous brown, under a forehead which had a boldness +of gentle dignity possessed by neither father nor mother. Her hair +was thick, brown and very full, like that of her father, and in all +respects, save one, she had an advantage over both her parents. Her +mouth had a sweetness which might not unfairly be called weakness, +though that was balanced by a chin of commendable strength. + +But the Judge's eyes found at once this vulnerable point in her +character as he had found that of her mother. Delightful the child was, +and alert and companionable, with no remarkable gifts, but with a rare +charm and sympathy. Her face was the mirror of her mind, and it had +no ulterior thought. Her mother's face, the Judge had noted, was the +foreground of a landscape which had lonely shadows. It was a face of +some distinction and suited to surroundings more notable, though the +rural life Carmen had led since the Antoine went down and her fortunes +came up, had coarsened her beauty a very little. + +"There's something stirring in the coverts," said the Judge to himself +as he was introduced to the mother and child. By a hasty gesture Zoe +gave a command to M. Fille to help her down. With a hand on his shoulder +she dropped to the ground. Her object was at once apparent. She made a +pretty old-fashioned curtsey to the Judge, then held out her hand, as +though to reassert her democratic equality. + +As the Judge looked at Madame Barbille, he was involuntarily, but none +the less industriously, noting her characteristics; and the sum of his +reflections, after a few moments' talk, was that dangers he had seen +ahead of Jean Jacques, would not be averted by his wife, indeed might +easily have their origin in her. + +"I wonder it has gone on as long as it has," he said to himself; though +it seemed unreasonable that his few moments with her, and the story told +him by the Clerk of the Court, should enable him to come to any definite +conclusion. But at eighty-odd Judge Carcasson was a Solon and a Solomon +in one. He had seen life from all angles, and he was not prepared to +give any virtue or the possession of any virtue too much rope; while +nothing in life surprised him. + +"How would you like to be a judge?" he asked of Zoe, suddenly taking +her hand in his. A kinship had been at once established between them, +so little has age, position, and intellect to do with the natural +gravitations of human nature. + +She did not answer direct, and that pleased him. "If I were a judge +I should have no jails," she said. "What would you do with the bad +people?" he asked. + +"I would put them alone on a desert island, or out at sea in a little +boat, or out on the prairies without a horse, so that they'd have to +work for their lives." + +"Oh, I see! If M. Fille here set fire to a house, you would drop him on +the prairie far away from everything and everybody and let him 'root hog +or die'?" + +"Don't you think it would kill him or cure him?" she asked whimsically. + +The Judge laughed, his eyes twinkling. "That's what they did when the +world was young, dear ma'm'selle. There was no time to build jails. +Alone on the prairie--a separate prairie for every criminal--that would +take a lot of space; but the idea is all right. It mightn't provide the +proper degree of punishment, however. But that is being too particular. +Alone on the prairie for punishment--well, I should like to see it +tried." + +He remembered that saying of his long after, while yet he was alive, +and a tale came to him from the prairies which made his eyes turn +more intently towards a land that is far off, where the miserable +miscalculations and mistakes of this world are readjusted. Now he was +only conscious of a primitive imagination looking out of a young girl's +face, and making a bridge between her understanding and his own. + +"What else would you do if you were a judge?" he asked presently. + +"I would make my father be a miller," she replied. "But he is a miller, +I hear." + +"But he is so many other things--so many. If he was only a miller we +should have more of him. He is at home only a little. If I get up early +enough in the morning, or if I am let stay up at night late enough, I +see him; but that is not enough--is it, mother?" she added with a sudden +sense that she had gone too far, that she ought not to say this perhaps. + +The woman's face had darkened for an instant, and irritation showed in +her eyes, but by an effort of the will she controlled herself. + +"Your father knows best what he can do and can't do," she said evenly. + +"But you would not let a man judge for himself, would you, ma'm'selle?" +asked the old inquisitor. "You would judge for the man what was best for +him to do?" + +"I would judge for my father," she replied. "He is too good a man to +judge for himself." + +"Well, there's a lot of sense in that, ma'm'selle philosophe," answered +Judge Carcasson. "You would make the good idle, and make the bad work. +The good you would put in a mill to watch the stones grind, and the bad +you would put on a prairie alone to make the grist for the grinding. +Ma'm'selle, we must be friends--is it not so?" + +"Haven't we always been friends?" the young girl asked with the look of +a visionary suddenly springing up in her eyes. + +Here was temperament indeed. She pleased Judge Carcasson greatly. "But +yes, always, and always, and always," he replied. Inwardly he said to +himself, "I did not see that at first. It is her father in her. + +"Zoe!" said her mother reprovingly. + + + + +CHAPTER V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY + +A moment afterwards the Judge, as he walked down the street still arm in +arm with the Clerk of the Court, said: "That child must have good luck, +or she will not have her share of happiness. She has depths that are +not deep enough." Presently he added, "Tell me, my Clerk, the +man--Jean Jacques--he is so much away--has there never been any talk +about--about." + +"About--monsieur le juge?" asked M. Fille rather stiffly. "For +instance--about what?" + +"For instance, about a man--not Jean Jacques." + +The lips of the Clerk of the Court tightened. "Never at any time--till +now, monsieur le juge." + +"Ah--till now!" + +The Clerk of the Court blushed. What he was about to say was difficult, +but he alone of all the world guessed at the tragedy which was hovering +over Jean Jacques' home. By chance he had seen something on an afternoon +of three days before, and he had fled from it as a child would fly from +a demon. He was a purist at law, but he was a purist in life also, and +not because the flush of youth had gone and his feet were on the path +which leads into the autumn of a man's days. The thing he had seen had +been terribly on his mind, and he had felt that his own judgment was not +sufficient for the situation, that he ought to tell someone. + +The Cure was the only person who had come to his mind when he became +troubled to the point of actual mental agony. But the new curb, M. +Savry, was not like the Old Cure, and, besides, was it not stepping +between the woman and her confessional? Yet he felt that something ought +to be done. It never occurred to him to speak to Jean Jacques. That +would have seemed so brutal to the woman. It came to him to speak to +Carmen, but he knew that he dared not do so. He could not say to a +woman that which must shame her before him, she who had kept her head +so arrogantly high--not so much to him, however, as to the rest of the +world. He had not the courage; and yet he had fear lest some awful thing +would at any moment now befall the Manor Cartier. If it did, he would +feel himself to blame had he done nothing to stay the peril. So far +he was the only person who could do so, for he was the only person who +knew! + +The Judge could feel his friend's arm tremble with emotion, and he said: +"Come, now, my Plato, what is it? A man has come to disturb the peace of +Jean Jacques, our philosophe, eh?" + +"That is it, monsieur--a man of a kind." + +"Oh, of course, my bambino, of course, a man 'of a kind,' or there would +be no peace disturbed. You want to tell me, I see. Proceed then; there +is no reason why you should not. I am secret. I have seen much. I have +no prejudices. As you will, however; but I can see it would relieve your +mind to tell me. In truth I felt there was something when I saw you look +at her first, when you spoke to her, when she talked with me. She is a +fine figure of a woman, and Jean Jacques, as you say, is much away from +home. In fact he neglects her--is it not so?" + +"He means it not, but it is so. His life is full of--" + +"Yes, yes, of stores and ash-factories and debtors and lightning-rods +and lime-kilns, and mortgaged farms, and the price of wheat--but +certainly, I understand it all, my Fille. She is too much alone, and if +she has travelled by the compass all these thirteen years without losing +the track, it is something to the credit of human nature." + +"Ah, monsieur, a vow before the good God--!" The Judge interrupted +sharply. "Tut, tut--these vows! Do you not know that a vow may be a +thing that ruins past redemption? A vow is sacred. Well, a poor mortal +in one moment of weakness breaks it. Then there is a sense of awful +shame of being lost, of never being able to put right the breaking of +the vow, though the rest can be put right by sorrow and repentance! I +would have no vows. They haunt like ghosts when they are broken, they +torture like fire then. Don't talk to me of vows. It is not vows that +keep the world right, but the prayer of a man's soul from day to day." + +The Judge's words sounded almost blasphemous to M. Fille. A vow not +keep the world right! Then why the vows of the Church at baptism, at +confirmation, at marriage? Why the vows of the priests, of the nuns, of +those who had given themselves to eternal service? Monsieur had spoken +terrible things. And yet he had said at the last: "It is not vows that +keep the world right, but the prayer of a man's soul from day to day." +That was not heretical, or atheistic, or blasphemous. It sounded logical +and true and good. + +He was about to say that, to some people, vows were the only way of +keeping them to their duty--and especially women--but the Judge added +gently: "I would not for the world hurt your sensibilities, my little +Clerk, and we are not nearly so far apart as you think at the minute. +Thank God, I keep the faith that is behind all faith--the speech of a +man's soul with God.... But there, if you can, let us hear what man it +is who disturbs the home of the philosopher. It is not my Fille, that's +sure." + +He could not resist teasing, this judge who had a mind of the most rare +uprightness; and he was not always sorry when his teasing hurt; for, to +his mind, men should be lashed into strength, when they drooped over the +tasks of life; and what so sharp a lash as ridicule or satire! + +"Proceed, my friend," he urged brusquely, not waiting for the gasp +of pained surprise of the little Clerk to end. He was glad to see the +figure beside him presently straighten itself, as though to be braced +for a task of difficulty. Indignation and resentment were good things to +stiffen a man's back. + +"It was three days ago," said M. Fille. "I saw it with my own eyes. +I had come to the Manor Cartier by the road, down the hill--Mont +Violet--behind the house. I could see into the windows of the house. +There was no reason why I should not see--there never has been a +reason," he added, as though to justify himself. + +"Of course, of course, my friend. One's eyes are open, and one sees what +one sees, without looking for it. Proceed." + +"As I looked down I saw Madame with a man's arms round her, and his lips +to hers. It was not Jean Jacques." + +"Of course, of course. Proceed. What did you do?" + +"I stopped. I fell back--" + +"Of course. Behind a tree?" + +"Behind some elderberry bushes." + +"Of course. Elderberry bushes--that's better than a tree. I am very fond +of elderberry wine when it is new. Proceed." + +The Clerk of the Court shrank. What did it matter whether or no the +Judge liked elderberry wine, when the world was falling down for Jean +Jacques and his Zoe--and his wife. But with a sigh he continued: "There +is nothing more. I stayed there for awhile, and then crept up the hill +again, and came back to my home and locked myself in." + +"What had you done that you should lock yourself in?" + +"Ah, monsieur, how can I explain such things? Perhaps I was ashamed that +I had seen things I should not have seen. I do not blush that I wept for +the child, who is--but you saw her, monsieur le juge." + +"Yes, yes, the little Zoe, and the little philosopher. Proceed." + +"What more is there to tell!" + +"A trifle perhaps, as you will think," remarked the Judge ironically, +but as one who, finding a crime, must needs find the criminal too. +"I must ask you to inform the Court who was the too polite friend of +Madame." + +"Monsieur, pardon me. I forgot. It is essential, of course. You must +know that there is a flume, a great wooden channel--" + +"Yes, yes. I comprehend. Once I had a case of a flume. It was fifteen +feet deep and it let in the water of the river to the mill-wheels. +A flume regulates, concentrates, and controls the water power. I +comprehend perfectly. Well?" + +"So. This flume for Jean Jacques' mill was also fifteen feet deep +or more. It was out of repair, and Jean Jacques called in a +master-carpenter from Laplatte, Masson by name--George Masson--to put +the flume right." + +"How long ago was that?" + +"A month ago. But Masson was not here all the time. It was his workmen +who did the repairs, but he came over to see--to superintend. At first +he came twice in the week. Then he came every day." + +"Ah, then he came every day! How do you know that?" + +"It was my custom to walk to the mill every day--to watch the work on +the flume. It was only four miles away across the fields and through the +woods, making a walk of much charm--especially in the autumn, when +the colours of the foliage are so fine, and the air has a touch of +pensiveness, so that one is induced to reflection." + +There was the slightest tinge of impatience in the Judge's response. +"Yes, yes, I understand. You walked to study life and to reflect and to +enjoy your intimacy with nature, but also to see our friend Zoe and her +home. And I do not wonder. She has a charm which makes me sad--for her." + +"So I have felt, so I have felt for her, monsieur. When she is gayest, +and when, as it might seem, I am quite happy, talking to her, or +picnicking, or idling on the river, or helping her with her lessons, I +have sadness, I know not why." + +The Judge pressed his friend's arm firmly. His voice grew more +insistent. "Now, Maitre Fille, I think I understand the story, but there +are lacunee which you must fill. You say the thing happened three days +ago--now, when will the work be finished?" + +"The work will be finished to-morrow, monsieur. Only one workman is +left, and he will be quit of his task to-night." + +"So the thing--the comedy or tragedy will come to an end to-morrow?" +remarked the Judge seriously. "How did you find out that the workmen go +tomorrow, maitre?" + +"Jean Jacques--he told me yesterday." + +"Then it all ends to-morrow," responded the Judge. + +The puzzled subordinate stood almost still, and looked at the Judge +in wonder. Why should it all end to-morrow simply because the work was +finished at the flume? At last he spoke. + +"It is only twelve miles to Laplatte where George Masson lives, and he +has, besides, another contract near here, but three miles from the Manor +Cartier. Also besides, how can we know what she will do--Jean Jacques' +wife. How can we tell but that she will perhaps go and leave the beloved +Zoe alone!" + +"And leave our little philosopher--miller also alone?" remarked the +Judge quizzically, yet with solemnity. M. Fille was agitated; he made a +protesting gesture. "Jean Jacques can find comfort, but the child--ah, +no, it is too terrible! Someone should speak. I tried to do it--to +Madame Carmen, to Jean Jacques; but it was no use. How could I betray +her to him, how could I tell her that I knew her shame!" + +The Judge turned brusquely and caught his friend by the shoulders, +fastening him with the eyes which had made many a witness forget to lie. + +"If you were an avocat in practice I would ruin your reputation, Fille," +he said. "A fool would tell Jean Jacques, or speak to the woman, and +spoil all; for women go mad when they are in danger, and they do the +impossible things. But did it not occur to you that the one person to +have in a quiet room with the doors shut, with the light of the sun in +his face, with the book of the law open on your desk and the damages +to be got by an injured husband, in a Catholic province with a Catholic +Judge, written down on a piece of paper, to hand over at the right +moment--did it not strike you that that person was your George Masson?" + +M. Fille's head dropped before the disdainful eyes of M. Carcasson. He +who prided himself in keeping the court right on points of procedure, +who was looked upon almost with the respect given the position of the +Judge himself, that he should fail in thinking of the obvious thing was +humiliating, and alas! so disconcerting. + +"I am a fool, an imbecile," he responded, in great dejection. + +"This much must be said, my imbecile, that every man some time or other +makes just such a fool of his intelligence," was the soft reply. + +A thin hand made a gesture of dissent. "Not you, monsieur. Never!" + +"If it is any comfort to you, know then, my Solon, that I have done so +publicly in my time, while you have only done it privately. But let us +see. That Masson must be struck of a heap. What sort of a man is he to +look at? Apart from his morals, what class of creature is he?" + +"He is a man of strength, of force in his way, monsieur. He made himself +from an apprentice without a cent, and he has now thirty men at work." + +"Then he does not drink or gamble?" + +"Neither, monsieur." + +"Has he a family?" + +"No, monsieur." + +"How old is he?" + +"Forty or thereabouts, monsieur." + +The Judge cogitated for a moment, then said: "Ah, that's bad--unmarried +and forty, and no vices except this. It gives him few escape-valves. Is +he good-looking? What is his appearance?" + +"Nor short, nor tall, and square shoulders. His face like the yellow +brown of a peach, hair that curls close to his head, blue eyes that see +everything, and a big hand that knows what it is doing." + +The Judge nodded. "Ah, you have watched him, maitre.... When? Since +then?" + +"No, no, monsieur, not since. If I had watched him since, I should +perhaps have thought of the right thing to do. But I did not. I used to +study him while the work was going on, when he first came, but I have +known him some time from a distance. If a man makes himself what he is, +you look at him, of course." + +"Truly. His temper--his disposition, what is it?" M. Fille was very much +alive now. He replied briskly. "Like the snap of a whip. He flies into +anger and flies out. He has a laugh that makes men say, 'How he enjoys +himself!' and his mind is very quick and sure." + +The Judge nodded with satisfaction. "Well done! Well done! I have got +him in my eye. He will not be so easy to handle; but, if he has brains, +he will see that you have the right end of the stick; and he will kiss +and ride away. It will not be easy, but the game is in your hands, my +Fille. In a quiet room, with the book of the law open, and figures of +damages given by a Catholic court and Judge--I think that will do it; +and then the course of true philosophy will not long be interrupted in +the house of Jean Jacques Barbille." + +"Monsieur--monsieur le juge, you mean that I shall do this, shall see +George Masson and warn him--me?" + +"Who else? You are a friend of the family. You are a public officer, to +whom the good name of your parish is dear. As all are aware, no doubt, +you are the trusted ancient comrade of the daughter of the woman--I +speak legally--Carmen Barbille nee Dolores, a name of charm to the ear. +Who but you then to do it?" + +"There is yourself, monsieur." + +"Dismiss me from your mind. I go to Quebec to-night, as you know, and +there is not time; but even if there were, I should not be the best +person to do this. I am known to few; you are known to all. I have no +locus standi. You have. No, no, it would not be for me." + +Suddenly, in his desperation, the Clerk of the Court sought release for +himself from this solemn and frightening duty. + +"Monsieur," he said eagerly, "there is another. I had forgotten. It is +Madame Carmen's father, Sebastian Dolores." + +"Ah, a father! Yes, I had forgotten to ask about him; so we are one in +our imbecility, my little Aristotle. This Sebastian Dolores, where is +he?" + +"In the next parish, Beauharnais, keeping books for a lumber-firm. Ah, +monsieur, that is the way to deal with the matter--through Sebastian +Dolores, her father!" + +"What sort is he?" + +The other shook his head and did not answer. "Ah, not of the best? +Drinks?" + +M. Fille nodded. + +"Has a weak character?" + +Again M. Fille nodded. + +"Has no good reputation hereabouts?" + +The nod was repeated. "He has never been steady He goes here and there, +but always he comes back to get Jean Jacques' help. He and his daughter +are not close friends, and yet he likes to be near her. She can endure +him at least. He can command her interest. He is a stranger in a strange +land, and he drifts back to where she is always. But that is all." + +"Then he is out of the question, and he would be always out of the +question except as a last resort; for sooner or later he would tell his +daughter, and challenge our George Masson too; and that is what you do +not wish, eh?" + +"Precisely so," remarked M. Fille, dropping back again into gloom. "To +be quite honest, monsieur, even though it gives me a task which I abhor, +I do not think that M. Dolores could do what is needed without mistakes +which could not be mended. At least I can--" He stopped. + +The Judge interposed at once, well pleased with the way things were +going for this "case." "Assuredly. You can as can no other, my Solon. +The secret of success in such things is a good heart, a right mind, a +clear intelligence and some astuteness, and you have it all. It is your +task and yours only." + +The little man's self-respect seemed restored. He preened himself +somewhat and bowed to the Judge. "I take your commands, monsieur, to +obey them as heaven gives me power so to do. Shall it be tomorrow?" + +The Judge reflected a moment, then said: "Tonight would be better, +but--" + +"I can do it better to-morrow morning," interposed M. Fille, "for George +Masson has a meeting here at Vilray with the avocat Prideaux at ten +o'clock to sign a contract, and I can ask him to step into my office +on a little affair of business. He will not guess, and I shall +be armed"--the Judge frowned--"with the book of the law on such +misdemeanours, and the figures of the damages,"--the Judge smiled--"and +I think perhaps I can frighten him as he has never been frightened +before." + +A courage and confidence had now taken possession of the Clerk in +strange contrast to his timidity and childlike manner of a few minutes +before. He was now as he appeared in court, clothed with an austere +authority which gave him a vicarious strength and dignity. The Judge had +done his work well, and he was of those folk in the world who are not +content to do even the smallest thing ill. + +Arm in arm they passed into the garden which fronted the vine-covered +house, where Maitre Fille lived alone with his sister, a tiny edition of +himself, who whispered and smiled her way through life. + +She smiled and whispered now in welcome to the Judge; and as she did so, +the three saw Jean Jacques, laughing, and cracking his whip, drive past +with his daughter beside him, chirruping to the horses; while, moody and +abstracted, his wife sat silent on the backseat of the red wagon. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY + +Jean Jacques was in great good humour as he drove away to the Manor +Cartier. The day, which was not yet aged, had been satisfactory from +every point of view. He had impressed the Court, he had got a chance +to pose in the witness-box; he had been able to repeat in evidence +the numerous businesses in which he was engaged; had referred to his +acquaintance with the Lieutenant-Governor and a Cardinal; to his Grand +Tour (this had been hard to do in the cross-examination to which he was +subjected, but he had done it); and had been able to say at the very +start in reply as to what was his occupation--"Moi je suis M'sieu' Jean +Jacques, philosophe." + +Also he had, during the day, collected a debt long since wiped off his +books; he had traded a poor horse for a good cow; he had bought all the +wheat of a Vilray farmer below market-price, because the poor fellow +needed ready money; he had issued an insurance policy; his wife and +daughter had conversed in the public streets with the great judge who +was the doyen of the provincial Bench; and his daughter had been kissed +by the same judge in the presence of at least a dozen people. He was, in +fact, very proud of his Carmen and his Carmencita, as he called the two +who sat in the red wagon sharing his glory--so proud that he did not +extol them to others; and he was quite sure they were both very proud of +him. The world saw what his prizes of life were, and there was no need +to praise or brag. Dignity and pride were both sustained by silence +and a wave of the hand, which in fact said to the world, "Look you, my +masters, they belong to Jean Jacques. Take heed." + +There his domestic scheme practically ended. He was so busy that he took +his joys by snatches, in moments of suspension of actual life, as it +were. His real life was in the eddy of his many interests, in the field +of his superficial culture, in the eyes of the world. The worst of him +was on the surface. He showed what other men hid, that was all. Their +vanity was concealed, he wore it in his cap. They put on a manner as +they put on their clothes, and wore it out in the world, or took it off +in their own homes-behind the door of life; but he was the same vain, +frank, cocksure fellow in his home as in the street. There was no +difference at all. He was vain, but he had no conceit; and therefore he +did not deceive, and was not tyrannous or dictatorial; in truth, if +you but estimated him at his own value, he was the least insistent man +alive. Many a debtor knew this; and, by asking Jean Jacques' advice, +making an appeal to his logic, as it were--and it was always worth +listening to, even when wrong or sadly obvious, because of the glow with +which he declared things this or that--found his situation immediately +eased. Many a hard-up countryman, casting about for a five-dollar bill, +could get it of Jean Jacques by telling him what agreeable thing some +important person had said about him; or by writing to a great newspaper +in Montreal a letter, saying that the next candidate for the provincial +legislature should be M. Jean Jacques Barbille, of St. Saviour's. +This never failed to draw a substantial "bill" from the wad which Jean +Jacques always carried in his pocket-loose, not tied up in a leather +roll, as so many lesser men freighted the burdens of their wealth. + +He had changed since the day he left Bordeaux on the Antoine; since +he had first caught the flash of interest in Carmen Dolores' eyes--an +interest roused from his likeness to a conspirator who had been shot for +his country's good. He was no stouter in body, for he was of the kind +that wear away the flesh by much doing and thinking; but there were +occasional streaks of grey in his bushy hair, and his eye roamed less +than it did once. In the days when he first brought Carmen home, his eye +was like a bead of brown light on a swivel. It flickered and flamed; it +saw here, saw there; it twinkled, and it pierced into life's mysteries; +and all the while it was a good eye. Its whites never showed, as it +were. As an animal, his eye showed a nature free from vice. In some +respects he was easy to live with, for he never found fault with what +was given him to eat, or the way the house was managed; and he never +interfered with the "kitchen people," or refused a dollar or ten dollars +to Carmen for finery. In fact, he was in a sense too lavish, for he used +at one time to bring her home presents of silks and clothes and toilet +things and stockings and hats, which were not in accord with her taste, +and only vexed her. Indeed, she resented wearing them, and could hardly +bring herself to thank him for them. At last, however, she induced him +to let her buy what she wanted with the presents of money which he might +give her. + +On the whole Carmen fared pretty well, for he would sometimes give her a +handful of bills from his pocket, bidding her take ten dollars, and she +would coolly take twenty, while he shrugged his shoulders and declared +she would be his ruin. He had never repented of marrying her, in +spite of the fact that she did not always keep house as his mother and +grandmother had kept it; that she was gravely remiss in going to mass; +and that she quarrelled with more than one of her neighbours, who had an +idea that Spain was an inferior country because it was south of France, +just as the habitants regarded the United States as a low and inferior +country because it was south of Quebec. You went north towards heaven +and south towards hell, in their view; but when they went so far as to +patronize or slander Carmen, she drove her verbal stilettos home without +a button; so that on one occasion there would have been a law-suit for +libel if the Old Cure had not intervened. To Jean Jacques' credit, be it +said, he took his wife's part on this occasion, though in his heart he +knew that she was in the wrong. + +He certainly was not always in the right himself. If he had been told +that he neglected his wife he would have been justly indignant. Also, +it never occurred to him that a woman did not always want to talk +philosophy or discuss the price of wheat or the cost of flour-barrels; +and that for a man to be stupidly and foolishly fond was dearer to a +woman than anything else. How should he know--yet he ought to have +done so, if he really was a philosopher--that a woman would want the +cleverest man in the world to be a boy and play the fool sometimes; that +she would rather, if she was a healthy woman, go to a circus than to a +revelation of the mysteries of the mind from an altar of culture, if her +own beloved man was with her. + +Carmen had been left too much alone, as M. Fille had said to Judge +Carcasson. Her spirits had moments of great dullness, when she was ready +to fling herself into the river--or the arms of the schoolmaster or the +farrier. When she first came to St. Saviour's, the necessity of adapting +herself to the new conditions, of keeping faith with herself, which she +had planned on the Antoine, and making a good wife to the man who was to +solve all her problems for her, prevailed. She did not at first miss +so much the life of excitement, of danger, of intrigue, of romance, of +colour and variety, which she had left behind in Spain. When her child +was born, she became passionately fond of it; her maternal spirit +smothered it. It gave the needed excitement in the routine of life at +St. Saviour's. + +Yet the interest was not permanent. There came a time when she resented +the fact that Jean Jacques made more of the child than he did of +herself. That was a bad day for all concerned, for dissimulation +presently became necessary, and the home of Jean Jacques was a home of +mystery which no philosophy could interpret. There had never been but +the one child. She was not less handsome than when Jean Jacques married +her and brought her home, though the bloom of maiden youthfulness was no +longer there; and she certainly was a cut far above the habitant women +or even the others of a higher social class, in a circle which had an +area equal to a principality in Europe. + +The old cure, M. Langon, had had much influence over her, for few could +resist the amazing personal influence which his rare pure soul secured +over the worst. It was a sad day to her when he went to his long home; +and inwardly she felt a greater loss than she had ever felt, save that +once when her Carvillho Gonzales went the way of the traitor. Memories +of her past life far behind in Madrid did not grow fainter; indeed, they +grew more distinct as the years went on. They seemed to vivify, as her +discontent and restlessness grew. + +Once, when there had come to St. Saviour's a middle-aged baron from +Paris who had heard the fishing was good at St. Saviour's, and talked to +her of Madrid and Barcelona, of Cordova and Toledo, as one who had seen +and known and (he declared) loved them; who painted for her in splashing +impressionist pictures the life that still eddied in the plazas and +dreamed in the patios, she had been almost carried off her feet with +longing; and she nearly gave that longing an expression which would have +brought a tragedy, while still her Zoe was only eight years old. But M. +Langon, the wise priest whose eyes saw and whose heart understood, had +intervened in time; and she never knew that the sudden disappearance of +the Baron, who still owed fifty dollars to Jean Jacques, was due to the +practical wisdom of a great soul which had worked out its own destiny in +a little back garden of the world. + +When this good priest was alive she felt she had a friend who was +as large of heart as he was just, and who would not scorn the fool +according to his folly, or chastise the erring after his deserts. In his +greatness of soul Pere Langon had shut his eyes to things that pained +him more than they shocked him, for he had seen life in its most various +and demoralized forms, and indeed had had his own temptations when he +lived in Belgium and France, before he had finally decided to become a +priest. He had protected Carmen with a quiet persistency since her first +day in the parish, and had had a saving influence over her. Pere Langon +reproved those who criticized her and even slandered her, for it was +evident to all that she would rather have men talk to her than women; +and any summer visitor who came to fish, gave her an attention never +given even to the youngest and brightest in the district; and the eyes +of the habitant lass can be very bright at twenty. Yet whatever Carmen's +coquetry and her sport with fire had been, her own emotions had never +been really involved till now. + +The new cure, M. Savry, would have said they were involved now because +she never came to confession, and indeed, since the Old Cure died, +she had seldom gone to mass. Yet when, with accumulated reproof on his +tongue, M. Savry did come to the Manor Cartier, he felt the inherent +supremacy of beauty, not the less commanding because it had not the +refinement of the duchess or the margravine. + +Once M. Savry ventured to do what the Old Cure would never have +done--he spoke to Jean Jacques concerning Carmen's neglect of mass and +confession, and he received a rebuff which was almost au seigneur; for +in Jean Jacques' eyes he was now the figure in St. Saviour's; and this +was an occasion when he could assert his position as premier of the +secular world outside the walls of the parish church. He did it in good +style for a man who had had no particular training in the social arts. + +This is how he did it and what he said: + +"There have been times when I myself have thought it would be a good +thing to have a rest from the duties of a Catholic, m'sieu' le cure," he +remarked to M. Savry, when the latter had ended his criticism. He said +it with an air of conflict, and with full intent to make his supremacy +complete. + +"No Catholic should speak like that," returned the shocked priest. + +"No priest should speak to me as you have done," rejoined Jean Jacques. +"What do you know of the reasons for the abstention of madame? The soul +must enjoy rest as well as the body, and madame has a--mind which can +judge for itself. I have a body that is always going, and it gets too +little rest, and that keeps my soul in a flutter too. It must be getting +to mass and getting to confession, and saying aves and doing penance, +it is such a busy little soul of mine; but we are not all alike, and +madame's body goes in a more stately way. I am like a comet, she is like +the sun steady, steady, round and round, with plenty of sleep and the +comfortable darkness. Sometimes madame goes hard; so does the sun in +summer-shines, shines, shines like a furnace. Madame's body goes like +that--at the dairy, in the garden, with the loom, among the fowls, +growing her strawberries, keeping the women at the beating of the flax; +and then again it is all still and idle like the sun on a cloudy day; +and it rests. So it is with the human soul--I am a philosopher--I think +the soul goes hard the same as the body, churning, churning away in the +heat of the sun; and then it gets quiet and goes to sleep in the cloudy +day, when the body is sick of its bouncing, and it has a rest--the soul +has a rest, which is good for it, m'sieu'. I have worked it all out so. +Besides, the soul of madame is her own. I have not made any claim upon +it, and I will not expect you to do more, m'sieu' le cure." + +"It is my duty to speak," protested the good priest. "Her soul is God's, +and I am God's vicar--" + +Jean Jacques waved a hand. "T'sh, you are not the Pope. You are not even +an abbe. You were only a deacon a few years ago. You did not know how +to hold a baby for the christening when you came to St. Saviour's first. +For the mass, you have some right to speak; it is your duty perhaps; but +the confession, that is another thing; that is the will of every soul to +do or not to do. What do you know of a woman's soul-well, perhaps, you +know what they have told you; but madame's soul--" + +"Madame has never been to confession to me," interjected M. Savry +indignantly. Jean Jacques chuckled. He had his New Cure now for sure. + +"Confession is for those who have sinned. Is it that you say one must go +to confession, and in order to go to confession it is needful to sin?" + +M. Savry shivered with pious indignation. He had a sudden desire to +rend this philosophic Catholic--to put him under 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 not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist. + +"If mother doesn't think it's sensible, why do it, father?" asked Zoe +anxiously, looking up into her father's face. + +She had seen the look in her mother's eyes, and also she had no love for +her grandfather. Her instinct had at one time wavered regarding him; but +she had seen an incident with a vanished female cook, and though she had +not understood, a prejudice had been created in her mind. She was always +contrasting him with M. Fille, who, to her mind, was what a grandfather +ought to be. + +"I won't have him beholden to you," said Carmen, almost passionately. + +"He is of my family," said Jean Jacques firmly and chivalrously. "There +is no question of being beholden." + +"Let well enough alone," was the gloomy reply. With a sigh, Jean Jacques +turned back to the study of the road before him, to gossip with Zoe, and +to keep on planning subconsciously the new things he must do. + +Carmen sighed too, or rather she gave a gasp of agitation and annoyance. +Her father? She had lost whatever illusion once existed regarding him. +For years he had clung to her--to her pocket. He was given to drinking +in past years, and he still had his sprees. Like the rest of the world, +she had not in earlier years seen the furtiveness in his handsome face; +but at last, as his natural viciousness became stereotyped, and bad +habits matured and emphasized, she saw beneath his mask of low-class +comeliness. When at last she had found it necessary to dismiss the best +cook she ever had, because of him, they saw little of each other. This +was coincident with his failure at the ash-factory, where he mismanaged +and even robbed Jean Jacques right and left; and she had firmly insisted +on Jean Jacques evicting him, on the ground that it was not Sebastian +Dolores' bent to manage a business. + +This little episode, as they drove home from Vilray, had an unreasonable +effect upon her. + +It was like the touch of a finger which launches a boat balancing in the +ways onto the deep. It tossed her on a sea of agitation. She was swept +away on a flood of morbid reflection. + +Her husband and her daughter, laughing and talking in the front seat of +the red wagon, seemed quite oblivious of her, and if ever there was +a time when their influence was needed it was now. George Masson was +coming over late this afternoon to inspect the work he had been doing; +and she was trembling with an agitation which, however, did not show +upon the surface. She had not seen him for two days--since the day after +the Clerk of the Court had discovered her in the arms of a man who +was not her husband; but he was coming this evening, and he was coming +to-morrow for the last time; for the repair work on the flume of the dam +would all be finished then. + +But would the work he had been doing all be finished then? As she +thought of that incident of three days ago and of its repetition on the +following day, she remembered what he had said to her as she snatched +herself almost violently from his arms, in a sudden access of remorse. +He had said that it had to be, that there was no escape now; and at +his words she had felt every pulse in her body throbbing, every vein +expanding with a hot life which thrilled and tortured her. Life had been +so meagre and so dull, and the man who had worshipped her on the Antoine +now worshipped himself only, and also Zoe, the child, maybe; or so she +thought; while the man who had once possessed her whole mind and whole +heart, and never her body, back there in Spain, he, Carvillho Gonzales, +would have loved her to the end, in scenes where life had colour and +passion and danger and delightful movement. + +She was one of those happy mortals who believe that the dead and gone +lover was perfect, and that in losing him she was losing all that life +had in store; but the bare, hard truth was that her Gonzales could have +been true neither to her nor to any woman in the world for longer than +one lingering year, perhaps one lunar month. It did not console her--she +did not think of it-that the little man on the seat of the red wagon, +chirruping with their daughter, had been, would always be, true to her. +Of what good was fidelity if he that was faithful desired no longer as +he once did? + +A keen observer would have seen in the glowing, unrestful look, in the +hot cheek, in the interlacing fingers, that a contest was going on in +the woman's soul, as she drove homeward with all that was her own in +the world. The laughter of her husband and child grated painfully on her +ears. Why should they be mirthful while her life was being swept by a +storm of doubt, temptation, and dark passion? Why was it? + +Yet she smiled at Jean Jacques when he lifted her down from the red +wagon at the door of the Manor Cartier, even though he lifted his +daughter down first. + +Did she smile at Jean Jacques because, as they came toward the Manor, +she saw George Masson in the distance by the flume, and in that moment +decided to keep her promise and meet him at a secluded point on the +river-bank at sunset after supper? + + + + +CHAPTER VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP + +The pensiveness of a summer evening on the Beau Cheval was like a veil +hung over all the world. While yet the sun was shining, there was the +tremor of life in the sadness; but when the last glint of amethyst and +gold died away behind Mont Violet, and the melancholy swish of the river +against the osiered banks rose out of the windless dusk, all the region +around Manor Cartier, with its cypresses, its firs, its beeches, and its +elms, became gently triste. Even the weather-vane on the Manor--the gold +Cock of Beaugard, as it was called--did not move; and the stamping of +a horse in the stable was like the thunderous knock of a traveller +from Beyond. The white mill and the grey manor stood out with ghostly +vividness in the light of the rising moon. Yet there were times +innumerable when they looked like cool retreats for those who wanted +rest; when, in the summer solstice, they offered the pleasant peace of +the happy fireside. How often had Jean Jacques stood off from it all of +a summer night and said to himself: "Look at that, my Jean Jacques. It +is all yours, Manor and mills and farms and factory--all." + +"Growing, growing, fattening, while I drone in my feather bed," he had +as often said, with the delighted observation of the philosopher. "And +me but a young man yet--but a mere boy," he would add. "I have piled +it up--I have piled it up, and it keeps on growing, first one thing and +then another." + +Could such a man be unhappy? Finding within himself his satisfaction, +his fountain of appeasement, why should not his days be days of +pleasantness and peace? So it appeared to him during that summer, just +passed, when he had surveyed the World and his world within the World, +and it seemed to his innocent mind that he himself had made it all. +There he was, not far beyond forty, and eligible to become a member of +Parliament, or even a count of the Holy Roman Empire! He had thought of +both these honours, but there was so much to occupy him--he never had +a moment to himself, except at night; and then there was planning +and accounting to do, his foremen to see, or some knotty thing to +disentangle. But when the big clock in the Manor struck ten, and he took +out his great antique silver watch, to see if the two marched to the +second, he would go to the door, look out into the night, say, "All's +well, thank the good God," and would go to bed, very often forgetting to +kiss Carmen, and even forgetting his darling little Zoe. + +After all, a mind has to be very big and to have very many tentacles to +hold so many things all at once, and also to remember to do the right +thing at the right moment every time. He would even forget to ask Carmen +to play on the guitar, which in the first days of their married life +was the recreation of every evening. Seldom with the later years had he +asked her to sing, because he was so busy; and somehow his ear had not +that keenness of sound once belonging to it. There was a time when he +himself was wont to sing, when he taught his little Zoe the tunes of +the Chansons Canadiennes; but even that had dropped away, except at rare +intervals, when he would sing Le Petit Roger Bontemps, with Petite Fleur +de Bois, and a dozen others; but most he would sing--indeed there was +never a sing-song in the Manor Cartier but he would burst forth with A +la Claire Fontaine and its haunting refrain: + + "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, + Jamais je ne t'oublierai." + +But this very summer, when he had sung it on the birthday of the little +Zoe, his voice had seemed out of tune. At first he had thought that +Carmen was playing his accompaniment badly on the guitar, but she had +sharply protested against that, and had appealed to M. Fille, who was +present at the pretty festivity. He had told the truth, as a Clerk of +the Court should. He said that Jean Jacques' voice was not as he had so +often heard it; but he would also frankly admit that he did not think +madame played the song as he had heard her play it aforetime, and that +covered indeed twelve years or more--in fact, since the birth of the +renowned Zoe. + +M. Fille had wondered much that night of June at the listless manner and +listless playing of Carmen Barbille. For a woman of such spirit and fire +it would seem as though she must be in ill-health to play like that. +Yet when he looked at her he saw only the comeliness of a woman whom the +life of the haut habitant had not destroyed or, indeed, dimmed. Her skin +was smooth, she had no wrinkles, and her neck was a pillar of softly +moulded white flesh, around which a man might well string unset jewels, +if he had them; for the tint and purity of her skin would be a better +setting than platinum or fine gold. But the Clerk of the Court was +really unsophisticated, or he would have seen that Carmen played the +guitar badly because she was not interested in Jean Jacques' singing. +He would have known that she had come to that stage in her married +life when the tenure is pitifully insecure. He would have seen that +the crisis was near. If he had had any real observation he would have +noticed that Carmen's eyes at once kindled, and that the guitar became +a different thing, when M. Colombin, the young schoolmaster, one of the +guests, caught up the refrain of A la Claire Fontaine, and in a soft +tenor voice sang it with Jean Jacques to the end, and then sang it again +with Zoe. Then Carmen's dark eyes deepened with the gathering light in +them, her body seemed to vibrate and thrill with emotion; and when M. +Colombin and Zoe ceased, with her eyes fixed on the distance, and as +though unconscious of them all, she began to sing a song of Cadiz which +she had not sung since boarding the Antoine at Bordeaux. Her mind had, +suddenly flown back out of her dark discontent to the days when all life +was before her, and, with her Gonzales, she had moved in an atmosphere +of romance, adventure and passion. + +In a second she was transformed from the wife of the brown money-master +to the girl she was when she came to St. Saviour's from the plaza, +where her Carvillho Gonzales was shot, with love behind her and memory +blazoned in the red of martyrdom. She sang now as she had not sung for +some years. Her guitar seemed to leap into life, her face shone with the +hot passion of memory, her voice rang with the pain of a disappointed +life: + + "Granada, Granada, thy gardens are gay, + And bright are thy stars, the high stars above; + But as flowers that fade and are gray, + But as dusk at the end of the day, + Are ye to the light in the eyes of my love + In the eyes, in the soul, of my love. + + "Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see + My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me? + + "Beloved, beloved, have pity, and make + Not the sun shut its eyes, its hot, envious eyes, + And the world in the darkness of night + Be debtor to thee for its light. + Turn thy face, turn thy face from the skies + To the love, to the pain in my eyes. + + "Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see + My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me!" + +From that night forward she had been restless and petulant and like one +watching and waiting. It seemed to her that she must fly from the life +which was choking her. It was all so petty and so small. People went +about sneaking into other people's homes like detectives; they turned +yellow and grew scrofulous from too much salt pork, green tea, native +tobacco, and the heat of feather beds. The making of a rag carpet was an +event, the birth of a baby every year till the woman was forty-five was +a commonplace; but the exit of a youth to a seminary to become a priest, +or the entrance to the novitiate of a young girl, were matters as +important as a battle to Napoleon the Great. + +How had she gone through it all so long, she asked herself? The presence +of Jean Jacques had become almost unbearable when, the day done, he +retired to the feather bed which she loathed, though he would have +looked upon discarding it like the abdication of his social position. +A feather bed was a sign of social position; it was as much the dais +to his honour as is the woolsack to the Lord Chancellor in the House of +Lords. + +She was waiting for something. There was a restless, vagrant spirit +alive in her now. She had been so long inactive, tied by the leg, +with wings clipped; now her mind roamed into pleasant places of the +imagination where life had freedom, where she could renew the impulses +of youth. A true philosopher-a man of the world-would have known +for what she was waiting with that vague, disordered expectancy and +yearning; but there was no man of the world to watch and guide her this +fateful summer, when things began to go irretrievably wrong. + +Then George Masson came. He was a man of the world in his way; he saw +and knew better than the philosopher of the Manor Cartier. He grasped +the situation with the mind of an artist in his own sphere, and with +the knowledge got by experience. Thus there had been the thing which the +Clerk of the Court saw from Mont Violet behind the Manor; and so it +was that as Jean Jacques helped Carmen down from the red wagon on their +return from Vilray, she gave him a smile which was meant to deceive; +for though given to him it was really given to another man in her mind's +eye. At sunset she gave it again to George Masson on the river-bank, +only warmer and brighter still, with eyes that were burning, with hands +that trembled, and with an agitated bosom more delicately ample than it +was on the day the Antoine was wrecked. + +Neither of these two adventurers into a wild world of feeling noticed +that a man was sitting on a little knoll under a tree, not far away from +their meeting-place, busy with pencil and paper. + +It was Jean Jacques, who had also come to the river-bank to work out a +business problem which must be settled on the morrow. He had stolen out +immediately after supper from neighbours who wished to see him, and had +come here by a roundabout way, because he wished to be alone. + +George Masson and Carmen were together for a few moments only, but Jean +Jacques heard his wife say, "Yes, to-morrow--for sure," and then he saw +her kiss the master-carpenter--kiss him twice, thrice. After which they +vanished, she in one direction, and the invader and marauder in another. + +If either of these two had seen the face of the man with a pencil +and paper under the spreading beechtree, they would not have been so +impatient for tomorrow, and Carmen would not have said "for sure." + +Jean Jacques was awake at last, man as well as philosopher. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL. Jean Jacques was not without +originality of a kind, and not without initiative; but there were also +the elements of the very old Adam in him, and the strain of the obvious. +If he had been a real genius, rather than a mere lively variation of the +commonplace--a chicken that could never burst its shell, a bird which +could not quite break into song--he might have made his biographer guess +hard and futilely, as to what he would do after having seen his wife's +arms around the neck of another man than himself--a man little more +than a manual labourer, while he, Jean Jacques Barbille, had come of the +people of the Old Regime. As it was, this magnate of St. Saviour's, +who yesterday posed so sympathetically and effectively in the Court at +Vilray as a figure of note, did the quite obvious thing: he determined +to kill the master-carpenter from Laplatte. + +There was no genius in that. When, from under the spreading beech-tree, +Jean Jacques saw his wife footing it back to her house with a light, +wayward step; when he watched the master-carpenter vault over a stone +fence five feet high with a smile of triumph mingled with doubt on his +face, he was too stunned at first to move or speak. If a sledge-hammer +strikes you on the skull, though your skull is of such a hardness that +it does not break, still the shock numbs activity for awhile, at any +rate. The sledge-hammer had descended on Jean Jacques' head, and also +had struck him between the eyes; and it is in the credit balance of his +ledger of life, that he refrained from useless outcry at the moment. +Such a stroke kills some men, either at once, or by lengthened torture; +others it sends mad, so that they make a clamour which draws the +attention of the astonished and not sympathetic world; but it only +paralysed Jean Jacques. For a time he sat fascinated by the ferocity +of the event, his eyes following the hurrying wife and the jaunty, +swaggering master-carpenter with a strange, animal-like dismay and +apprehension. They remained fixed with a kind of blank horror and +distraction on the landscape for some time after both had disappeared. + +At last, however, he seemed to recover his senses, and to come back from +the place where he had been struck by the hammer of treachery. He seemed +to realize again that he was still a part of the common world, not a +human being swung through the universe on his heart-strings by a Gorgon. + +The paper and pencil in his hand brought him back from the far Gehenna +where he had been, to the world again--how stony and stormy a world it +was, with the air gone as heavy as lead, with his feet so loaded down +with chains that he could not stir! He had had great joy of this his +world; he had found it a place where every day were problems to +be solved by an astute mind, problems which gave way before the +master-thinker. There was of course unhappiness in his world. There was +death, there was accident occasionally--had his own people not gone +down under the scythe of time? But in going they had left behind in +real estate and other things good compensation for their loss. There was +occasional suffering and poverty and trouble in his little kingdom; but +a cord of wood here, a barrel of flour there, a side of beef +elsewhere, a little debt remitted, a bag of dried apples, or an Indian +blanket--these he gave, and had great pleasure in giving; and so the +world was not a place where men should hang their heads, but a place +where the busy man got more than the worth of his money. + +It had never occurred to him that he was ever translating the world +into terms of himself, that he went on his way saying in effect, "I am +coming. I am Jean Jacques Barbille. You have heard of me. You know me. +Wave a hand to me, duck your head to me, crack the whip or nod when I +pass. I am M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosopher." + +And all the while he had only been vaguely, not really, conscious of +his wife and child. He did not know that he had only made of his wife an +incident in his life, in spite of the fact that he thought he loved +her; that he had been proud of her splendid personality; and that, with +passionate chivalry, he had resented any criticism of her. + +He thought still, as he did on the Antoine, that Carmen's figure had the +lines of the Venus of Milo, that her head would have been a model either +for a Madonna, or for Joan of Arc, or the famous Isabella of Aragon. +Having visited the Louvre and the Luxembourg all in one day, he felt he +was entitled to make such comparisons, and that in making them he was on +sure ground. He had loved to kiss Carmen in the neck, it was so full +and soft and round; and when she went about the garden with her dress +shortened, and he saw her ankles, even after he had been married +thirteen years, and she was thirty-four, he still admired, he still +thought that the world was a good place when it produced such a woman. +And even when she had lashed him with her tongue, as she did sometimes, +he still laughed--after the smart was over--because he liked spirit. +He would never have a horse that had not some blood, and he had never +driven a sluggard in his life more than once. But wife and child and +world, and all that therein was, existed largely because they were +necessary to Jean Jacques. + +That is the way it had been; and it was as though the firmament had been +rolled up before his eyes, exposing the everlasting mysteries, when +he saw his wife in the arms of the master-carpenter. It was like some +frightening dream. + +The paper and pencil waked him to reality. He looked towards his house, +he looked the way George Masson had gone, and he knew that what he had +seen was real life and not a dream. The paper fell from his hand. He did +not pick it up. Its fall represented the tumbling walls of life, was the +earthquake which shook his world into chaos. He ground the sheet into +the gravel with his heel. There would be no cheese-factory built at St. +Saviour's for many a year to come. The man of initiative, the man of the +hundred irons would not have the hundred and one, or keep the hundred +hot any more; because he would be so busy with the iron which had +entered into his soul. + +When the paper had been made one with the earth, a problem buried for +ever, Jean Jacques pulled himself up to his full height, as though +facing a great thing which he must do. + +"Well, of course!" he said firmly. + +That was what his honour, Judge Carcasson, had said a few hours before, +when the little Clerk of the Court had remarked an obvious thing about +the case of Jean Jacques. + +And Jean Jacques said only the obvious thing when he made up his mind to +do the obvious thing--to kill George Masson, the master-carpenter. + +This was evidence that he was no genius. Anybody could think of killing +a man who had injured him, as the master-carpenter had done Jean +Jacques. It is the solution of the problem of the Patagonian. It is old +as Rameses. + +Yet in his own way Jean Jacques did what he felt he had to do. The thing +he was going to do was hopelessly obvious, but the doing of it was Jean +Jacques' own; and it was not obvious; and that perhaps was genius after +all. There are certain inevitable things to do, and for all men to do; +and they have been doing them from the beginning of time; but the way it +is done--is not that genius? There is no new story in the world; all the +things that happen have happened for untold centuries; but the man who +tells the story in a new way, that is genius, so the great men say. If, +then, Jean Jacques did the thing he had to do with a turn of his own, he +would justify to some degree the opinion he had formed of himself. + +As he walked back to his desecrated home he set himself to think. How +should it be done? There was the rifle with which he had killed deer in +the woods beyond the Saguenay and bear beyond the Chicoutimi. That was +simple--and it was obvious; and it could be done at once. He could soon +overtake the man who had spoiled the world for him. + +Yet he was a Norman, and the Norman thinks before he acts. He is the +soul of caution; he wants to get the best he can out of his bargain. He +will throw nothing away that is to his advantage. There should be other +ways than the gun with which to take a man's life--ways which might give +a Norman a chance to sacrifice only one life; to secure punishment where +it was due, but also escape from punishment for doing the obvious thing. + +Poison? That was too stupid even to think of once. A pitch-fork and a +dung-heap? That had its merits; but again there was the risk of more +than one life. + +All the way to his house, Jean Jacques, with something of the rage of +passion and the glaze of horror gone from his eyes, and his face not now +so ghastly, still brooded over how, after he had had his say, he was +to put George Masson out of the world. But it did not come at once. All +makers of life-stories find their difficulty at times. Tirelessly they +grope along a wall, day in, day out, and then suddenly a great gate +swings open, as though to the touch of a spring, and the whole way is +clear to the goal. + +Jean Jacques went on thinking in a strange, new, intense abstraction. +His restless eyes were steadier than they had ever been; his wife +noticed that as he entered the house after the Revelation. She +noticed also his paleness and his abstraction. For an instant she was +frightened; but no, Jean Jacques could not know anything. Yet--yet he +had come from the direction of the river! + +"What is it, Jean Jacques?" she asked. "Aren't you well?" + +He put his hand to his head, but did not look her in the eyes. His +gesture helped him to avoid that. "I have a head--la, such a head! I +have been thinking, thinking-it is my hobby. I have been planning the +cheese-factory, and all at once it comes on-the ache in my head. I +will go to bed. Yes, I will go at once." Suddenly he turned at the door +leading to the bedroom. "The little Zoe--is she well?" + +"Of course. Why should she not be well? She has gone to the top of the +hill. Of course, she's well, Jean Jacques." + +"Good-good!" he remarked. Somehow it seemed strange to him that Zoe +should be well. Was there not a terrible sickness in his house, and +had not that woman, his wife, her mother, brought the infection? Was he +himself not stricken by it? + +Carmen was calm enough again. "Go to bed, Jean Jacques," she said, "and +I'll bring you a sleeping posset. I know those headaches. You had one +when the ash-factory was burned." + +He nodded without looking at her, and closed the door behind him. + +When she came to the bedroom a half-hour later, his face was turned to +the wall. She spoke, but he did not answer. She thought he was asleep. +He was not asleep. He was only thinking how to do the thing which +was not obvious, which was also safe for himself. That should be his +triumph, if he could but achieve it. + +When she came to bed he did not stir, and he did not answer her when she +spoke. + +"The poor Jean Jacques!" he heard her say, and if there had not been on +him the same courage that possessed him the night when the Antoine was +wrecked, he would have sobbed. + +He did not stir. He kept thinking; and all the time her words, "The poor +Jean Jacques!" kept weaving themselves through his vague designs. Why +had she said that--she who had deceived, betrayed him? Had he then seen +what he had seen? + +She did not sleep for a long time, and when she did it was uneasily. But +the bed was an immense one, and she was not near him. There was no sleep +for him--not even for an hour. Once, in exhaustion, he almost rolled +over into the poppies of unconsciousness; but he came back with a start +and a groan to sentient life again, and kept feeling, feeling along the +wall of purpose for a masterly way to kill. + +At dawn it came, suddenly spreading out before him like a picture. He +saw himself standing at the head of the flume out there by the Mill +Cartier with his hand on the lever. Below him in the empty flume was +the master-carpenter giving a last inspection to the repairs. Beyond the +master-carpenter--far beyond--was the great mill-wheel! Behind himself, +Jean Jacques, was the river held back by the dam; and if the lever was +opened,--the river would sweep through the raised gates down the flume +to the millwheel--with the man. And then the wheel would turn and turn, +and the man would be in the wheel. + +It was not obvious; it was original; and it looked safe for Jean +Jacques. How easily could such an "accident" occur! + + + + +CHAPTER IX. "MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE" + +The air was like a mellow wine, and the light on the landscape was full +of wistfulness. It was a thing so exquisite that a man of sentiment like +Jean Jacques in his younger days would have wept to see. And the feeling +was as palpable as the seeing; as in the early spring the new life which +is being born in the year, produces a febrile kind of sorrow in the +mind. But the glow of Indian summer, that compromise, that after-thought +of real summer, which brings her back for another good-bye ere she +vanishes for ever--its sadness is of a different kind. Its longing has a +sharper edge; there stir in it the pangs of discontent; and the mind and +body yearn for solace. It is a dangerous time, even more dangerous than +spring for those who have passed the days of youth. + +It had proved dangerous to Carmen Barbille. The melancholy of the +gorgeously tinted trees, the flights of the birds to the south, the +smell of the fallow field, the wind with the touch of the coming +rains--these had given to a growing discontent with her monotonous +life the desire born of self-pity. In spite of all she could do she was +turning to the life she had left behind in Cadiz long ago. + +It seemed to her that Jean Jacques had ceased to care for the charms +which once he had so proudly proclaimed. There was in her the strain of +the religion of Epicurus. She desired always that her visible corporeal +self should be admired and desired, that men should say, "What a +splendid creature!" It was in her veins, an undefined philosophy +of life; and she had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by his +caresses. She had no other vital standard. This she could measure, she +could grasp it and say, "Here I have a hold; it is so much harvested." +But if some one had written her a poem a thousand verses long, she would +have said, "Yes, all very fine, but let me see what it means; let me +feel that it is so." + +She had an inherent love of luxury and pleasure, which was far more +active in her now than when she married Jean Jacques. For a Spanish +woman she had matured late; and that was because, in her youth, she had +been active and athletic, unlike most Spanish girls; and the microbes of +a sensuous life, or what might have become a sensual life, had not good +chance to breed. + +It all came, however, in the dullness of the winter days and nights, in +the time of deep snows, when they could go abroad but very little. Then +her body and her mind seemed to long for the indolent sun-spaces of +Spain. The artificial heat of the big stoves in the rooms with the low +ceilings only irritated her, and she felt herself growing more ample +from lassitude of the flesh. This particular autumn it seemed to her +that she could not get through another winter without something going +wrong, without a crisis of some sort. She felt the need of excitement, +of change. She had the desire for pleasures undefined. + +Then George Masson came, and the undefined took form almost at once. +It was no case of the hunter pursuing his prey with all the craft and +subtlety of his trade. She had answered his look with spontaneity, due +to the fact that she had been surprised into the candour of her feelings +by the appearance of one who had the boldness of a brigand, the health +of a Hercules, and the intelligence of a primitive Jesuit. He had not +hesitated; he had yielded himself to the sumptuous attraction, and the +fire in his eyes was only the window of the furnace within him. He had +gone headlong to the conquest, and by sheer force of temperament and +weight of passion he had swept her off her feet. + +He had now come to the last day of his duty at the Mill Cartier, when +all he had to do was to inspect the work done, give assurance and +guarantee that it was all right, and receive his cheque from Jean +Jacques. He had come 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 of Beaugard--like the +Baron of Beaugard that killed the man who abused his wife." + +It was so. Great-great-grand-nephew of the Baron of Beaugard as he was, +Jean Jacques looked like the portrait of him which hung in the Manor +Cartier. "Wait--but wait one minute!" exclaimed George Masson; and now, +all at once, he had grown cool and determined, and his brain was at work +again with an activity and a clearness it had never known. He had gained +one minute of time, he might be able to gain more. In any case, no one +could save him except himself. There was Jean Jacques with his hand on +the lever--one turn and the thing was done for ever. If a rescuer was +even within one foot of Jean Jacques, the deed could still be done. It +was so much easier opening than shutting the gates of the flume! + +"Why should I wait, devil and rogue?" The words came from Jean Jacques' +lips with a snarl. "I am going to kill you. It will do you no good to +whine--cochon!" + +To call a man a pig is the worst insult which could be offered by one +man to another in the parish of St. Saviour's. To be called a pig as you +are going to die, is an offensive business indeed. + +"I know you are going to kill me--that you can kill me, and I can do +nothing," was the master-carpenter's reply. "There it is--a turn of the +lever, and I am done. Bien sur, I know how easy! I do not want to die, +but I will not squeal even if I am a pig. One can only die once. And +once is enough.... No, don't--not yet! Give me a minute till I tell you +something; then you can open the gates. You will have a long time to +live--yes, yes, you are the kind that live long. Well, a minute or two +is not much to ask. If you want to murder, you will open the gates at +once; but if it is punishment, if you are an executioner, you will give +me time to pray." + +Jean Jacques did not soften. His voice was harsh and grim. "Well, get on +with your praying, but don't talk. You are going to die," he added, his +hands gripping the lever tighter. + +The master-carpenter had had the true inspiration in his hour of danger. +He had touched his appeal with logic, he had offered an argument. +Jean Jacques was a logician, a philosopher! That point made about the +difference between a murder and an execution was a good one. Beside +it was an acknowledgment, by inference, from his victim, that he was +getting what he deserved. + +"Pray quick and have it over, pig of an adulterer!" added Jean Jacques. + +The master-carpenter raised a protesting hand. "There you are mistaken; +but it is no matter. At the end of to-day I would have been an +adulterer, if you hadn't found out. I don't complain of the word. But +see, as a philosopher"--Jean Jacques jerked a haughty assent--"as a +philosopher you will want to know how and why it is. Carmen will never +tell you--a woman never tells the truth about such things, because she +does not know how. She does not know the truth ever, exactly, about +anything. It is because she is a woman. But I would like to tell you the +exact truth; and I can, because I am a man. For what she did you are as +much to blame as she ... no, no--not yet!" + +Jean Jacques' hand had spasmodically tightened on the lever as though he +would wrench the gates open, and a snarl came from his lips. + +"Figure de Christ, but it is true, as true as death! Listen, M'sieu' +Jean Jacques. You are going to kill me, but listen so that you will know +how to speak to her afterwards, understanding what I said as I died." + +"Get on--quick!" growled Jean Jacques with white wrinkled lips and the +sun in his agonized eyes. George Masson continued his pleading. "You +were always a man of mind"--Jean Jacques' fierce agitation visibly +subsided, and a surly sort of vanity crept into his face--"and +you married a girl who cared more for what you did than what you +thought--that is sure, for I know women. I am not married, and I have +had much to do with many of them. I will tell you the truth. I left +the West because of a woman--of two women. I had a good business, but I +could not keep out of trouble with women. They made it too easy for me." + +"Peacock-pig!" exclaimed Jean Jacques with an ugly sneer. + +"Let a man when he is dying tell all the truth, to ease his mind," said +the master-carpenter with a machiavellian pretence and cunning. "It +was vanity, it was, as you say; it was the peacock in me made me be the +friend of many women and not the husband of one. I came down here +to Quebec from the Far West to get away from consequences. It was +expensive. I had to sacrifice. Well, here I am in trouble again--my +last trouble, and with the wife of a man that I respect and admire, not +enough to keep my hands off his wife, but still that I admire. It is +my weakness that I could not be, as a man, honourable to Jean Jacques +Barbille. And so I pay the price; so I have to go without time to make +my will. Bless heaven above, I have no wife--" + +"If you had a wife you would not be dying now. You would not then meddle +with the home of Jean Jacques Barbille," sneered Jean Jacques. The note +was savage yet. + +"Ah, for sure, for sure! It is so. And if I lived I would marry at +once." + +Desperate as his condition was, the master-carpenter could almost have +laughed at the idea of marriage preventing him from following the bent +of his nature. He was the born lover. If he had been as high as the +Czar, or as low as the ditcher, he would have been the same; but it +would be madness to admit that to Jean Jacques now. + +"But, as you say, let me get on. My time has come--" + +Jean Jacques jerked his head angrily. "Enough of this. You keep on +saying 'Wait a little,' but your time has come. Now take it so, and +don't repeat." + +"A man must get used to the idea of dying, or he will die hard," replied +the master-carpenter, for he saw that Jean Jacques' hands were not +so tightly clenched on the lever now; and time was everything. He had +already been near five minutes, and every minute was a step to a chance +of escape--somehow. + +"I said you were to blame," he continued. "Listen, Jean Jacques +Barbille. You, a man of mind, married a girl who cared more for a touch +of your hand than a bucketful of your knowledge, which every man in the +province knows is great. At first you were almost always thinking of +her and what a fine woman she was, and because everyone admired her, +you played the peacock, too. I am not the only peacock. You are a good +man--no one ever said anything against your character. But always, +always, you think most of yourself. It is everywhere you go as if you +say, 'Look out. I am coming. I am Jean Jacques Barbille. + +"'Make way for Jean Jacques. I am from the Manor Cartier. You have heard +of me.'... That is the way you say things in your mind. But all the time +the people say, 'That is Jean Jacques Barbille, but you should see his +wife. She is a wonder. She is at home at the Manor with the cows and the +geese. Jean Jacques travels alone through the parish to Quebec, to Three +Rivers, to Tadousac, to the great exhibition at Montreal, but madame, +she stays at home. M'sieu' Jean Jacques is nothing beside her'--that +is what the people say. They admire you for your brains, but they would +have fallen down before your wife, if you had given her half a chance." + +"Ah, that's bosh--what do you know!" exclaimed Jean Jacques fiercely, +but he was fascinated too by the argument of the man whose life he was +going to take. + +"I know the truth, my money-man. Do you think she'd have looked at me +if you'd been to her what she thought I might be? No, bien sur! Did you +take her where she could see the world? No. Did you bring her presents? +No. Did you say, 'Come along, we will make a little journey to see the +world?' No. Do you think that a woman can sit and darn your socks, and +tidy your room, and bake you pancakes in the morning while you roast +your toes, and be satisfied with just that, and not long for something +outside?" + +Jean Jacques was silent. He did not move. He was being hypnotized by a +mind of subtle strength, by the logic of which he was so great a lover. + +The master-carpenter pressed his logic home. "No, she must sit in your +shadow always. She must wait till you come. And when you come, it was +'Here am I, your Jean Jacques. Fall down and worship me. I am your +husband.' Did you ever say, 'Heavens, there you are, the woman of all +the world, the rising and the setting sun, the star that shines, the +garden where all the flowers of love grow'? Did you ever do that? But +no, there was only one person in the world--there was only you, Jean +Jacques. You were the only pig in the sty." + +It was a bold stroke, but if Jean Jacques could stand that, he could +stand anything. There was a savage start on the part of Jean Jacques, +and the lever almost moved. + +"Stop one second!" cried the master-carpenter, sharply now, for in +spite of the sudden savagery on Jean Jacques' part, he felt he had an +advantage, and now he would play his biggest card. + +"You can kill me. It is there in your hand. No one can stop you. But +will that give you anything? What is my life? If you take it away, will +you be happier? It is happiness you want. Your wife--she will love you, +if you give her a chance. If you kill me, I will have my revenge in +death, for it is the end of all things for you. You lose your wife for +ever. You need not do so. She would have gone with me, not because +of me, but because I was a man who she thought would treat her like a +friend, like a comrade; who would love her--sacre, what husband could +help make love to such a woman, unless he was in love with himself +instead of her!" + +Jean Jacques rocked to and fro over the lever in his agitation, yet he +made no motion to move it. He was under a spell. + +Straight home drove the master-carpenter's reasoning now. "Kill me, and +you lose her for ever. Kill me, and she will hate you. You think she +will not find out? Then see: as I die I will shriek out so loud that she +can hear me, and she will understand. She will go mad, and give you over +to the law. And then--and then! Did you ever think what will become of +your child, of your Zoe, if you go to the gallows? That would be your +legacy and your blessing to her--the death of a murderer; and she would +be left alone with the woman that would hate you in death! Voila--do you +not see?" + +Jean Jacques saw. The terrific logic of the thing smote him. His wife +hating him, himself on the scaffold, his little Zoe disgraced and +dishonoured all her life; and himself out of it all, unable to help her, +and bringing irremediable trouble on her! As a chemical clears a muddy +liquid, leaving it pure and atomless, so there seemed to pass over Jean +Jacques' face a thought like a revelation. + +He took his hand from the lever. For a moment he stood like one awakened +out of a sleep. He put his hands to his eyes, then shook his head as +though to free it of some hateful burden. An instant later he stooped, +lifted up the ladder beside him, and let it down to the floor of the +flume. + +"There, go--for ever," he said. + +Then he turned away with bowed head. He staggered as he stepped down +from the bridge of the flume, where the lever was. He swayed from side +to side. Then he raised his head and looked towards his house. His child +lived there--his Zoe. + +"Moi je suis philosophe!" he said brokenly. + +After a moment or two, as he stumbled on, he said it again--"Me, I am a +philosopher!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. "QUIEN SABE"--WHO KNOWS! + +This much must be said for George Masson, that after the terrible +incident at the flume he would have gone straight to the Manor Cartier +to warn Carmen, if it had been possible, though perhaps she already +knew. But there was Jean Jacques on his way back to the Manor, and +nothing remained but to proceed to Laplatte, and give the woman up for +ever. He had no wish to pull up stakes again and begin life afresh, +though he was only forty, and he had plenty of initiative left. But if +he had to go, he would want to go alone, as he had done before. Yes, he +would have liked to tell Carmen that Jean Jacques knew everything; +but it was impossible. She would have to face the full shock from Jean +Jacques' own battery. But then again perhaps she knew already. He hoped +she did. + +At the very moment that Masson was thinking this, while he went to the +main road where he had left his horse and buggy tied up, Carmen came to +know. + +Carmen had not seen her husband that morning until now. She had waked +late, and when she was dressed and went into the dining-room to look for +him, with an apprehension which was the reflection of the bad dreams of +the night, she found that he had had his breakfast earlier than usual +and had gone to the mill. She also learned that he had eaten very +little, and that he had sent a man into Vilray for something or other. +Try as she would to stifle her anxiety, it obtruded itself, and she +could eat no breakfast. She kept her eyes on the door and the window, +watching for Jean Jacques. + +Yet she reproved herself for her stupid concern, for Jean Jacques would +have spoken last night, if he had discovered anything. He was not the +man to hold his tongue when he had a chance of talking. He would be sure +to make the most of any opportunity for display of intellectual emotion, +and he would have burst his buttons if he had known. That was the way +she put it in a vernacular which was not Andalusian. Such men love a +grievance, because it gives them an opportunity to talk--with a good +case and to some point, not into the air at imaginary things, as she had +so often seen Jean Jacques do. She knew her Jean Jacques. That is, +she thought she knew her Jean Jacques after living with him for over +thirteen years; but hers was a very common mistake. It is not time which +gives revelation, or which turns a character inside out, and exposes a +new and amazing, maybe revolting side to it. She had never really seen +Jean Jacques, and he had never really seen himself, as he was, but only +as circumstances made him seem to be. What he had showed of his nature +all these forty odd years was only the ferment of a more or less shallow +life, in spite of its many interests: but here now at last was life, +with the crust broken over a deep well of experience and tragedy. +She knew as little what he would do in such a case as he himself knew +beforehand. As the incident of the flume just now showed, he knew little +indeed, for he had done exactly the opposite of what he meant to do. It +was possible that Carmen would also do exactly the opposite of what she +meant to do in her own crisis. + +Her test was to come. Would she, after all, go off with the +master-carpenter, leaving behind her the pretty, clever, volatile Zoe +... Zoe--ah, where was Zoe? Carmen became anxious about Zoe, she knew +not why. Was it the revival of the maternal instinct? + +She was told that Zoe had gone off on her pony to take a basket of good +things to a poor old woman down the river three miles away. She would +be gone all morning. By so much, fate was favouring her; for the child's +presence would but heighten the emotion of her exit from that place +where her youth had been wasted. Already the few things she had meant +to take away were secreted in a safe place some distance from the house, +beside the path she meant to take when she left Jean Jacques for +ever. George Masson wanted her, they were to meet to-day, and she was +going--going somewhere out of this intolerable dullness and discontent. + +When she pushed her coffee-cup aside and rose from the table without +eating, she went straight to her looking-glass and surveyed herself with +a searching eye. Certainly she was young enough (she said to herself) to +draw the eyes of those who cared for youth and beauty. There was not a +grey hair in the dark brown of her head, there was not a wrinkle--yes, +there were two at the corners of her mouth, which told the story of her +restlessness, of her hunger for the excitement of which she had been +deprived all these years. To go back to Cadiz?--oh, anywhere, anywhere, +so that her blood could beat faster; so that she could feel the stir +of life which had made her spirit flourish even in the dangers of the +far-off day when Gonzales was by her side. + +She looked at her guitar. She was sorry she could not take that away +with her. But Jean Jacques would, no doubt, send it after her with his +curse. She would love to play it once again with the old thrill; with +the thrill she had felt on the night of Zoe's birthday a little while +ago, when she was back again with her lover and the birds in the gardens +of Granada. She would sing to someone who cared to hear her, and to +someone who would make her care to sing, which was far more important. +She would sing to the master-carpenter. Though he had not asked her to +go with him--only to meet in a secret place in the hills--she meant to +do so, just as she once meant to marry Jean Jacques, and had done so. It +was true she would probably not have married Jean Jacques, if it had not +been for the wreck of the Antoine; but the wreck had occurred, and she +had married him, and that was done and over so far as she was concerned. +She had determined to go away with the master-carpenter, and though he +might feel the same hesitation as that which Jean Jacques had shown--she +had read her Norman aright aboard the Antoine--yet, still, George Masson +should take her away. A catastrophe had thrown Jean Jacques into +her arms; it would not be a catastrophe which would throw the +master-carpenter into her arms. It would be that they wanted each other. + +The mirror gave her a look of dominance--was it her regular features and +her classic head? Does beauty in itself express authority, just because +it has the transcendent thing in it? Does the perfect form convey +something of the same thing that physical force--an army in arms, +a battleship--conveys? In any case it was there, that inherent +masterfulness, though not in its highest form. She was not an +aristocrat, she was no daughter of kings, no duchess of Castile, no dona +of Segovia; and her beauty belonged to more primary manifestations; but +it was above the lower forms, even if it did not reach to the highest. +"A handsome even splendid woman of her class" would have been the +judgment of the connoisseur. + +As she looked in the glass at her clear skin, at the wonderful throat +showing so soft and palpable and tower-like under the black velvet +ribbon brightened by a paste ornament; as she saw the smooth breadth of +brow, the fulness of the lips, the limpid lustre of the large eyes, the +well-curved ear, so small and so like ivory, it came home to her, as it +had never done before, that she was wasted in this obscure parish of St. +Saviour's. + +There was not a more restless soul or body in all the hemisphere than +the soul and body of Carmen Barbille, as she went from this to that +on the morning when Jean Jacques had refrained from killing the +soul-disturber, the master-carpenter, who had with such skill destroyed +the walls and foundations of his home. Carmen was pointlessly busy as +she watched for the return of Jean Jacques. + +At last she saw him coming from the flume of the mill! She saw that he +stumbled as he walked, and that, every now and then, he lifted his head +with an effort and threw it back, and threw his shoulders back also, as +though to assert his physical manhood. He wore no hat, his hands were +making involuntary gestures of helplessness. But presently he seemed +to assert authority over his fumbling body and to come erect. His hands +clenched at his sides, his head came up stiffly and stayed, and with +quickened footsteps he marched rigidly forward towards the Manor. + +Then she guessed at the truth, and as soon as she saw his face she was +sure beyond peradventure that he knew. + +His figure darkened the doorway. Her first thought was to turn and flee, +not because she was frightened of what he would do, but because she did +not wish to hear what he would say. She shrank from the uprolling of +the curtain of the last thirteen years, from the grim exposure of the +nakedness of their life together. Her indolent nature in repose wanted +the dust of existence swept into a corner out of sight; yet when she was +roused, and there were no corners into which the dust could be swept, +she could be as bold as any better woman. + +She hesitated till it was too late to go, and then as he entered the +house from the staring sunlight and the peace of the morning, she +straightened herself, and a sulky, stubborn look came into her eyes. He +might try to kill her, but she had seen death in many forms far away +in Spain, and she would not be afraid till there was cause. Imagination +would not take away her courage. She picked up a half-knitted stocking +which lay upon the table, and standing there, while he came into the +middle of the room, she began to ply the needles. + +He stood still. Her face was bent over her knitting. She did not look at +him. + +"Well, why don't you look at me?" he asked in a voice husky with +passion. + +She raised her head and looked straight into his dark, distracted eyes. + +"Good morning," she said calmly. + +A kind of snarling laugh came to his lips. "I said good morning to my +wife yesterday, but I will not say it to-day. What is the use of saying +good morning, when the morning is not good!" + +"That's logical, anyhow," she said, her needles going faster now. She +was getting control of them--and of herself. + +"Why isn't the morning good? Speak. Why isn't it good, Carmen?" + +"Quien sabe--who knows!" she replied with exasperating coolness. + +"I know--I know all; and it is enough for a lifetime," he challenged. + +"What do you know--what is the 'all'?" Her voice had lost timbre. It was +suddenly weak, but from suspense and excitement rather than from fear. + +"I saw you last night with him, by the river. I saw what you did. I +heard you say, 'Yes, to-morrow, for sure.' I saw what you did." + +Her eyes were busy with the knitting now. She did not know what to +say. Then, he had known all since the night before! He knew it when he +pretended that his head ached--knew it as he lay by her side all night. +He knew it, and said nothing! But what had he done--what had he done? +She waited for she knew not what. George Masson was to come and inspect +the flume early that morning. Had he come? She had not seen him. But +the river was flowing through the flume: she could hear the mill-wheel +turning--she could hear the mill-wheel turning! + +As she did not speak, with a curious husky shrillness to his voice he +said: "There he was down in the flume, there was I at the lever above, +there was the mill-wheel unlocked. There it was. I gripped the lever, +and--" + +Her great eyes stared with horror. The knitting-needles stopped; a +pallor swept across her face. She felt as she did when she heard the +court-martial sentence Carvillho Gonzales to death. + +The mill-wheel sounded louder and louder in her ears. + +"You let in the river!" she cried. "You drove him into the wheel--you +killed him!" + +"What else was there to do?" he demanded. "It had to be done, and it +was the safest way. It would be an accident. Such a thing might easily +happen." + +"You have murdered him!" she gasped with a wild look. + +"To call it murder!" he sneered. "Surely my wife would not call it +murder." + +"Fiend--not to have the courage to fight him!" she flung back at him. +"To crawl like a snake and let loose a river on a man! In any other +country, he'd have been given a chance." + +This was his act in a new light. He had had only one idea in his mind +when he planned the act, and that was punishment. What rights had a man +who had stolen what was nearer and dearer than a man's own flesh, and +for which he would have given his own flesh fifty times? Was it that +Carmen would now have him believe he ought to have fought the man, who +had spoiled his life and ruined a woman's whole existence. + +"What chance had I when he robbed me in the dark of what is worth fifty +times my own life to me?" he asked savagely. + +"Murderer--murderer!" she cried hoarsely. "You shall pay for this." + +"You will tell--you will give me up?" + +Her eyes were on the mill and the river... "Where--where is he? Has he +gone down the river? Did you kill him and let him go--like that!" + +She made a flinging gesture, as one would toss a stone. + +He stared at her. He had never seen her face like that--so strained and +haggard. George Masson was right when he said that she would give him +up; that his life would be in danger, and that his child's life would be +spoiled. + +"Murderer!" she repeated. "And when you go to the gallows, your child's +life--you did not think of that, eh? To have your revenge on the man who +was no more to blame than I, thinking only of yourself, you killed him; +but you did not think of your child." + +Ah, yes, surely George Masson was right! That was what he had said about +his child, Zoe. What a good thing it was he had not killed the ravager +of his home! + +But suddenly his logic came to his aid. In terrible misery as he was, he +was almost pleased that he could reason. "And you would give me over to +the law? You would send me to the gallows--and spoil your child's life?" +he retorted. + +She threw the knitting down and flung her hands up. "I have no husband. +I have no child. Take your life. Take it. I will go and find his body," +she said, and she moved swiftly towards the door. "He has gone down the +river--I will find him!" + +"He has gone up the river," he exclaimed. "Up the river, I say!" + +She stopped short and looked at him blankly. Then his meaning became +clear to her. + +"You did not kill him?" she asked scarce above a whisper. + +"I let him go," he replied. + +"You did not fight him--why?" There was scorn in her tone. + +"And if I had killed him that way?" he asked with terrible logic, as he +thought. + +"There was little chance of that," she replied scornfully, and steadied +herself against a chair; for, now that the suspense was over, she felt +as though she had been passed between stones which ground the strength +out of her. + +A flush of fierce resentment crossed over his face. "It is not +everything to be big," he rejoined. "The greatest men in the world have +been small like me, but they have brought the giant things to their +feet." + +She waved a hand disdainfully. "What are you going to do now?" she +asked. + +He drew himself up. He seemed to rearrange the motions of his mind with +a little of the old vanity, which was at once grotesque and piteous. +"I am going to forgive you and to try to put things right," he said. "I +have had my faults. You were not to blame altogether. I have left you +too much alone. I did not understand everything all through. I had never +studied women. If I had I should have done the right thing always. I +must begin to study women." The drawn look was going a little from his +face, the ghastly pain was fading from his eyes; his heart was speaking +for her, while his vain intellect hunted the solution of his problem. + +She could scarcely believe her ears. No Spaniard would ever have acted +as this man was doing. She had come from a land of No Forgiveness. +Carvillho Gonzales would have killed her, if she had been untrue to him; +and she would have expected it and understood it. + +But Jean Jacques was going to forgive her--going to study women, and so +understand her and understand women, as he understood philosophy! This +was too fantastic for human reason. She stared at him, unable to say a +word, and the distracted look in her face did not lessen. Forgiveness +did not solve her problem. + +"I am going to take you to Montreal--and then out to Winnipeg, when I've +got the cheese-factory going," he said with a wise look in his face, and +with tenderness even coming into his eyes. "I know what mistakes I've +made"--had not George Masson the despoiler told him of them?--"and I +know what a scoundrel that fellow is, and what tricks of the tongue he +has. Also he is as sleek to look at as a bull, and so he got a hold on +you. I grasp things now. Soon we will start away together again as we +did at Gaspe." + +He came close to her. "Carmen!" he said, and made as though he would +embrace her. + +"Wait--wait a little. Give me time to think," she said with dry lips, +her heart beating hard. Then she added with a flattery which she knew +would tell, "I cannot think quick as you do. I am slow. I must have +time. I want to work it all out. Wait till to-night," she urged. "Then +we can--" + +"Good, we will make it all up to-night," he said, and he patted her +shoulder as one would that of a child. It had the slight flavour of the +superior and the paternal. + +She almost shrank from his touch. If he had kissed her she would have +felt that she must push him away; and yet she also knew how good a man +he was. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE + +"Well, what is it, M'sieu' Fille? What do you want with me? I've got a +lot to do before sundown, and it isn't far off. Out with it." + +George Masson was in no good humour; from the look on the face of the +little Clerk of the Court he had no idea that he would disclose any good +news. It was probably some stupid business about "money not being paid +into the Court," which had been left over from cases tried and lost; +and he had had a number of cases that summer. His head was not so clear +to-day as usual, but he had had little difficulties with M'sieu' Fille +before, and he was sure that there was something wrong now. + +"Do you want to make me a present?" he added with humorous impatience, +for though he was not in a good temper, he liked the Clerk of the Court, +who was such a figure at Vilray. + +The opening for his purpose did not escape M. Fille. He had been at a +loss to begin, but here was a natural opportunity for him. + +"Well, good advice is not always a present, but I should like mine to be +taken as such, monsieur," he said a little oracularly. + +"Oh, advice--to give me advice--that's why you've brought me in here, +when I've so much to do I can't breathe! Time is money with me, old +'un." + +"Mine is advice which may be money in your pocket, monsieur," remarked +the Clerk of the Court with meaning. "Money saved is money earned." + +"How do you mean to save me money--by getting the Judge to give +decisions in my favour? That would be money in my pocket for sure. The +Court has been running against my interests this year. When I think +I was never so right in my life--bang goes the judgment of the Court +against me, and into my pocket goes my hand. I don't only need to save +money, I need to make it; so if you can help me in that way I'm your +man, M'sieu' la Fillette?" + +The little man bristled at the misuse of his name, and he flushed +slightly also; but there was always something engaging in the +pleasure-loving master-carpenter. He had such an eloquent and warm +temperament, the atmosphere of his personality was so genial, that +his impertinence was insulated. Certainly the master-carpenter was not +unpopular, and people could not easily resist the grip of his physical +influence, while mentally he was far indeed from being deficient. He +looked as little like a villain as a man could, and yet--and yet--a +nature like that of George Masson (even the little Clerk could see that) +was not capable of being true beyond the minute in which he took his +oath of fidelity. While the fit of willingness was on him he would be +true; yet in reality there was no truth at all--only self-indulgence +unmarked by duty or honour. + +"Give me a judgment for defamation of character. Give me a thousand +dollars or so for that, m'sieu', and you'll do a good turn to a +deserving fellow-citizen and admirer--one little thousand, that's all, +m'sieu'. Then I'll dance at your wedding and weep at your tomb--so +there!" + +How easy he made the way for the little Clerk of the Court! "Defamation +of character"--could there possibly be a better opening for what he had +promised Judge Carcasson he would say! + +"Ah, Monsieur Masson," very officially and decorously replied M. Fille, +"but is it defamation of character? If the thing is true, then what is +the judgment? It goes against you--so there!" There was irony in the +last words. + +"If what thing is true?" sharply asked the mastercarpenter, catching at +the fringe of the idea in M. Fille's mind. "What thing?" + +"Ah, but it is true, for I saw it! Yes, alas! I saw it with my own +eyes. By accident of course; but there it was--absolute, uncompromising, +deadly and complete." + +It was a happy moment for the little Clerk of the Court when he could, +in such an impromptu way, coin a phrase, or a set of adjectives, which +would bear inspection of purists of the language. He loved to +talk, though he did not talk a great deal, but he made innumerable +conversations in his mind, and that gave him facility when he did +speak. He had made conversations with George Masson in his mind since +yesterday, when he gave his promise to Judge Carcasson; but none of +them was like the real conversation now taking place. It was all +the impression of the moment, while the phrases in his mind had been +wonderfully logical things which, from an intellectual standpoint, would +have delighted the man whose cause he was now engaged in defending. + +"You saw what, M'sieu' la Fillette? Out with it, and don't use such big +adjectives. I'm only a carpenter. 'Absolute, uncompromising, deadly, +complete'--that's a mouthful of grammar, my lords! Come, my sprig of +jurisprudence, tell us what you saw." There was an apparent nervousness +in Masson's manner now. Indeed he showed more agitation than when, a few +hours before, Jean Jacques had stood with his hand on the lever of the +gates of the flume, and the life of the master-carpenter at his feet, to +be kicked into eternity. + +"Four days ago at five o'clock in the afternoon"--in a voice formal and +exact, the little Clerk of the Court seemed to be reading from a paper, +since he kept his eyes fixed on the blotter before him, as he did in +Court--"I was coming down the hill behind the Manor Cartier, when my +attention--by accident--was drawn to a scene below me in the Manor. I +stopped short, of course, and--" + +"Diable! You stopped short 'of course' before what you saw! Spit it +out--what did you see?" George Masson had had a trying day, and there +was danger of losing control of himself. There was a whiteness growing +round the eyes, and eating up the warmth of the cheek; his admirably +smooth brow was contracted into heavy wrinkles, and a foot shifted +uneasily on the floor with a scraping sole. This drew the attention of +M. Fille, who raised his head reprovingly--he could not get rid of the +feeling that he was in court, and that a case was being tried; and the +severity of a Judge is naught compared with the severity of a Clerk of +the Court, particularly if he is small and unmarried, and has no one to +beat him into manageable humanity. + +M. Fille's voice was almost querulous. + +"If you will but be patient, monsieur! I saw a man with a woman in his +arms, and I fear that I must mention the name of the man. It is not +necessary to give the name of the woman, but I have it written here"--he +tapped the paper--"and there is no mistake in the identity. The man's +name is George Masson, master-carpenter, of the town of Laplatte in the +province of Quebec." + +George Masson was as one hit between the eyes. He made a motion as +though to ward off a blow. "Name of Peter, old cock!" he exclaimed +abruptly. "You saw enough certainly, if you saw that, and you needn't +mention the lady's name, as you say. The evidence is not merely +circumstantial. You saw it with your own eyes, and you are an official +of the Court, and have the ear of the Judge, and you look like a saint +to a jury. Well for sure, I can't prove defamation of character, as you +say. But what then--what do you want?" + +"What I want I hope you may be able to grant without demur, monsieur. +I want you to give your pledge on the Book"--he laid his hand on +a Testament lying on the table--"that you will hold no further +communication with the lady." + +"Where do you come inhere? What's your standing in the business?" +Masson jerked out his words now. The Clerk of the Court made a reproving +gesture. "Knowing what I did, what I had seen, it was clear that I must +approach one or other of the parties concerned. Out of regard for the +lady I could not approach her husband, and so betray her; out of regard +for the husband I could not approach himself and destroy his peace; out +of regard for all concerned I could not approach the lady's father, for +then--" + +Masson interrupted with an oath. + +"That old reprobate of Cadiz--well no, bagosh! + +"And so you whisked me into your office with the talk of urgent business +and--" + +"Is not the business urgent, monsieur?" + +"Not at all," was the sharp reply of the culprit. + +"Monsieur, you shock me. Do you consider that your conduct is not +criminal? I have here"--he placed his hand on a book--"the Statutes of +Victoria, and it lays down with wholesome severity the law concerning +the theft of the affection of a wife, with the accompanying penalty, +going as high as twenty thousand dollars." + +George Masson gasped. Here was a new turn of affairs. But he set his +teeth. + +"Twenty thousand dollars--think of that!" he sneered angrily. + +"That is what I said, monsieur. I said I could save you money, and money +saved is money earned. I am your benefactor, if you will but permit me +to be so, monsieur. I would save you from the law, and from the damages +which the law gives. Can you not guess what would be given in a court of +the Catholic province of Quebec, against the violation of a good man's +home? Do you not see that the business is urgent?" + +"Not at all," curtly replied the master-carpenter. M. Fille bridled up, +and his spare figure seemed to gain courage and dignity. + +"If you think I will hold my peace unless you give your sacred pledge, +you are mistaken, monsieur. I am no meddler, but I have had much +kindness at the hands of Monsieur and Madame Barbille, and I will do +what I can to protect them and their daughter--that good and sweet +daughter, from the machinations, corruptions and malfeasance--" + +"Three damn good words for the Court, bagosh!" exclaimed Masson with a +jeer. + +"No, with a man devoid of honour, I shall not hesitate, for the Manor +Cartier has been the home of domestic peace, and madame, who came to +us a stranger, deserves well of the people of that ancient abode of +chivalry-the chivalry of France." + +"When we are wound up, what a humming we can make!" laughed George +Masson sourly. "Have you quite finished, m'sieu'?" + +"The matter is urgent, you will admit, monsieur?" again demanded M. +Fille with austerity. + +"Not at all." + +The master-carpenter was defiant and insolent, yet there was a devilish +kind of humour in his tone as in his attitude. + +"You will not heed the warning I give?" The little Clerk pointed to the +open page of the Victorian statutes before him. + +"Not at all." + +"Then I shall, with profound regret--" + +Suddenly George Masson thrust his face forward near that of M. Fille, +who did not draw back. + +"You will inform the Court that the prisoner refuses to incriminate +himself, eh?" he interjected. + +"No, monsieur, I will inform Monsieur Barbille of what I saw. I will do +this without delay. It is the one thing left me to do." + +In quite a grand kind of way he stood up and bowed, as though to dismiss +his visitor. + +As George Masson did not move, the other went to the door and opened +it. "It is the only thing left to do," he repeated, as he made a gentle +gesture of dismissal. + +"Not at all, my legal bombardier. Not at all, I say. All you know Jean +Jacques knows, and a good deal more--what he has seen with his own +eyes, and understood with his own mind, without legal help. So, you see, +you've kept me here talking when there's no need and while my business +waits. It is urgent, M'sieu' la Fillette--your business is stale. It +belongs to last session of the Court." He laughed at his joke. "M'sieu' +Jean Jacques and I understand each other." He laughed grimly now. "We +know each other like a book, and the Clerk of the Court couldn't get in +an adjective that would make the sense of it all clearer." + +Slowly M. Fille shut the door, and very slowly he came back. Almost +blindly, as it might seem, and with a moan, he dropped into his chair. +His eyes fixed themselves on George Masson. + +"Ah--that!" he said helplessly. "That! The little Zoe--dear God, the +little Zoe, and the poor madame!" His voice was aching with pain and +repugnance. + +"If you were not such an icicle naturally, I'd be thinking your interest +in the child was paternal," said the master-carpenter roughly, for the +virtuous horror of the other's face annoyed him. He had had a vexing +day. + +The Clerk of the Court was on his feet in a second. "Monsieur, you +dare!" he exclaimed. "You dare to multiply your crimes in that shameless +way. Begone! There are those who can make you respect decency. I am +not without my friends, and we all stand by each other in our love of +home--of sacred home, monsieur." + +There was something right in the master-carpenter at the bottom, with +all his villainy. It was not alone that he knew there were fifty men +in the Parish of St. Saviour's who would man-handle him for such a +suggestion, and for what he had done at the Manor Cartier, if they were +roused; but he also had a sudden remorse for insulting the man who, +after all, had tried to do him a service. His amende was instant. + +"I take it back with humble apology--all I can hold in both hands, +m'sieu'," he said at once. "I would not insult you so, much less Madame +Barbille. If she'd been like what I've hinted at, I wouldn't have gone +her way, for the promiscuous is not for me. I'll tell you the whole +truth of what happened to-day this morning. Last night I met her at the +river, and--Then briefly he told all that had happened to the moment +when Jean Jacques had left him at the flume with the words, 'Moi, je +suis philosophe!' And at the last he said: + +"I give you my word--my oath on this"--he laid his hand on the Testament +on the table--"that beyond what you saw, and what Jean Jacques saw, +there has been nothing." He held up a hand as though taking an oath. + +"Name of God, is it not enough what there has been?" whispered the +little Clerk. + +"Oh, as you think, and as you say! It is quite enough for me after +to-day. I'm a teetotaller, but I'm not so fond of water as to want to +take my eternal bath in it." He shuddered slightly. "Bien sur, I've had +my fill of the Manor Cartier for one day, my Clerk of the Court." + +"Bien sur, it was enough to set you thinking, monsieur," was the dry +comment of M. Fille, who was now recovering his composure. + +At that moment there came a knock at the door, and another followed +quickly; then there entered without waiting for a reply--Carmen +Barbille. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM + +The Clerk of the Court came to his feet with a startled "Merci!" and the +master-carpenter fell back with a smothered exclamation. Both men stared +confusedly at the woman as she shut the door slowly and, as it might +seem, carefully, before she faced them. + +"Here I am, George," she said, her face alive with vital adventure. + +His face was instantly swept by a storm of feeling for her, his nature +responded to the sound of her voice and the passion of her face. + +"Carmen--ah!" he said, and took a step forward, then stopped. The hoarse +feeling in his voice made her eyes flash gratitude and triumph, and she +waited for him to take her in his arms; but she suddenly remembered M. +Fille. She turned to him. + +"I am sorry to intrude, m'sieu'," she said. "I beg your pardon. They +told me at the office of avocat Prideaux that M'sieu' Masson was here. +So I came; but be sure I would not interrupt you if there was not +cause." + +M. Fille came forward and took her hand respectfully. "Madame, it is +the first time you have honoured me here. I am very glad to receive you. +Monsieur and Mademoiselle Zoe, they are with you? They will also come in +perhaps?" + +M. Fille was courteous and kind, yet he felt that a duty was devolving +on him, imposed by his superior officer, Judge Carcasson, and by his +own conscience, and with courage he faced the field of trouble which his +simple question opened up. George Masson had but now said there had been +nothing more than he himself had seen from the hill behind the Manor; +and he had further said, in effect, that all was ended between Carmen +Barbille and himself; yet here they were together, when they ought to be +a hundred miles apart for many a day. Besides, there was the look in +the woman's face, and that intense look also in the face of the +master-carpenter! The Clerk of the Court, from sheer habit of his +profession, watched human faces as other people watch the weather, or +the rise or fall in the price of wheat and potatoes. He was an archaic +little official, and apparently quite unsophisticated; yet there was +hidden behind his ascetic face a quiet astuteness which would have +been a valuable asset to a worldly-minded and ambitious man. Besides, +affection sharpens the wits. Through it the hovering, protecting sense +becomes instinctive, and prescience takes on uncanny certainty. He had +a real and deep affection for Jean Jacques and his Carmen, and a deeper +one still for the child Zoe; and the danger to the home at the Manor +Cartier now became again as sharp as the knife of the guillotine. His +eyes ran from the woman to the man, and back again, and then with great +courage he repeated his question: + +"Monsieur and mademoiselle, they are well--they are with you, I hope, +madame?" + +She looked at him in the eyes without flinching, and on the instant she +was aware that he knew all, and that there had been talk with George +Masson. She knew the little man to be as good as ever can be, but she +resented the fact that he knew. It was clear George Masson had told +him--else how could he know; unless, perhaps, all the world knew! + +"You know well enough that I have come alone, my friend," she answered. +"It is no place for Zoe; and it is no place for my husband and him +together," she made a motion of the head towards the mastercarpenter. +"Santa Maria, you know it very well indeed!" + +The Clerk of the Court bowed, but made no reply. What was there to say +to a remark like that! It was clear that the problem must be worked out +alone between these two people, though he was not quite sure what the +problem was. The man had said the thing was over; but the woman had +come, and the look of both showed that it was not all over. + +What would the man do? What was it the woman wished to do? The +master-carpenter had said that Jean Jacques had spared him, and meant to +forgive his wife. No doubt he had done so, for Jean Jacques was a man +of sentiment and chivalry, and there was no proof that there had been +anything more than a few mad caresses between the two misdemeanants; yet +here was the woman with the man for whom she had imperilled her future +and that of her husband and child! + +As though Carmen understood what was going on in his mind, she said: +"Since you know everything, you can understand that I want a few words +with M'sieu' George here alone." + +"Madame, I beg of you," the Clerk of the Court answered instantly, his +voice trembling a little--"I beg that you will not be alone with him. +As I believe, your husband is willing to let bygones be bygones, and to +begin to-morrow as though there was no to-day. In such case you should +not see Monsieur Masson here alone. It is bad enough to see him here in +the office of the Clerk of the Court, but to see him alone--what would +Monsieur Jean Jacques say? Also, outside there in the street, if our +neighbours should come to know of the trouble, what would they say? I +wish not to be tiresome, but as a friend, a true friend of your whole +family, madame--yes, in spite of all, your whole family--I hope you +will realize that I must remain here. I owe it to a past made happy by +kindness which is to me like life itself. Monsieur Masson, is it +not so?" he added, turning to the master-carpenter. More flushed +and agitated than when he had faced Jean Jacques in the flume, the +master-carpenter said: "If she wants a few words-of farewell--alone +with me, she must have it, M'sieu' Fille. The other room--eh? Outside +there"--he jerked a finger towards the street--"they won't know that you +are not with us; and as for Jean Jacques, isn't it possible for a Clerk +of the Court to stretch the truth a little? Isn't the Clerk of the Court +a man as well as a mummy? I'd do as much for you, little lawyer, any +time. A word to say farewell, you understand!" He looked M. Fille +squarely in the eye. + +"If I had to answer M. Jean Jacques on such a matter--and so much at +stake--" + +Masson interrupted. "Well, if you like we'll bind your eyes and put wads +in your ears, and you can stay, so that you'll have been in the room +all the time, and yet have heard and seen nothing at all. How is that, +m'sieu'? It's all right, isn't it?" + +M. Fille stood petrified for a moment at the audacity of the +proposition. For him, the Clerk of the Court, to be blinded and made +ridiculous with wads in his ears-impossible! + +"Grace of Heaven, I would prefer to lie!" he answered quickly. "I will +go into the next room, but I beg that you be brief, monsieur and madame. +You owe it to yourselves and to the situation to be brief, and, if I may +say so, you owe it to me. I am not a practised Ananias." + +"As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, m'sieu'," returned Masson. + +"I must beg that you will make your farewells of a minute and no more," +replied the Clerk of the Court firmly. He took out his watch. "It is +six o'clock. I will come again at three minutes past six. That is long +enough for any farewell--even on the gallows." + +Not daring to look at the face of the woman, he softly disappeared into +the other room, and shut the door without a sound. + +"Too good for this world," remarked the master-carpenter when the +door closed tight. He said it after the disappearing figure and not to +Carmen. "I don't suppose he ever kissed a real grown-up woman in his +life. It would have shattered his frail little carcass if, if"--he +turned to his companion--"if you had kissed him, Carmen. He's made of +tissue-paper,--not tissue--and apple-jelly. Yes, but a stiff little +backbone, too, or he'd not have faced me down." + +Masson talked as though he were trying to gain time. "He said three +minutes," she returned with a look of death in her face. As George +Masson had talked with the Clerk of the Court, she had come to see, in +so far as agitation would permit, that he was not the same as when he +left her by the river the evening before. + +"There's no time to waste," she continued. "You spoke of +farewells--twice you spoke, and three times he spoke of farewells +between us. Farewells--farewells--George--!" + +With sudden emotion she held out her arms, and her face flushed with +passion and longing. + +The tempest which shook her shook him also, and he swayed from side to +side like an animal uncertain if the moment had come to try its strength +with its foe; and in truth the man was fighting with himself. His +moments with Jean Jacques at the flume had expanded him in a curious +kind of way. His own arguments while he was fighting for his life +had, in a way, convinced himself. She was a rare creature, and she was +alluring--more alluring than she had ever been; for a tragic sense had +made her thinner, had refined the boldness of her beauty, had given a +wonderful lustre to her eyes; and suffering has its own attraction to +the degenerate. But he, George Masson, had had a great shock, and he had +come out of the jaws of death by the skin of his teeth. It had been the +nearest thing he had ever known; for though once he had had a pistol +pointed at him, there was the chance that it might miss at half-a-dozen +yards, while there was no chance of the lever of the flume going wrong; +and water and a mill-wheel were as absolute as the rope of the gallows. + +In a sense he had saved himself by his cleverness, but if Jean Jacques +had not been just the man he was, he could not have saved himself. It +did not occur to him that Jean Jacques had acted weakly. He would not +have done what Jean Jacques had done, had Jean Jacques spoiled his home. +He would have sprung the lever; but he was not so mean as to despise +Jean Jacques because he had foregone his revenge. This master-carpenter +had certain gifts, or he could not have caused so much trouble in the +world. There is a kind of subtlety necessary to allure or delude even +the humblest of women, if she is not naturally bad; and Masson had had +experiences with the humblest, and also with those a little higher up. +This much had to be said for him, that he did not think Jean Jacques +contemptible because he had been merciful, or degraded because he had +chosen to forgive his wife. + +The sight of the woman, as she stood with arms outstretched, had made +his pulses pound in his veins, but the heat was suddenly chilled by the +wave of tragedy which had passed over him. When he had climbed out of +the flume, and opened the lever for the river to rush through, he had +felt as though ice--cold liquid flowed in his veins, not blood; and all +day he had been like that. He had moved much as one in a dream, and he +had felt for the first time in his life that he was not ready to bluff +creation. He had always faced things down, as long as it could be done; +and when it could not, he had retreated, with the comment that no man +was wise who took gruel when he needn't. He was now face to face with +his greatest problem. One thing was clear--they must either part for +ever, or go together, and part no more. There could be no half measures. +She was a remarkable woman in her way, with a will of her own, and a +kind of madness in her; and there could be no backing and filling. They +only had three minutes to talk together alone, and two of them were up. + +Her arms were held out to him, but he stood still, and before the fire +of her eyes his own eyes dropped. "No, not yet!" he exclaimed. "It's +been a day--heaven and hell, what a day it's been! He had me like that!" +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 years old. She will soon be old enough to keep house for him, +and then to marry--ah, before there is time to think she will marry!" + +"It would be better then for you to wait till she marries +before--before--" + +"Before I go away with you!" She gave a shrill, agonized laugh. "So that +is the end of it all! What did you think of my child when you forced +your way into my life, when you made me think of you--ah, quel +bete--what a coward and beast you are!" + +"No, I am not all coward, though I may be a beast," he answered. "I +didn't think of your child when I began to talk to you as I did. I was +out for all I could get. I was the hunter. And you were the finest woman +that I'd ever met and talked with; you--" + +"Oh, stop lying!" she cried with a face suddenly grown white and cold. + +"It isn't lying. You're the sort of woman to drive men mad. I went mad, +and I didn't think of your child. But this morning in the flume I +saved my life by thinking of her, and I saved your life, too, maybe, by +thinking of her; and I owe her something. I'm going to try to pay back +by letting her keep her mother. I never felt towards a woman as I've +felt towards you; and that's why I want to make things not so bad for +you as they might be." + +In her bitter eagerness she took a step nearer to him. "As things +might be, if you were the man you were yesterday, willing to throw up +everything for me?" + +"Like that--if you put it so," he answered. + +She walked slowly up to him, looking as though she would plunge a knife +into his heart. "I wish Jean Jacques had opened the gates," she said. +"It would have saved the hangman trouble." + +Then suddenly, and with a cry, she raised her hand and struck him full +in the face with her fist. At that instant came a tap at the door of the +other room, and the Clerk of the Court appeared. He saw the blow, and +drew back with an exclamation. + +Carmen turned to him. "Farewell has been said, M'sieu' Fille," she +remarked in a voice sombre with rage and despair, and she went to the +door leading to the street. + +Masson had winced at the blow, but he remained silent. He knew not what +to say or do. + +M. Fille hastily followed Carmen to the door. "You are going home, +dear madame? Permit me to accompany you," he said gently. "I have to do +business with Jean Jacques." + +A hand upon his chest, she pushed him back. "Where I go I'm going +alone," she said. Opening the door she went out, but turning back +again she gave George Masson a look that he never forgot. Then the door +closed. + +"Grace of God, she is not going home!" brokenly murmured the Clerk of +the Court. + +With a groan the master-carpenter started forward towards the door, but +M. Fille stepped between, laid a hand on his arm, and stopped him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE + + "Oh, who will walk the wood with me, + I fear to walk alone; + So young am I, as you may see; + No dangers have I known. + So young, so small--ah, yes, m'sieu', + I'll walk the wood with you!" + +In the last note of the song applause came instantaneously, almost +impatiently, as it might seem. With cries of "Encore! Encore!" it lasted +some time, while the happy singer looked around with frank pleasure on +the little group encircling her in the Manor Cartier. + +"Did you like it so much?" she asked in a general way, and not looking +at any particular person. A particular person, however, replied, and she +had addressed the question to him, although not looking at him. He was +the Man from Outside, and he sat near the bright wood-fire; for though +it was almost June the night was cool and he was delicate. + +"Ah, but splendid, but splendid--it got into every corner of every one +of us," the Man from Outside responded, speaking his fluent French with +a slight English accent, which had a pleasant piquancy--at least to the +ears of the pretty singer, Mdlle. Zoe Barbille. He was a man of +about thirty-three, clean-shaven, dark-haired, with an expression of +cleverness; yet with an irresponsible something about him which M. +Fille had reflected upon with concern. For this slim, eager, talkative, +half-invalid visitor to St. Saviour's had of late shown a marked liking +for the presence and person of Zoe Barbille; and Zoe was as dear to M. +Fille as though she were his own daughter. He it was who, in sarcasm, +had spoken of this young stranger as "The Man from Outside." + +Ever since Zoe's mother had vanished--alone--seven years before from the +Manor Cartier, or rather from his office at Vilray, M. Fille had been +as much like a maiden aunt or a very elder brother to the Spanische's +daughter as a man could be. Of M. Fille's influence over his daughter +and her love of his companionship, Jean Jacques had no jealousy +whatever. Very often indeed, when he felt incompetent to do for his +child all that he wished--philosophers are often stupid in human +affairs--he thought it was a blessing Zoe had a friend like M. Fille. +Since the terrible day when he found that his wife had gone from +him--not with the master-carpenter who only made his exit from Laplatte +some years afterwards--he had had no desire to have a woman at the Manor +to fill her place, even as housekeeper. He had never swerved from +that. He had had a hard row to hoe, but he had hoed it with a will not +affected by domestic accidents or inconveniences. The one woman from +outside whom he permitted to go and come at will--and she did not +come often, because she and M. Fille agreed it would be best not to do +so--was the sister of the Cure. To be sure there was Seraphe Corniche, +the old cook, but she was buried in her kitchen, and Jean Jacques +treated her like a man. + +When Zoe was confirmed, and had come back from Montreal, having spent +two years in a convent there--the only time she had been away from her +father in seven years--having had her education chiefly from a Catholic +"brother," the situation developed in a new way. Zoe at once became +as conspicuous in the country-side as her father had been over so many +years. She was fresh, volatile, without affectation or pride, and had +a temperament responsive to every phase of life's simple interests. She +took the attention of the young men a little bit as her due, but yet +without conceit. The gallants had come about her like bees, for there +was Jean Jacques' many businesses and his reputation for wealth; and +there was her own charm, concerning which there could be far less doubt +than about Jean Jacques' magnificent solvency. + +Zoe had gone heart-whole and with no especial preference for any young +man, until the particular person came, the Man from Outside. + +His name was Gerard Fynes, and his business was mumming. He was a young +lawyer turned actor, and he had lived in Montreal before he went on the +stage. He was English--that was a misfortune; he was an actor--that was +a greater misfortune, for it suggested vagabondage of morals as well +as of profession; and he was a Protestant, which was the greatest +misfortune of all. But he was only at St. Saviour's for his +convalescence after a so-called attack of congestion of the lungs; and +as he still had a slight cough and looked none too robust, and as, more +than all, he was simple in his ways, enjoying the life of the parish +with greater zest than the residents, he found popularity. Undoubtedly +he had a taking way with him. He was lodging with Louis Charron, a +small farmer and kinsman of Jean Jacques, who sold whisky--"white +whisky"--without a license. It was a Charron family habit to sell +liquor illegally, and Louis pursued the career with all an amateur's +enthusiasm. He had a sovereign balm for "colds," composed of camomile +flowers, boneset, liquorice, pennyroyal and gentian root, which he sold +to all comers; and it was not unnatural that a visitor with weak lungs +should lodge with him. + +Louis and his wife had only good things to say about Gerard Fynes; for +the young man lived their life as though he was born to it. He ate the +slap-jacks, the buttermilk-pop, the pork and beans, the Indian corn on +the cob, the pea-soup, and the bread baked in the roadside oven, with a +relish which was not all pretence; for indeed he was as primitive as he +was subtle. He himself could not have told how much of him was true and +how much was make-believe. But he was certainly lovable, and he was not +bad by nature. Since coming to St. Saviour's he had been constant to one +attraction, and he had not risked his chances with Zoe by response to +the shy invitations of dark eyes, young and not so young, which met his +own here and there in the parish. + +Only M. Fille and Jean Jacques himself had feelings of real antagonism +to him. Jean Jacques, though not naturally suspicious, had, however, +seen an understanding look pass between his Zoe and this stranger--this +Protestant English stranger from the outer world, to which Jean Jacques +went less frequently since his fruitless search for his vanished Carmen. +The Clerk of the Court saw that Jean Jacques had observed the intimate +glances of the two young people, and their eyes met in understanding. It +was just before Zoe had sung so charmingly, 'Oh, Who Will Walk the Wood +With Me'. + +At first after Carmen's going Jean Jacques had found it hard to endure +singing in his house. Zoe's trilling was torture to him, though he had +never forbidden her to sing, and she had sung on to her heart's content. +By a subtle instinct, however, and because of the unspoken sorrow in her +own heart, she never sang the songs like 'La Manola'. Never after the +day Carmen went did Zoe speak of her mother to anyone at all. It was +worse than death; it was annihilation, so far as speech was concerned. +The world at large only knew that Carmen Barbille had run away, and that +even Sebastian Dolores her father did not know where she was. The old +man had not heard from her, and he seldom visited at the Manor Cartier +or saw his grand-daughter. His own career of late years had been marked +by long sojourns in Quebec, Montreal and even New York; yet he always +came back to St. Saviour's when he was penniless, and was there started +afresh by Jean Jacques. Some said that Carmen had gone back to Spain, +but others discredited that, for, if she had done so, certainly old +Sebastian Dolores would have gone also. Others continued to insist that +she had gone off with a man; but there was George Masson at Laplatte +living alone, and never going twenty miles away from home, and he was +the only person under suspicion. Others again averred that since her +flight Carmen had become a loose woman in Montreal; but the New Cure +came down on that with a blow which no one was tempted to invite again. + +M. Savry's method of punishing was of a kind to make men shrink. If +Carmen Barbille had become a loose woman in Montreal, how did any member +of his flock know that it was the case? What company had he kept in +Montreal that he could say that? Did he see the woman--or did he hear +about her? And if he heard, what sort of company was he keeping when he +went to Montreal without his wife to hear such things? That was final, +and the slanderer was under a cloud for a time, by reason of the anger +of his own wife. It was about this time that the good priest preached +from the text, "Judge not that ye be not judged," and said that there +were only ten commandments on the tables of stone; but that the ten +included all the commandments which the Church made for every man, and +which every man, knowing his own weakness, must also make for himself. + +His flock understood, though they did refrain, every one, from looking +towards the place where Jean Jacques sat with Ma'm'selle--she was always +called that, as though she was a great lady; or else she was called "the +little Ma'm'selle Zoe," even when she had grown almost as tall as her +mother had been. + +Though no one looked towards the place where Jean Jacques and his +daughter sat when this sermon was preached, and although Zoe seemed not +to apprehend personal reference in the priest's words, when she reached +home, after talking to her father about casual things all the way, she +flew to her room, and, locking the door, flung herself on her bed and +cried till her body felt as though it had been beaten by rods. Then +she suddenly got up and, from a drawer, took out two things--an old +photograph of her mother at the time of her marriage, and Carmen's +guitar, which she had made her own on the day after the flight, and had +kept hidden ever since. She lay on the bed with her cheek pressed to +the guitar, and her eyes hungrily feeding on the face of a woman whose +beauty belonged to spheres other than where she had spent the thirteen +years of her married life. + +Zoe had understood more even at the time of the crisis than they thought +she did, child though she was; and as the years had gone on she had +grasped the meaning of it all more clearly perhaps than anyone at all +except her adored friends Judge Carcasson, at whose home she had visited +in Montreal, and M. Fille. + +The thing last rumoured about her mother in the parish was that she +had become an actress. To this Zoe made no protest in her mind. It was +better than many other possibilities, and she fixed her mind on it, so +saving herself from other agonizing speculations. In a fixed imagination +lay safety. In her soul she knew that, no matter what happened, her +mother would never return to the Manor Cartier. + +The years had not deepened confidence between father and daughter. A +shadow hung between them. They laughed and talked together, were even +boisterous in their fun sometimes, and yet in the eyes of both was the +forbidden thing--the deserted city into which they could not enter. He +could not speak to the child of the shame of her mother; she could not +speak of that in him which had contributed to that mother's shame--the +neglect which existed to some degree in her own life with him. This +was chiefly so because his enterprises had grown to such a number and +height, that he seemed ever to be counting them, ever struggling to the +height, while none of his ventures ever reached that state of success +when it "ran itself", although as years passed men called him rich, +and he spent and loaned money so freely that they called him the Money +Master, or the Money Man Wise, in deference to his philosophy. + +Zoe was not beautiful, but there was a wondrous charm in her deep +brown eyes and in the expression of her pretty, if irregular, features. +Sometimes her face seemed as small as that of a young child, and alive +with eerie fancies; and always behind her laughter was something which +got into her eyes, giving them a haunting melancholy. She had no signs +of hysteria, though now and then there came heart-breaking little +outbursts of emotion which had this proof that they were not +hysteria--they were never seen by others. They were sacred to her own +solitude. While in Montreal she had tasted for the first time the joys +of the theatre, and had then secretly read numbers of plays, which she +bought from an old bookseller, who was wise enough to choose them for +her. She became possessed of a love for the stage even before Gerard +Fynes came upon the scene. The beginning of it all was the rumour that +her mother was now an actress; yet the root-cause was far down in a +temperament responsive to all artistic things. + +The coming of the Man from Outside acted on the confined elements of +her nature like the shutter of a camera. It let in a world of light upon +unexplored places, it set free elements of being which had not before +been active. She had been instantly drawn to Gerard Fynes. He had the +distance from her own life which provoked interest, and in that distance +was the mother whom perhaps it was her duty to forget, yet for whom she +had a longing which grew greater as the years went on. + +Gerard Fynes could talk well, and his vivid pictures of his short +play-acting career absorbed her; and all the time she was vigilant for +some name, for the description of some actress which would seem to be +a clue to the lost spirit of her life. This clue never came, but before +she gave up hope of it, the man had got nearer to her than any man had +ever done. + +After meeting him she awoke to the fact that there was a difference +between men, that it was not the same thing to be young as to be old; +that the reason why she could kiss the old Judge and the little Clerk of +the Court, and not kiss, say, the young manager of the great lumber firm +who came every year for a fortnight's fishing at St. Saviour's, was +one which had an understandable cause and was not a mere matter of +individual taste. She had been good friends with this young manager, who +was only thirty years of age, and was married, but when he had wanted +to kiss her on saying good-bye one recent summer, she had said, "Oh, +no, oh, no, that would spoil it all!" Yet when he had asked her why, and +what she meant, she could not tell him. She did not know; but by the +end of the first week after Gerard Fynes had been brought to the Manor +Cartier by Louis Charron, she knew. + +She had then been suddenly awakened from mere girlhood. Judge Carcasson +saw the difference in her on a half-hour's visit as he passed westward, +and he had said to M. Fille, "Who is the man, my keeper of the +treasure?" The reply had been of such a sort that the Judge was +startled: + +"Tut, tut," he had exclaimed, "an actor--an actor once a lawyer! That's +serious. She's at an age--and with a temperament like hers she'll +believe anything, if once her affections are roused. She has a flair for +the romantic, for the thing that's out of reach--the bird on the highest +branch, the bird in the sky beyond ours, the song that was lost before +time was, the light that never was on sea or land. Why, damn it, damn it +all, my Solon, here's the beginning of a case in Court unless we can lay +the fellow by the heels! How long is he here for?" + +When M. Fille had told him that he would stay for another month for +certain, and no doubt much longer, if there seemed a prospect of winning +the heiress of the Manor Cartier, the Judge gave a groan. + +"We must get him away, somehow," he said. "Where does he stay?" + +"At the house of Louis Charron," was the reply. "Louis Charron--isn't he +the fellow that sells whisky without a license?" + +"It is so, monsieur." + +The Judge moved his head from side to side like a bear in a cage. "It +is that, is it, my Fille? By the thumb of the devil, isn't it time then +that Louis Charron was arrested for breaking the law? Also how do we +know but that the interloping fellow Fynes is an agent for a whisky firm +perhaps? Couldn't he, then, on suspicion, be arrested with--" + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully. His Judge was surely +becoming childish in his old age. He looked again closely at the great +man, and saw a glimmer of moisture in the grey eyes. It was clear that +Judge Carcasson felt deeply the dangers of the crisis, and that the +futile outburst had merely been the agitated protest of the helpless. + +"The man is what he says he is--an actor; and it would be folly to +arrest him. If our Zoe is really fond of him, it would only make a +martyr of him." + +As he made this reply M. Fille looked furtively at the other--out of +the corner of his eye, as it were. The reply of the Judge was +impatient, almost peevish and rough. "Did you think I was in earnest, +my punchinello? Surely I don't look so young as all that. I am over +sixty-five, and am therefore mentally developed!" + +M. Fille was exactly sixty-five years of age, and the blow was a shrewd +one. He drew himself up with rigid dignity. + +"You must feel sorry sometimes for those who suffered when your mind was +undeveloped, monsieur," he answered. "You were a judge at forty-nine, +and you defended poor prisoners for twenty years before that." + +The Judge was conquered, and he was never the man to pretend he was not +beaten when he was. He admired skill too much for that. He squeezed M. +Fille's arm and said: + +"I've been quick with my tongue myself, but I feel sure now, that it's +through long and close association with my Clerk of the Court." + +"Ah, monsieur, you are so difficult to understand!" was the reply. "I +have known you all these years, and yet--" + +"And yet you did not know how much of the woman there was in me!... +But yes, it is that. It is that which I fear with our Zoe. Women break +out--they break out, and then there is the devil to pay. Look at her +mother. She broke out. It was not inevitable. It was the curse of +opportunity, the wrong thing popping up to drive her mad at the wrong +moment. Had the wrong thing come at the right time for her, when she was +quite sane, she would be yonder now with our philosopher. Perhaps she +would not be contented if she were there, but she would be there; and +as time goes on, to be where we were in all things which concern the +affections, that is the great matter." + +"Ah, yes, ah, yes," was the bright-eyed reply of that Clerk, "there is +no doubt of that! My sister and I there, we are fifty years together, +never with the wrong thing at the wrong time, always the thing as it +was, always to be where we were." + +The Judge shook his head. "There is an eternity of difference, Fille, +between the sister and brother and the husband and wife. The sacredness +of isolation is the thing which holds the brother and sister together. +The familiarity of--but never mind what it is that so often forces +husband and wife apart. It is there, and it breaks out in rebellion as +it did with the wife of Jean Jacques Barbille. As she was a strong woman +in her way, it spoiled her life, and his too when it broke out." + +M. Fille's face lighted with memory and feeling. "Ah, a woman of +powerful emotions, monsieur, that is so! I think I never told you, but +at the last, in my office, when she went, she struck George Masson in +the face. It was a blow that--but there it was; I have never liked to +think of it. When I do, I shudder. She was a woman who might have been +in other circumstances--but there!" + +The Judge suddenly stopped in his walk and faced round on his friend. +"Did you ever know, my Solon," he said, "that it was not Jean Jacques +who saved Carmen at the wreck of the Antoine, but it was she who saved +him; and yet she never breathed of it in all the years. One who was +saved from the Antoine told me of it. Jean Jacques was going down. +Carmen gave him her piece of wreckage to hang on to, and swam ashore +without help. He never gave her the credit. There was something big in +the woman, but it did not come out right." + +M. Fille threw up his hands. "Grace de Dieu, is it so that she saved +Jean Jacques? Then he would not be here if it had not been for her?" + +"That is the obvious deduction, Maitre Fille," replied the Judge. + +The Clerk of the Court seemed moved. "He did not treat her ill. I +know that he would take her back to-morrow if he could. He has never +forgotten. I saw him weeping one day--it was where she used to sing to +the flax-beaters by the Beau Cheval. I put my hand on his shoulder, and +said, 'I know, I comprehend; but be a philosopher, Jean Jacques.'" + +"What did he say?" asked the Judge. + +"He drew himself up. 'In my mind, in my soul, I am philosopher always,' +he said, 'but my eyes are the windows of my heart, m'sieu'. They look +out and see the sorrow of one I loved. It is for her sorrow that I weep, +not for my own. I have my child, I have money; the world says to me, +"How goes it, my friend?" I have a home--a home; but where is she, and +what does the world say to her?'" + +The Judge shook his head sadly. "I used to think I knew life, but I come +to the belief in the end that I know nothing. Who could have guessed +that he would have spoken like that!" + +"He forgave her, monsieur." + +The Judge nodded mournfully. "Yes, yes, but I used to think it is such +men who forgive one day and kill the next. You never can tell where they +will explode, philosophy or no philosophy." + +The Judge was right. After all the years that had passed since his wife +had left him, Jean Jacques did explode. It was the night of his birthday +party at which was present the Man from Outside. It was in the hour when +he first saw what the Clerk of the Court had seen some time before--the +understanding between Zoe and Gerard Fynes. It had never occurred to him +that there was any danger. Zoe had been so indifferent to the young men +of St. Saviour's and beyond, had always been so much his friend and the +friend of those much older than himself, like Judge Carcasson and M. +Fille, that he had not yet thought of her electing to go and leave him +alone. + +To leave him alone! To be left alone--it had never become a possibility +to his mind. It did not break upon him with its full force all at once. +He first got the glimmer of it, then the glimmer grew to a glow, and the +glow to a great red light, in which his brain became drunk, and all his +philosophy was burned up like wood-shavings in a fiery furnace. + +"Did you like it so much?" Zoe had asked when her song was finished, and +the Man from Outside had replied, "Ah, but splendid, splendid! It got +into every corner of every one of us." + +"Into the senses--why not into the heart? Songs are meant for the +heart," said Zoe. + +"Yes, yes, certainly," was the young man's reply, "but it depends upon +the song whether it touches the heart more than the senses. Won't you +sing that perfect thing, 'La Claire Fontaine'?" he added, with eyes as +bright as passion and the hectic fires of his lung-trouble could make +them. + +She nodded and was about to sing, for she loved the song, and it had +been ringing in her head all day; but at that point M. Fille rose, and +with his glass raised high--for at that moment Seraphe Corniche and +another carried round native wine and cider to the company--he said: + +"To Monsieur Jean Jacques Barbille, and his fifty years, good +health--bonne sante! This is his birthday. To a hundred years for Jean +Jacques!" + +Instantly everyone was up with glass raised, and Zoe ran and threw her +arms round her father's neck. "Kiss me before you drink," she said. + +With a touch almost solemn in its tenderness Jean Jacques drew her head +to his shoulder and kissed her hair, then her forehead. "My blessed +one--my angel," he whispered; but there was a look in his eyes which +only M. Fille had seen there before. It was the look which had been in +his eyes at the flax-beaters' place by the river. + +"Sing--father, you must sing," said Zoe, and motioned to the fiddler. +"Sing It's Fifty Years," she cried eagerly. They all repeated her +request, and he could but obey. + +Jean Jacques' voice was rather rough, but he had some fine resonant +notes in it, and presently, with eyes fastened on the distance, and +with free gesture and much expression, he sang the first verse of the +haunting ballad of the man who had reached his fifty years: + + "Wherefore these flowers? + This fete for me? + Ah, no, it is not fifty years, + Since in my eyes the light you see + First shone upon life's joys and tears! + How fast the heedless days have flown + Too late to wail the misspent hours, + To mourn the vanished friends I've known, + To kneel beside love's ruined bowers. + Ah, have I then seen fifty years, + With all their joys and hopes and fears!" + +Through all the verses he ranged, his voice improving with each phrase, +growing more resonant, till at last it rang out with a ragged richness +which went home to the hearts of all. He was possessed. All at once he +was conscious that the beginning of the end of things was come for +him; and that now, at fifty, in no sphere had he absolutely "arrived," +neither in home nor fortune, nor--but yes, there was one sphere of +success; there was his fatherhood. There was his daughter, his wonderful +Zoe. He drew his eyes from the distance, and saw that her ardent look +was not towards him, but towards one whom she had known but a few weeks. + +Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a verse, and broke forward with +his arms outstretched, laughing. He felt that he must laugh, or he would +cry; and that would be a humiliating thing to do. + +"Come, come, my friends, my children, enough of that!" he cried. "We'll +have no more maundering. Fifty years--what are fifty years! Think of +Methuselah! It's summer in the world still, and it's only spring at +St. Saviour's. It's the time of the first flowers. Let's dance--no, no, +never mind the Cure to-night! He will not mind. I'll settle it with him. +We'll dance the gay quadrille." + +He caught the hands of the two youngest girls present, and nodded at the +fiddler, who at once began to tune his violin afresh. One of the joyous +young girls, however, began to plead with him. + +"Ah, no, let us dance, but at the last--not yet, M'sieu' Jean Jacques! +There is Zoe's song, we must have that, and then we must have charades. +Here is M'sieu' Fynes--he can make splendid charades for us. Then the +dance at the last--ah, yes, yes, M'sieu' Jean Jacques! Let it be like +that. We all planned it, and though it is your birthday, it's us are +making the fete." + +"As you will then, as you will, little ones," Jean Jacques acquiesced +with a half-sigh; but he did not look at his daughter. Somehow, +suddenly, a strange constraint possessed him where Zoe was concerned. +"Then let us have Zoe's song; let us have 'La Claire Fontaine'," cried +the black-eyed young madcap who held Jean Jacques' arms. + +But Zoe interrupted. "No, no," she protested, "the singing spell is +broken. We will have the song after the charades--after the charades." + +"Good, good--after the charades!" they all cried, for there would be +charades like none which had ever been played before, with a real actor +to help them, to carry them through as they did on the stage. To them +the stage was compounded of mystery, gaiety and the forbidden. + +So, for the next half-hour they were all at the disposal of the Man from +Outside, who worked as though it was a real stage, and they were real +players, and there were great audiences to see them. It was all quite +wonderful, and it involved certain posings, attitudes, mimicry and +pantomime, for they were really ingenious charades. + +So it happened that Zoe's fingers often came in touch with those of +the stage-manager, that his hands touched her shoulders, that his cheek +brushed against her dark hair once, and that she had sensations never +experienced before. Why was it that she thrilled when she came near to +him, that her whole body throbbed and her heart fluttered when their +shoulders or arms touched? Her childlike nature, with all its warmth and +vibration of life, had never till now felt the stir of sex in its vital +sense. All men had in one way been the same to her; but now she realized +that there was a world-wide difference between her Judge Carcasson, her +little Clerk of the Court, and this young man whose eyes drank hers. She +had often been excited, even wildly agitated, had been like a sprite let +loose in quiet ways; but that was mere spirit. Here was body and senses +too; here was her whole being alive to a music, which had an aching +sweetness and a harmony coaxing every sense into delight. + +"To-morrow evening, by the flume, where the beechtrees are--come--at +six. I want to speak with you. Will you come?" + +Thus whispered the maker of this music of the senses, who directed the +charades, but who was also directing the course of another life than his +own. + +"Yes, if I can," was Zoe's whispered reply, and the words shook as she +said them; for she felt that their meeting in the beech-trees by the +flume would be of consequence beyond imagination. + +Judge Carcasson had always said that Zoe had judgment beyond her years; +M. Fille had remarked often that she had both prudence and shrewdness as +well as a sympathetic spirit; but M. Fille's little whispering sister, +who could never be tempted away from her home to any house, to whom the +market and the church were like pilgrimages to distant wilds, had said +to her brother: + +"Wait, Armand--wait till Zoe is waked, and then prudence and wisdom will +be but accident. If all goes well, you will see prudence and wisdom; but +if it does not, you will see--ah, but just Zoe!" + +The now alert Jean Jacques had seen the whispering of the two, though he +did not know what had been said. It was, however, something secret, and +if it was secret, then it was--yes, it was love; and love between his +daughter and that waif of the world--the world of the stage--in which +men and women were only grown-up children, and bad grown-up children at +that--it was not to be endured. One thing was sure, the man should come +to the Manor Cartier no more. He would see to that to-morrow. There +would be no faltering or paltering on his part. His home had been shaken +to its foundations once, and he was determined that it should not fall +about his ears a second time. An Englishman, an actor, a Protestant, and +a renegade lawyer! It was not to be endured. + +The charade now being played was the best of the evening. One of the +madcap friends of Zoe was to be a singing-girl. She was supposed to +carry a tambourine. When her turn to enter came, with a look of mischief +and a gay dancing step, she ran into the room. In her hands was a +guitar, not a tambourine. When Zoe saw the guitar she gave a cry. + +"Where did you get that?" she asked in a low, shocked, indignant voice. + +"In your room--your bedroom," was the half-frightened answer. "I saw it +on the dresser, and I took it." + +"Come, come, let's get on with the charade," urged the Man from Outside. + +On the instant's pause, in which Zoe looked at her lover almost +involuntarily, and without fully understanding what he said, someone +else started forward with a smothered exclamation--of anger, of horror, +of dismay. It was Jean Jacques. He was suddenly transformed. + +His eyes were darkened by hideous memory, his face alight with passion. +He caught from the girl's hands the guitar--Carmen's forgotten guitar +which he had not seen for seven years--how well he knew it! With both +hands he broke it across his knee. The strings, as they snapped, gave +a shrill, wailing cry, like a voice stopped suddenly by death. Stepping +jerkily to the fireplace he thrust it into the flame. + +"Ah, there!" he said savagely. "There--there!" When he turned round +slowly again, his face--which he had never sought to control before +he had his great Accident seven years ago--was under his command. A +strange, ironic-almost sardonic-smile was on his lips. + +"It's in the play," he said. + +"No, it's not in the charade, Monsieur Barbille," said the Man from +Outside fretfully. + +"That is the way I read it, m'sieu'," retorted Jean Jacques, and he made +a motion to the fiddler. + +"The dance! The dance!" he exclaimed. + +But yet he looked little like a man who wished to dance, save upon a +grave. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. "I DO NOT WANT TO GO" + +It is a bad thing to call down a crisis in the night-time. A "scene" at +midnight is a savage enemy of ultimate understanding, and that Devil, +called Estrangement, laughs as he observes the objects of his attention +in conflict when the midnight candle burns. + +He should have been seized with a fit of remorse, however, at the sight +he saw in the Manor Cartier at midnight of the day when Jean Jacques +Barbille had reached his fiftieth year. There is nothing which, for +pathos and for tragedy, can compare with a struggle between the young +and the old. + +The Devil of Estrangement when he sees it, may go away and indulge +himself in sleep; for there will be no sleep for those who, one young +and the other old, break their hearts on each other's anvils, when the +lights are low and it is long till morning. + +When Jean Jacques had broken the forgotten guitar which his daughter had +retrieved from her mother's life at the Manor Cartier (all else he had +had packed and stored away in the flour-mill out of sight) and thrown it +in the fire, there had begun a revolt in the girl's heart, founded on a +sense of injustice, but which itself became injustice also; and that is +a dark thing to come between those who love--even as parent and child. + +After her first exclamation of dismay and pain, Zoe had regained her +composure, and during the rest of the evening she was full of feverish +gaiety. Indeed her spirits and playful hospitality made the evening a +success in spite of the skeleton at the feast. Jean Jacques had also +roused himself, and, when the dance began, he joined in with spirit, +though his face was worn and haggard even when lighted by his smile. But +though the evening came to the conventional height of hilarity, there +was a note running through it which made even the youngest look at each +other, as though to say, "Now, what's going to happen next!" + +Three people at any rate knew that something was going to happen. They +were Zoe, the Man from Outside and M. Fille. Zoe had had more than one +revelation that night, and she felt again as she did one day, seven +years before, when, coming home from over the hills, she had stepped +into a house where Horror brooded as palpably as though it sat beside +the fire, or hung above the family table. She had felt something as soon +as she had entered the door that far-off day, though the house seemed +empty. It was an emptiness which was filled with a torturing presence or +torturing presenes. It had stilled her young heart. What was it? She +had learned the truth soon enough. Out of the sunset had come her father +with a face twisted with misery, and as she ran to him, he had caught +her by both shoulders, looked through her eyes to something far beyond, +and hoarsely said: "She is gone--gone from us! She has run away from +home! Curse her baptism--curse it, curse it!" + +Zoe could never forget these last words she had ever heard her father +speak of Carmen. They were words which would make any Catholic shudder +to hear. It was a pity he had used them, for they made her think at last +that her mother had been treated with injustice. This, in spite of the +fact that in the days, now so far away, when her mother was with them +she had ever been nearer to her father, and that, after first childhood, +she and her mother were not so close as they had been, when she went to +sleep to the humming of a chanson of Cadiz. Her own latent motherhood, +however, kept stealing up out of the dim distances of childhood's +ignorance and, with modesty and allusiveness, whispering knowledge in +her ear. So it was that now she looked back pensively to the years she +had spent within sight and sound of her handsome mother, and out of the +hunger of her own spirit she had come to idealize her memory. It was +good to have a loving father; but he was a man, and he was so busy just +when she wanted--when she wanted she knew not what, but at least to go +and lay her head on a heart that would understand what was her sorrow, +her joy, or her longing. + +And now here at last was come Crisis, which showed its thunderous +head in the gay dance, and shook his war-locks in the fire, where her +mother's guitar had shrieked in its last agony. + +When all the guests had gone, when the bolts had been shot home, and old +Seraphe Corniche had gone to bed, father and daughter came face to face. + +There was a moment's pause, as the two looked at each other, and then +Zoe came up to Jean Jacques to kiss him good-night. It was her way of +facing the issue. Instinctively she knew that he would draw back, and +that the struggle would begin. It might almost seem that she had invited +it; for she had let the Man from Outside hold her hand for far longer +than courtesy required, while her father looked on with fretful +eyes--even with a murmuring which was not a benediction. Indeed, he had +evaded shaking hands with his hated visitor by suddenly offering him a +cigar, and then in the doorway itself handing a lighted match. + +"His eminence, Cardinal Christophe, gave these cigars to me when he +passed through St. Saviour's five years ago," Jean Jacques had remarked +loftily, "and I always smoke one on my birthday. I am a good Catholic, +and his eminence rested here for a whole day." + +He had had a grim pleasure in avoiding the handshake, and in having the +Protestant outsider smoke the Catholic cigar! In his anger it seemed to +him that he had done something worthy almost of the Vatican, indeed of +the great Cardinal Christophe himself. Even in his moments of crisis, +in his hours of real tragedy, in the times when he was shaken to the +centre, Jean Jacques fancied himself more than a little. It was as +the master-carpenter had remarked seven years before, he was always +involuntarily saying, "Here I come--look at me. I am Jean Jacques +Barbille!" + +When Zoe reached out a hand to touch his arm, and raised her face as +though to kiss him good-night, Jean Jacques drew back. + +"Not yet, Zoe," he said. "There are some things--What is all this +between you and that man?... I have seen. You must not forget who you +are--the daughter of Jean Jacques Barbille, of the Manor Cartier, whose +name is known in the whole province, who was asked to stand for the +legislature. You are Zoe Barbille--Mademoiselle Zoe Barbille. We do not +put on airs. We are kind to our neighbours, but I am descended from the +Baron of Beaugard. I have a place--yes, a place in society; and it is +for you to respect it. You comprehend?" + +Zoe flushed, but there was no hesitation whatever in her reply. "I am +what I have always been, and it is not my fault that I am the daughter +of M. Jean Jacques Barbille! I have never done anything which was not +good enough for the Manor Cartier." She held her head firmly as she said +it. + +Now Jean Jacques flushed, and he did hesitate in his reply. He hated +irony in anyone else, though he loved it in himself, when heaven gave +him inspiration thereto. He was in a state of tension, and was ready +to break out, to be a force let loose--that is the way he would have +expressed it; and he was faced by a new spirit in his daughter which +would surely spring the mine, unless he secured peace by strategy. He +had sense enough to feel the danger. + +He did not see, however, any course for diplomacy here, for she had +given him his cue in her last words. As a pure logician he was bound to +take it, though it might lead to drama of a kind painful to them both. + +"It is not good enough for the Manor Cartier that you go falling in love +with a nobody from nowhere," he responded. + +"I am not falling in love," she rejoined. + +"What did you mean, then, by looking at him as you did; by whispering +together; by letting him hold your hand when he left, and him looking at +you as though he'd eat you up--without sugar!" + +"I said I was not falling in love," she persisted, quietly, but with +characteristic boldness. "I am in love." + +"You are in love with him--with that interloper! Heaven of heavens, do +you speak the truth? Answer me, Zoe Barbille." + +She bridled. "Certainly I will answer. Did you think I would let a man +look at me as he did, that I would look at a man as I looked at him, +that I would let him hold my hand as I did, if I did not love him? Have +you ever seen me do it before?" + +Her voice was even and quiet--as though she had made up her mind on a +course, and meant to carry it through to the end. + +"No, I never saw you look at a man like that, and everything is as you +say, but--" his voice suddenly became uneven and higher--pitched and a +little hoarse, "but he is English, he is an actor--only that; and he is +a Protestant." + +"Only that?" she asked, for the tone of his voice was such as one would +use in speaking of a toad or vermin, and she could not bear it. "Is it a +disgrace to be any one of those things?" + +"The Barbilles have been here for two hundred years; they have been +French Catholics since the time of"--he was not quite sure--"since the +time of Louis XI.," he added at a venture, and then paused, overcome by +his own rashness. + +"Yes, that is a long time," she said, "but what difference does it make? +We are just what we are now, and as if there never had been a Baron of +Beaugard. What is there against Gerard except that he is an actor, that +he is English, and that he is a Protestant? Is there anything?" + +"Sacre, is it not enough? An actor, what is that--to pretend to be +someone else and not to be yourself!" + +"It would be better for a great many people to be someone else rather +than themselves--for nothing; and he does it for money." + +"For money! What money has he got? You don't know. None of us know. +Besides, he's a Protestant, and he's English, and that ends it. There +never has been an Englishman or a Protestant in the Barbille family, and +it shan't begin at the Manor Cartier." Jean Jacques' voice was rising in +proportion as he perceived her quiet determination. Here was something +of the woman who had left him seven years ago--left this comfortable +home of his to go to disgrace and exile, and God only knew what else! +Here in this very room--yes, here where they now were, father and +daughter, stood husband and wife that morning when he had his hand on +the lever prepared to destroy the man who had invaded his home; who had +cast a blight upon it, which remained after all the years; after he had +done all a man could do to keep the home and the woman too. The woman +had gone; the home remained with his daughter in it, and now again there +was a fight for home and the woman. Memory reproduced the picture of the +mother standing just where the daughter now stood, Carmen quiet and well +in hand, and himself all shaken with weakness, and with all power gone +out of him--even the power which rage and a murderous soul give. + +But yet this was different. There was no such shame here as had fallen +on him seven years ago. But there was a shame after its kind; and if it +were not averted, there was the end of the home, of the prestige, the +pride and the hope of "M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe." + +"What shall not begin here at the Manor Cartier?" she asked with burning +cheek. + +"The shame--it shall not begin here." + +"What shame, father?" + +"Of marriage with a Protestant and an actor." + +"You will not let me marry him?" she persisted stubbornly. + +Her words seemed to shake him all to pieces. It was as though he was +going through the older tragedy all over again. It had possessed him +ever since the sight of Carmen's guitar had driven him mad three hours +ago. He swayed to and fro, even as he did when his hand left the lever +and he let the master-carpenter go free. It was indeed a philosopher +under torture, a spirit rocking on its anchor. Just now she had put into +words herself what, even in his fear, he had hoped had no place in her +mind--marriage with the man. He did not know this daughter of his very +well. There was that in her which was far beyond his ken. Thousands of +miles away in Spain it had origin, and the stream of tendency came down +through long generations, by courses unknown to him. + +"Marry him--you want to marry him!" he gasped. "You, my Zoe, want to +marry that tramp of a Protestant!" + +Her eyes blazed in anger. Tramp--the man with the air of a young +Alexander, with a voice like the low notes of the guitar thrown to the +flames! Tramp! + +"If I love him I ought to marry him," she answered with a kind of +calmness, however, though all her body was quivering. Suddenly she came +close to her father, a great sympathy welled up in her eyes, and her +voice shook. + +"I do not want to leave you, father, and I never meant to do so. I never +thought of it as possible; but now it is different. I want to stay with +you; but I want to go with him too." + +Presently as she seemed to weaken before him, he hardened. "You can't +have both," he declared with as much sternness as was possible to him, +and with a Norman wilfulness which was not strength. "You shall +not marry an actor and a Protestant. You shall not marry a man like +that--never--never--never. If you do, you will never have a penny of +mine, and I will never--" + +"Oh, hush--Mother of Heaven, hush!" she cried. "You shall not put a +curse on me too." + +"What curse?" he burst forth, passion shaking him. "You cursed my +mother's baptism. It would be a curse to be told that you would see +me no more, that I should be no more part of this home. There has been +enough of that curse here.... Ah, why--why--" she added with a sudden +rush of indignation, "why did you destroy the only thing I had of hers? +It was all that was left--her guitar. I loved it so." + +All at once, with a cry of pain, she turned and ran to the +door--entering on the staircase which led to her room. In the doorway +she turned. + +"I can't help it. I can't help it, father. I love him--but I love you +too," she cried. "I don't want to go--oh, I don't want to go! Why do +you--?" her voice choked; she did not finish the sentence; or if she +did, he could not hear. + +Then she opened the door wide, and disappeared into the darkness of +the unlighted stairway, murmuring, "Pity--have pity on me, holy Mother, +Vierge Marie!" Then the door closed behind her almost with a bang. + +After a moment of stupefied inaction Jean Jacques hurried over and +threw open the door she had closed. "Zoe--little Zoe, come back and +say good-night," he called. But she did not hear, for, with a burst of +crying, she had hurried into her own room and shut and locked the door. + +It was a pity, a measureless pity, as Mary the Mother must have seen, +if she could see mortal life at all, that Zoe did not hear him. It might +have altered the future. As it was, the Devil of Estrangement might well +be content with his night's work. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. BON MARCHE + +Vilray was having its market day, and everyone was either going to or +coming from market, or buying and selling in the little square by +the Court House. It was the time when the fruits were coming in, when +vegetables were in full yield, when fish from the Beau Cheval were to be +had in plenty--from mud-cats and suckers, pike and perch, to rock-bass, +sturgeon and even maskinonge. Also it was the time of year when butter +and eggs, chickens and ducks were so cheap that it was a humiliation +not to buy. There were other things on sale also, not for eating +and drinking, but for wear and household use--from pots and pans to +rag-carpets and table-linen, from woollen yarn to pictures of the Virgin +and little calvaries. + +These were side by side with dried apples, bottled fruits, jars of maple +syrup, and cordials of so generous and penetrating a nature that the +currant and elderberry wine by which they were flanked were tipple for +babes beside them. Indeed, when a man wanted to forget himself quickly +he drank one of these cordials, in preference to the white whisky so +commonly imbibed in the parishes. But the cordials being expensive, they +were chiefly bought for festive occasions like a wedding, a funeral, a +confirmation, or the going away of some young man or young woman to +the monastery or the convent to forget the world. Meanwhile, if these +spiritual argonauts drank it, they were likely to forget the world on +the way to their voluntary prisons. It was very seldom that a man or +woman bought the cordials for ordinary consumption, and when that was +done, it would almost make a parish talk! Yet cordials of nice brown, +of delicate green, of an enticing yellow colour, were here for sale +at Vilray market on the morning after the painful scene at the Manor +Cartier between Zoe and her father. + +The market-place was full--fuller than it had been for many a day. A +great many people were come in as much to "make fete" as to buy and +sell. It was a saint's day, and the bell of St. Monica's had been +ringing away cheerfully twice that morning. To it the bell of the Court +House had made reply, for a big case was being tried in the court. It +was a river-driving and lumber case for which many witnesses had +been called; and there were all kinds of stray people in the +place--red-shirted river-drivers, a black-coated Methodist minister from +Chalfonte, clerks from lumber-firms, and foremen of lumber-yards; and +among these was one who greatly loved such a day as this when he could +be free from work, and celebrate himself! + +Other people might celebrate saints dead and gone, and drink to 'La +Patrie', and cry "Vive Napoleon!" or "Vive la Republique!" or "Vive la +Reine!" though this last toast of the Empire was none too common--but he +could only drink with real sincerity to the health of Sebastian Dolores, +which was himself. Sebastian Dolores was the pure anarchist, the most +complete of monomaniacs. + +"Here comes the father of the Spanische," remarked Mere Langlois, who +presided over a heap of household necessities, chiefly dried fruits, +preserves and pickles, as Sebastian Dolores appeared not far away. + +"Good-for-nothing villain! I pity the poor priest that confesses him." + +"Who is the Spanische?" asked a young woman from her own stall or stand +very near, as she involuntarily arranged her hair and adjusted her +waist-belt; for the rakish-looking reprobate, with the air of having +been somewhere, was making towards them; and she was young enough to +care how she looked when a man, who took notice, was near. Her own +husband had been a horse-doctor, farmer, and sportsman of a kind, and +she herself was now a farmer of a kind; and she had only resided in the +parish during the three years since she had been married to, and buried, +Palass Poucette. + +Old Mere Langlois looked at her companion in merchanting irritably, then +she remembered that Virginie Poucette was a stranger, in a way, and was +therefore deserving of pity, and she said with compassionate patronage: +"Newcomer you--I'd forgotten. Look you then, the Spanische was the wife +of my third cousin, M'sieu' Jean Jacques, and--" + +Virginie Poucette nodded, and the slight frown cleared from her low yet +shapely forehead. "Yes, yes, of course I know. I've heard enough. What +a fool she was, and M'sieu' Jean Jacques so rich and kind and +good-looking! So this is her father--well, well, well!" + +Palass Poucette's widow leaned forward, and looked intently at Sebastian +Dolores, who had stopped near by, and facing a couple of barrels on +which were exposed some bottles of cordial and home-made wine. He +was addressing himself with cheerful words to the dame that owned the +merchandise. + +"I suppose you think it's a pity Jean Jacques can't get a divorce," +said Mere Langlois, rather spitefully to Virginie, for she had her +sex's aversion to widows who had had their share of mankind, and were +afterwards free to have someone else's share as well. But suddenly +repenting, for Virginie was a hard-working widow who had behaved +very well for an outsider--having come from Chalfonte beyond the Beau +Chevalshe added: "But if he was a Protestant and could get a divorce, +and you did marry him, you'd make him have more sense than he's got; +for you've a quiet sensible way, and you've worked hard since Palass +Poucette died." + +"Where doesn't he show sense, that M'sieu' Jean Jacques?" the younger +woman asked. + +"Where? Why, with his girl--with Ma'm'selle." "Everybody I ever heard +speaks well of Ma'm'selle Zoe," returned the other warmly, for she had +a very generous mind and a truthful, sentimental heart. Mere Langlois +sniffed, and put her hands on her hips, for she had a daughter of her +own; also she was a relation of Jean Jacques, and therefore resented in +one way the difference in their social position, while yet she plumed +herself on being kin. + +"Then you'll learn something now you never knew before," she said. +"She's been carrying on--there's no other word for it--with an actor +fellow--" + +"Yes, yes, I did hear about him--a Protestant and an Englishman." + +"Well, then, why do you pretend you don't know--only to hear me talk, is +it? Take my word, I'd teach cousin Zoe a lesson with all her education +and her two years at the convent. Wasn't it enough that her mother +should spoil everything for Jean Jacques, and make the Manor Cartier +a place to point the finger at, without her bringing disgrace on the +parish too! What happened last night--didn't I hear this morning before +I had my breakfast! Didn't I--" + +She then proceeded to describe the scene in which Jean Jacques had +thrown the wrecked guitar of his vanished spouse into the fire. Before +she had finished, however, something occurred which swept them into +another act of the famous history of Jean Jacques Barbille and his +house. + +She had arrived at the point where Zoe had cried aloud in pain at her +father's incendiary act, when there was a great stir at the Court House +door which opened on the market-place, and vagrant cheers arose. +These were presently followed by a more disciplined fusillade; which +presently, in turn, was met by hisses and some raucous cries of +resentment. These increased as a man appeared on the steps of the Court +House, looked round for a moment in a dazed kind of way, then seeing +some friends below who were swarming towards him, gave a ribald cry, and +scrambled down the steps towards them. + +He was the prisoner whose release had suddenly been secured by a +piece of evidence which had come as a thunder-clap on judge and jury. +Immediately after giving this remarkable evidence the witness--Sebastian +Dolores--had left the court-room. He was now engaged in buying cordials +in the market-place--in buying and drinking them; for he had pulled the +cork out of a bottle filled with a rich yellow liquid, and had drained +half the bottle at a gulp. Presently he offered the remainder to a +passing carter, who made a gesture of contempt and passed on, for, to +him, white whisky was the only drink worth while. Besides, he disliked +Sebastian Dolores. Then, with a flourish, the Spaniard tendered the +bottle to Madame Langlois and Palass Poucette's widow, at whose corner +of merchandise he had now arrived. + +Surely there never was a more benign villain and perjurer in the world +than Sebastian Dolores! His evidence, given a half-hour before, with +every sign of truthfulness, was false. The man--Rocque Valescure--for +whom he gave it was no friend of his; but he owned a tavern called "The +Red Eagle," a few miles from the works where the Spaniard was employed; +also Rocque Valescure's wife set a good table, and Sebastian Dolores was +a very liberal feeder; when he was not hungry he was always thirsty. The +appeasement of hunger and thirst was now become a problem to him, for +his employers at Beauharnais had given him a month's notice because of +certain irregularities which had come to their knowledge. Like a wise +man Sebastian Dolores had said nothing about this abroad, but had +enlarged his credit in every direction, and had then planned this piece +of friendly perjury for Rocque Valescure, who was now descending +the steps of the Court House to the arms of his friends and amid the +execrations of his foes. What the alleged crime was does not matter. +It has no vital significance in the history of Jean Jacques Barbille, +though it has its place as a swivel on which the future swung. + +Sebastian Dolores had saved Rocque Valescure from at least three years +in jail, and possibly a very heavy fine as well; and this service +must have its due reward. Something for nothing was not the motto of +Sebastian Dolores; and he confidently looked forward to having a home at +"The Red Eagle" and a banker in its landlord. He was no longer certain +that he could rely on help from Jean Jacques, to whom he already owed so +much. That was why he wanted to make Rocque Valescure his debtor. It +was not his way to perjure his soul for nothing. He had done so in +Spain--yet not for nothing either. He had saved his head, which was now +doing useful work for himself and for a needy fellow-creature. No one +could doubt that he had helped a neighbour in great need, and had done +it at some expense to his own nerve and brain. None but an expert could +have lied as he had done in the witness-box. Also he had upheld his lies +with a striking narrative of circumstantiality. He made things fit +in "like mortised blocks" as the Clerk of the Court said to Judge +Carcasson, when they discussed the infamy afterwards with clear +conviction that it was perjury of a shameless kind; for one who would +perjure himself to save a man from jail, would also swear a man into the +gallows-rope. But Judge Carcasson had not been able to charge the +jury in that sense, for there was no effective evidence to rebut the +untruthful attestation of the Spaniard. It had to be taken for what it +was worth, since the prosecuting attorney could not shake it; and yet to +the Court itself it was manifestly false witness. + +Sebastian Dolores was too wise to throw himself into the arms of his +released tavern-keeper here immediately after the trial, or to allow +Rocque Valescure a like indiscretion and luxury; for there was a strong +law against perjury, and right well Sebastian Dolores knew that old +Judge Carcasson would have little mercy on him, in spite of the fact +that he was the grandfather of Zoe Barbille. The Judge would probably +think that safe custody for his wayward character would be the kindest +thing he could do for Zoe. Therefore it was that Sebastian Dolores +paid no attention to the progress of the released landlord of "The Red +Eagle," though, by a glance out of the corner of his eyes, he made sure +that the footsteps of liberated guilt were marching at a tangent from +where he was--even to the nearest tavern. + +It was enough for Dolores that he should watch the result of his good +deed from the isolated area where he now was, in the company of two +virtuous representatives of domesticity. His time with liberated guilt +would come! He chuckled to think how he had provided himself with +a refuge against his hour of trouble. That very day he had left his +employment, meaning to return no more, securing his full wages through +having suddenly become resentful and troublesome, neglectful--and +imperative. To avoid further unpleasantness the firm had paid him all +his wages; and he had straightway come to Vilray to earn his bed +and board by other means than through a pen, a ledger and a gift for +figures. It would not be a permanent security against the future, but +it would suffice for the moment. It was a rest-place on the road. If +the worst came to the worst, there was his grand-daughter and his dear +son-in-law whom he so seldom saw--blood was thicker than water, and he +would see to it that it was not thinned by neglect. + +Meanwhile he ogled Palass Poucette's widow with one eye, and talked +softly with his tongue to Mere Langlois, as he importuned Madame to "Sip +the good cordial in the name of charity to all and malice towards none." + +"You're a bad man--you, and I want none of your cordials," was Mere +Langlois's response. "Malice towards none, indeed! If you and the devil +started business in the same street, you'd make him close up shop in a +year. I've got your measure, for sure; I have you certain as an arm and +a pair of stirrups." + +"I go about doing good--only good," returned the old sinner with a leer +at the young widow, whose fingers he managed to press unseen, as he +swung the little bottle of cordial before the eyes of Mere Langlois. +He was not wholly surprised when Palass Poucette's widow did not show +abrupt displeasure at his bold familiarity. + +A wild thought flashed into his mind. Might there not be another refuge +here--here in Palass Poucette's widow! He was sixty-three, it was true, +and she was only thirty-two; but for her to be an old man's darling who +had no doubt been a young man's slave, that would surely have its weight +with her. Also she owned the farm where she lived; and she was pleasant +pasturage--that was the phrase he used in his own mind, even as his eye +swept from Mere Langlois to hers in swift, hungry inquiry. + +He seemed in earnest when he spoke--but that was his way; it had done +him service often. "I do good whenever it comes my way to do it," he +continued. "I left my work this morning"--he lied of course--"and hired +a buggy to bring me over here, all at my own cost, to save a fellow-man. +There in the Court House he was sure of prison, with a wife and three +small children weeping in 'The Red Eagle'; and there I come at great +expense and trouble to tell the truth--before all to tell the truth--and +save him and set him free. Yonder he is in the tavern, the work of my +hands, a gift to the world from an honest man with a good heart and a +sense of justice. But for me there would be a wife and three children +in the bondage of shame, sorrow, poverty and misery"--his eyes again +ravished the brown eyes of Palass Poucette's widow--"and here again I +drink to my own health and to that of all good people--with charity to +all and malice towards none!" + +The little bottle of golden cordial was raised towards Mere Langlois. +The fingers of one hand, however, were again seeking those of the +comely young widow who was half behind him, when he felt them caught +spasmodically away. Before he had time to turn round he heard a voice, +saying: "I should have thought that 'With malice to all and charity +towards none,' was your motto, Dolores." + +He knew that voice well enough. He had always had a lurking fear that +he would hear it say something devastating to him, from the great chair +where its owner sat and dispensed what justice a jury would permit +him to do. That devastating something would be agony to one who loved +liberty and freedom--had not that ever been his watchword, liberty and +freedom to do what he pleased in the world and with the world? Yes, he +well knew Judge Carcasson's voice. He would have recognized it in the +dark--or under the black cap. "M'sieu' le juge!" he said, even before +he turned round and saw the faces of the tiny Judge and his Clerk of +the Court. There was a kind of quivering about his mouth, and a startled +look in his eyes as he faced the two. But there was the widow of Palass +Poucette, and, if he was to pursue and frequent her, something must be +done to keep him decently figured in her eye and mind. + +"It cost me three dollars to come here and save a man from jail to-day, +m'sieu' le juge," he added firmly. The Judge pressed the point of his +cane against the stomach of the hypocrite and perjurer. "If the +Devil and you meet, he will take off his hat to you, my escaped +anarchist"--Dolores started almost violently now--"for you can teach +him much, and Ananias was the merest aboriginal to you. But we'll get +you--we'll get you, Dolores. You saved that guilty fellow by a careful +and remarkable perjury to-day. In a long experience I have never seen a +better performance--have you, monsieur?" he added to M. Fille. + +"But once," was the pointed and deliberate reply. "Ah, when was that?" +asked Judge Carcasson, interested. + +"The year monsieur le juge was ill, and Judge Blaquiere took your place. +It was in Vilray at the Court House here." + +"Ah--ah, and who was the phenomenon--the perfect liar?" asked the Judge +with the eagerness of the expert. + +"His name was Sebastian Dolores," meditatively replied M. Fille. "It was +even a finer performance than that of to-day." + +The Judge gave a little grunt of surprise. "Twice, eh?" he asked. "Yet +this was good enough to break any record," he added. He fastened the +young widow's eyes. "Madame, you are young, and you have an eye of +intelligence. Be sure of this: you can protect yourself against almost +anyone except a liar--eh, madame?" he added to Mere Langlois. "I am sure +your experience of life and your good sense--" + +"My good sense would make me think purgatory was hell if I saw him"--she +nodded savagely at Dolores as she said it, for she had seen that last +effort of his to take the fingers of Palass Poucette's widow--"if I saw +him there, m'sieu' le juge." + +"We'll have you yet--we'll have you yet, Dolores," said the Judge, as +the Spaniard prepared to move on. But, as Dolores went, he again caught +the eyes of the young widow. + +This made him suddenly bold. "'Thou shalt not bear false witness against +thy neighbour,'--that is the commandment, is it not, m'sieu' le juge? +You are doing against me what I didn't do in Court to-day. I saved a man +from your malice." + +The crook of the Judge's cane caught the Spaniard's arm, and held him +gently. + +"You're possessed of a devil, Dolores," he said, "and I hope I'll never +have to administer justice in your case. I might be more man than judge. +But you will come to no good end. You will certainly--" + +He got no further, for the attention of all was suddenly arrested by a +wagon driving furiously round the corner of the Court House. It was a +red wagon. In it was Jean Jacques Barbille. + +His face was white and set; his head was thrust forward, as though +looking at something far ahead of him; the pony stallions he was driving +were white with sweat, and he had an air of tragic helplessness and +panic. + +Suddenly a child ran across the roadway in front of the ponies, and the +wild cry of the mother roused Jean Jacques out of his agonized trance. +He sprang to his feet, wrenching the horses backward and aside with +deftness and presence of mind. The margin of safety was not more than a +foot, but the child was saved. + +The philosopher of the Manor Cartier seemed to come out of a dream +as men and women applauded, and cries arose of "Bravo, M'sieu' Jean +Jacques!" + +At any other time this would have made Jean Jacques nod and smile, or +wave a hand, or exclaim in good fellowship. Now, however, his eyes were +full of trouble, and the glassiness of the semi-trance leaving them, +they shifted restlessly here and there. Suddenly they fastened on the +little group of which Judge Carcasson was the centre. He had stopped his +horses almost beside them. + +"Ah!" he said, "ah!" as his eyes rested on the Judge. "Ah!" he again +exclaimed, as the glance ran from the Judge to Sebastian Dolores. "Ah, +mercy of God!" he added, in a voice which had both a low note and a high +note-deep misery and shrill protest in one. Then he seemed to choke, and +words would not come, but he kept looking, looking at Sebastian Dolores, +as though fascinated and tortured by the sight of him. + +"What is it, Jean Jacques?" asked the little Clerk of the Court gently, +coming forward and laying a hand on the steaming flank of a spent and +trembling pony. + +As though he could not withdraw his gaze from Sebastian Dolores, Jean +Jacques did not look at M. Fille; but he thrust out the long whip +he carried towards the father of his vanished Carmen and his Zoe's +grandfather, and with the deliberation of one to whom speaking was like +the laceration of a nerve he said: "Zoe's run away--gone--gone!" + +At that moment Louis Charron, his cousin, at whose house Gerard Fynes +had lodged, came down the street galloping his horse. Seeing the red +wagon, he made for it, and drew rein. + +"It's no good, Jean Jacques," he called. "They're married and gone to +Montreal--married right under our noses by the Protestant minister at +Terrebasse Junction. I've got the telegram here from the stationmaster +at Terrebasse.... Ah, the villain to steal away like that--only a +child--from her own father! Here it is--the telegram. But believe me, an +actor, a Protestant and a foreigner--what a devil's mess!" + +He waved the telegram towards Jean Jacques. + +"Did he owe you anything, Louis?" asked old Mere Langlois, whose +practical mind was alert to find the material status of things. + +"Not a sou. Well, but he was honest, I'll say that for the rogue and +seducer." + +"Seducer--ah, God choke you with your own tongue!" cried Jean Jacques, +turning on Louis Charron with a savage jerk of the whip he held. "She is +as pure--" + +"It is no marriage, of course!" squeaked a voice from the crowd. + +"It'll be all right among the English, won't it, monsieur le juge?" +asked the gentle widow of Palass Poucette, whom the scene seemed to +rouse out of her natural shyness. + +"Most sure, madame, most sure," answered the Judge. "It will be all +right among the English, and it is all right among the French so far +as the law is concerned. As for the Church, that is another +matter. But--but see," he added addressing Louis Charron, "does the +station-master say what place they took tickets for?" + +"Montreal and Winnipeg," was the reply. "Here it is in the telegram. +Winnipeg--that's as English as London." + +"Winnipeg--a thousand miles!" moaned Jean Jacques. + +With the finality which the tickets for Winnipeg signified, the shrill +panic emotion seemed to pass from him. In its mumbling, deadening force +it was like a sentence on a prisoner. + +As many eyes were on Sebastian Dolores as on Jean Jacques. "It's the bad +blood that was in her," said a farmer with a significant gesture towards +Sebastian Dolores. + +"A little bad blood let out would be a good thing," remarked a truculent +river-driver, who had given evidence directly contrary to that given by +Sebastian Dolores in the trial just concluded. There was a savage look +in his eye. + +Sebastian Dolores heard, and he was not the man to invite trouble. He +could do no good where he was, and he turned to leave the market-place; +but in doing so he sought the eye of Virginie Poucette, who, however, +kept her face at an angle from him, as she saw Mere Langlois sharply +watching her. + +"Grandfather, mother and daughter, all of a piece!" said a spiteful +woman, as Sebastian Dolores passed her. The look he gave her was not +the same as that he had given to Palass Poucette's widow. If it had +been given by a Spanish inquisitor to a heretic, little hope would have +remained in the heretic's heart. Yet there was a sad patient look on his +face, as though he was a martyr. He had no wish to be a martyr; but he +had a feeling that for want of other means of expressing their sympathy +with Jean Jacques, these rough people might tar and feather him at +least; though it was only his misfortune that those sprung from his +loins had such adventurous spirits! + +Sebastian Dolores was not without a real instinct regarding things. What +was in his mind was also passing through that of the river-driver and a +few of his friends, and they carefully watched the route he was taking. + +Jean Jacques prepared to depart. He had ever loved to be the centre of a +picture, but here was a time when to be in the centre was torture. Eyes +of morbid curiosity were looking at the open wounds of his heart-ragged +wounds made by the shrapnel of tragedy and treachery, not the clean +wounds got in a fair fight, easily healed. For the moment at least the +little egoist was a mere suffering soul--an epitome of shame, misery and +disappointment. He must straightway flee the place where he was tied to +the stake of public curiosity and scorn. He drew the reins tighter, and +the horses straightened to depart. Then it was that old Judge Carcasson +laid a hand on his knee. + +"Come, come," he said to the dejected and broken little man, "where is +your philosophy?" + +Jean Jacques looked at the Judge, as though with a new-born suspicion +that henceforth the world would laugh at him, and that Judge Carcasson +was setting the fashion; but seeing a pitying moisture in the other's +eyes, he drew himself up, set his jaw, and calling on all the forces at +his command, he said: + +"Moi je suis philosophe!" + +His voice frayed a little on the last word, but his head was up now. +The Clerk of the Court would have asked to accompany him to the Manor +Cartier, but he was not sure that Jean Jacques would like it. He had a +feeling that Jean Jacques would wish to have his dark hour alone. So +he remained silent, and Jean Jacques touched his horses with the whip. +After starting, however, and having been followed for a hundred yards +or so by the pitying murmurs and a few I-told-you-so's and revilings for +having married as he did, Jean Jacques stopped the ponies. Standing up +in the red wagon he looked round for someone whom, for a moment, he did +not see in the slowly shifting crowd. + +Philosophy was all very well, and he had courageously given his +allegiance to it, or a formula of it, a moment before; but there was +something deeper and rarer still in the little man's soul. His heart +hungered for the two women who had been the joy and pride of his life, +even when he had been lost in the business of the material world. They +were more to him than he had ever known; they were parts of himself +which had slowly developed, as the features and characteristics of +ancestors gradually emerge and are emphasized in a descendant as his +years increase. Carmen and Zoe were more a part of himself now than they +had ever been. + +They were gone, the living spirits of his home. Anything that reminded +him of them, despite the pain of the reminder, was dear to him. Love +was greater than the vengeful desire of injured human nature. His eyes +wandered over the people, over the market. At last he saw what he was +looking for. He called. A man turned. Jean Jacques beckoned to him. He +came eagerly, he hurried to the red wagon. + +"Come home with me," said Jean Jacques. + +The words were addressed to Sebastian Dolores, who said to himself that +this was a refuge surer than "The Red Eagle," or the home of the widow +Poucette. He climbed in beside Jean Jacques with a sigh of content. + +"Ah, but that--but that is the end of our philosopher," said Judge +Carcasson sadly to the Clerk of the Court, as with amazement he saw this +catastrophe. + +"Alas! if I had only asked to go with him, as I wished to do!" responded +M. Fille. "There, but a minute ago, it was in my mind," he added with a +look of pain. + +"You missed your chance, falterer," said the Judge severely. "If you +have a good thought, act on it--that is the golden rule. You missed your +chance. It will never come again. He has taken the wrong turning, our +unhappy Jean Jacques." + +"Monsieur--oh, monsieur, do not shut the door in the face of God +like that!" said the shocked little master of the law. "Those two +together--it may be only for a moment." + +"Ah, no, my little owl, Jean Jacques will wind the boa-constrictor round +his neck like a collar, all for love of those he has lost," answered the +Judge with emotion; and he caught M. Fille's arm in the companionship of +sorrow. + +In silence these two watched the red wagon till it was out of sight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY + +Judge Carcasson was right. For a year after Zoe's flight Jean Jacques +wrapped Sebastian Dolores round his neck like a collar, and it choked +him like a boaconstrictor. But not Sebastian Dolores alone did that. +When things begin to go wrong in the life of a man whose hands have +held too many things, the disorder flutters through all the radii of his +affairs, and presently they rattle away from the hub of his control. + +So it was with Jean Jacques. To take his reprobate father-in-law to his +lonely home would have brought him trouble in any case; but as things +were, the Spaniard became only the last straw which broke his camel's +back. And what a burden his camel carried--flour-mill, saw-mill, +ash-factory, farms, a general store, lime-kilns, agency for +lightning-rods and insurance, cattle-dealing, the project for the new +cheese-factory, and money-lending! + +Money-lending? It seemed strange that Jean Jacques should be able to +lend money, since he himself had to borrow, and mortgage also, from time +to time. When things began to go really wrong with him financially, he +mortgaged his farms, his flour-mill, and saw-mill, and then lent money +on other mortgages. This he did because he had always lent money, and it +was a habit so associated with his prestige, that he tied himself up in +borrowing and lending and counter-mortgaging till, as the saying is, +"a Philadelphia lawyer" could not have unravelled his affairs without +having been born again in the law. That he was able to manipulate his +tangled affairs, while keeping the confidence of those from whom he +borrowed, and the admiration of those to whom he lent, was evidence of +his capacity. "Genius of a kind" was what his biggest creditor called it +later. + +After a personal visit to St. Saviour's, this biggest creditor and +financial potentate--M. Mornay--said that if Jean Jacques had been +started right and trained right, he would have been a "general in the +financial field, winning big battles." + +M. Mornay chanced to be a friend of Judge Carcasson, and when he visited +Vilray he remembered that the Judge had spoken often of his humble but +learned friend, the Clerk of the Court, and of his sister. So M. +Mornay made his way from the office of the firm of avocats whom he had +instructed in his affairs with Jean Jacques, to that of M. Fille. Here +he was soon engaged in comment on the master-miller and philosopher. + +"He has had much trouble, and no doubt his affairs have suffered," +remarked M. Fille cautiously, when the ice had been broken and the Big +Financier had referred casually to the difficulties among which Jean +Jacques was trying to maintain equilibrium; "but he is a man who can do +things too hard for other men." + +The Big Financier lighted another cigar and blew away several clouds of +smoke before he said in reply, "Yes, I know he has had family trouble +again, but that is a year ago, and he has had a chance to get another +grip of things." + +"He did not sit down and mope," explained M. Fille. "He was at work the +next day after his daughter's flight just the same as before. He is a +man of great courage. Misfortune does not paralyse him." + +M. Mornay's speech was of a kind which came in spurts, with pauses of +thought between, and the pause now was longer than usual. + +"Paralysis--certainly not," he said at last. "Physical activity is one +of the manifestations of mental, moral, and even physical shock and +injury. I've seen a man with a bullet in him run a half-mile--anywhere; +I've seen a man ripped up by a crosscut-saw hold himself together, and +walk--anywhere--till he dropped. Physical and nervous activity is one of +the forms which shattered force takes. I expect that your 'M'sieu' Jean +Jacques' has been busier this last year than ever before in his life. +He'd have to be; for a man who has as many irons in the fire as he has, +must keep running from bellows to bellows when misfortune starts to damp +him down." + +The Clerk of the Court sighed. He realized the significance of what his +visitor was saying. Ever Since Zoe had gone, Jean Jacques had been for +ever on the move, for ever making hay on which the sun did not shine. +Jean Jacques' face these days was lined and changeful. It looked +unstable and tired--as though disturbing forces were working up to the +surface out of control. The brown eyes, too, were far more restless +than they had ever been since the Antoine was wrecked, and their owner +returned with Carmen to the Manor Cartier. But the new restlessness of +the eyes was different from the old. That was a mobility impelled by +an active, inquisitive soul, trying to observe what was going on in the +world, and to make sure that its possessor was being seen by the world. +This activity was that of a mind essentially concerned to find how many +ways it could see for escape from a maze of things; while his vanity +was taking new forms. It was always anxious to discover if the world was +trying to know how he was taking the blows of fate and fortune. He had +been determined that, whatever came, it should not see him paralysed or +broken. + +As M. Fille only nodded his head in sorrowful assent, the Big Financier +became more explicit. He was determined to lose nothing by Jean Jacques, +and he was prepared to take instant action when it was required; but +he was also interested in the man who might have done really powerful +things in the world, had he gone about them in the right way. + +"M. Barbille has had some lawsuits this year, is it not so?" he asked. + +"Two of importance, monsieur, and one is not yet decided," answered M. +Fille. + +"He lost those suits of importance?" + +"That is so, monsieur." + +"And they cost him six thousand dollars--and over?" The Big Financier +seemed to be pressing towards a point. + +"Something over that amount, monsieur." + +"And he may lose the suit now before the Courts?" + +"Who can tell, monsieur!" vaguely commented the little learned official. + +M. Mornay was not to be evaded. "Yes, yes, but the case as it stands--to +you who are wise in experience of legal affairs, does it seem at all a +sure thing for him?" + +"I wish I could say it was, monsieur," sadly answered the other. + +The Big Financier nodded vigorously. "Exactly. Nothing is so +unproductive as the law. It is expensive whether you win or lose, and +it is murderously expensive when you do lose. You will observe, I know, +that your Jean Jacques is a man who can only be killed once--eh?" + +"Monsieur?" M. Fille really did not grasp this remark. + +M. Mornay's voice became precise. "I will explain. He has never created; +he has only developed what has been created. He inherited much of what +he has or has had. His designs were always affected by the fact that he +had never built from the very bottom. When he goes to pieces--" + +"Monsieur--to pieces!" exclaimed the Clerk of the Court painfully. + +"Well, put it another way. If he is broken financially, he will never +come up again. Not because of his age--I lost a second fortune at +fifty, and have a third ready to lose at sixty--but because the primary +initiative won't be in him. He'll say he has lost, and that there's an +end to it all. His philosophy will come into play--just at the last. It +will help him in one way and harm him in another." + +"Ah, then you know about his philosophy, monsieur?" queried M. Fille. +Was Jean Jacques' philosophy, after all, to be a real concrete asset of +his life sooner or later? + +The Big Financier smiled, and turned some coins over in his pocket +rather loudly. Presently he said: "The first time I ever saw him he +treated me to a page of Descartes. It cost him one per cent. I always +charge a man for talking sentiment to me in business hours. I had to +listen to him, and he had to pay me for listening. I've no doubt his +general yearly expenditure has been increased for the same reason--eh, +Maitre Fille? He has done it with others--yes?" M. Fille waved a hand +in deprecation, and his voice had a little acidity as he replied: "Ah, +monsieur, what can we poor provincials do--any of us--in dealing with +men like you, philosophy or no philosophy? You get us between the +upper and the nether mill stones. You are cosmopolitan; M. Jean Jacques +Barbille is a provincial; and you, because he has soul enough to forget +business for a moment and to speak of things that matter more than money +and business, you grind him into powder." + +M. Mornay shook his head and lighted his cigar again. "There you are +wrong, Maitre Fille. It is bad policy to grind to powder, or grind at +all, men out of whom you are making money. It is better to keep them +from between the upper and nether mill-stones. + +"I have done so with your Barbille. I could give him such trouble as +would bring things crashing down upon him at once, if I wanted to be +merely vicious in getting my own; but that would make it impossible for +me to meet at dinner my friend Judge Carcasson. So, as long as I can, I +will not press him. But I tell you that the margin of safety on which he +is moving now is too narrow--scarce a foot-hold. He has too much under +construction in the business of his life, and if one stone slips +out, down may come the whole pile. He has stopped building the +cheese-factory--that represents sheer loss. The ash-factory is to close +next week, the saw-mill is only paying its way, and the flour-mill and +the farms, which have to sustain the call of his many interests, can't +stand the drain. Also, he has several people heavily indebted to him, +and if they go down--well, it depends on the soundness of the security +he holds. If they listened to him talk philosophy, encouraged him to +do it, and told him they liked it, when the bargain was being made, the +chances are the security is inadequate." + +The Clerk of the Court bridled up. "Monsieur, you are very hard on a man +who for twenty-five years has been a figure and a power in this part of +the province. You sneer at one who has been a benefactor to the place +where he lives; who has given with the right hand and the left; whose +enterprise has been a source of profit to many; and who has got a savage +reward for the acts of a blameless and generous life. You know his +troubles, monsieur, and we who have seen him bear them with fortitude +and Christian philosophy, we resent--" + +"You need resent nothing, Maitre Fille," interrupted the Big Financier, +not unkindly. "What I have said has been said to his friend and the +friend of my own great friend, Judge Carcasson; and I am only anxious +that he should be warned by someone whose opinions count with him; whom +he can trust--" + +"But, monsieur, alas!" broke in the Clerk of the Court, "that is the +trouble; he does not select those he can trust. He is too confiding. +He believes those who flatter him, who impose on his good heart. It has +always been so." + +"I judge it is so still in the case of Monsieur Dolores, his daughter's +grandfather?" the Big Financier asked quizzically. + +"It is so, monsieur," replied M. Fille. "The loss of his daughter shook +him even more than the flight of his wife; and it is as though he could +not live without that scoundrel near him--a vicious man, who makes +trouble wherever he goes. He was a cause of loss to M. Barbille years +ago when he managed the ash-factory; he is very dangerous to women--even +now he is a danger to the future of a young widow" (he meant the widow +of Palass Poucette); "and he has caused a scandal by perjury as a +witness, and by the consequences--but I need not speak of that here. He +will do Jean Jacques great harm in the end, of that I am sure. The very +day Mademoiselle Zoe left the Manor Cartier to marry the English actor, +Jean Jacques took that Spanish bad-lot to his home; and there he stays, +and the old friends go--the old friends go; and he does not seem to miss +them." + +There was something like a sob in M. Fille's voice. He had loved Zoe in +a way that in a mother would have meant martyrdom, if necessary, and +in a father would have meant sacrifice when needed; and indeed he had +sacrificed both time and money to find Zoe. He had even gone as far as +Winnipeg on the chance of finding her, making that first big journey in +the world, which was as much to him in all ways as a journey to Bagdad +would mean to most people of M. Mornay's world. Also he had spent money +since in corresponding with lawyers in the West whom he engaged to +search for her; but Zoe had never been found. She had never written +but one letter to Jean Jacques since her flight. This letter said, +in effect, that she would come back when her husband was no longer "a +beggar" as her father had called him, and not till then. It was written +en route to Winnipeg, at the dictation of Gerard Fynes, who had a +romantic view of life and a mistaken pride, but some courage too--the +courage of love. + +"He thinks his daughter will come back--yes?" asked M. Mornay. "Once +he said to me that he was sorry there was no lady to welcome me at the +Manor Cartier, but that he hoped his daughter would yet have the honour. +His talk is quite spacious and lofty at times, as you know." + +"So--that is so, monsieur... Mademoiselle Zoe's room is always ready for +her. At time of Noel he sent cards to all the families of the parish who +had been his friends, as from his daughter and himself; and when people +came to visit at the Manor on New Year's Day, he said to each and all +that his daughter regretted she could not arrive in time from the +West to receive them; but that next year she would certainly have the +pleasure." + +"Like the light in the window for the unreturning sailor," somewhat +cynically remarked the Big Financier. "Did many come to the Manor on +that New Year's Day?" + +"But yes, many, monsieur. Some came from kindness, and some because they +were curious--" + +"And Monsieur Dolores?" + +The lips of the Clerk of the Court curled, "He went about with a manner +as soft as that of a young cure. Butter would not melt in his mouth. +Some of the women were sorry for him, until they knew he had given one +of Jean Jacques' best bear-skin rugs to Madame Palass Poucette for a New +Year's gift." + +The Big Financier laughed cheerfully. "It's an old way to +popularity--being generous with other people's money. That is why I am +here. The people that spend your Jean Jacques' money will be spending +mine too, if I don't take care." + +M. Fille noted the hard look which now settled in M. Mornay's face, and +it disturbed him. He rose and leaned over the table towards his visitor +anxiously. + +"Tell me, if you please, monsieur, is there any real and immediate +danger of the financial collapse of Jean Jacques?" + +The other regarded M. Fille with a look of consideration. He liked this +Clerk of the Court, but he liked Jean Jacques for the matter of that, +and away now from the big financial arena where he usually worked, his +natural instincts had play. He had come to St. Saviour's with a bigger +thing in his mind than Jean Jacques and his affairs; he had come on the +matter of a railway, and had taken Jean Jacques on the way, as it were. +The scheme for the railway looked very promising to him, and he was in +good humour; so that all he said about Jean Jacques was free from that +general irritation of spirit which has sacrificed many a small man on +a big man's altar. He saw the agitation he had caused, and he almost +repented of what he had already said; yet he had acted with a view to +getting M. Fille to warn Jean Jacques. + +"I repeat what I said," he now replied. "Monsieur Jean Jacques' affairs +are too nicely balanced. A little shove one way or another and over goes +the whole caboose. If anyone here has influence over him, it would be a +kindness to use it. That case before the Court of Appeal, for instance; +he'd be better advised to settle it, if there is still time. One or two +of the mortgages he holds ought to be foreclosed, so that he may get +out of them all the law will let him. He ought to pouch the money that's +owing him; he ought to shave away his insurance, his lightning-rod, and +his horsedealing business; and he ought to sell his farms and his store, +and concentrate on the flour-mill and the saw-mill. He has had his +warnings generally from my lawyers, but what he wants most is the gentle +hand to lead him; and I should think that yours, M. Fille, is the hand +the Almighty would choose if He was concerned with what happens at St. +Saviour's and wanted an agent." + +The Clerk of the Court blushed greatly. This was a very big man indeed +in the great commercial world, and flattery from him had unusual +significance; but he threw out his hands with a gesture of helplessness, +and said: "Monsieur, if I could be of use I would; but he has ceased to +listen to me; he--" + +He got no further, for there was a sharp knock at the street door of the +outer office, and M. Fille hastened to the other room. After a moment he +came back, a familiar voice following him. + +"It is Monsieur Barbille, monsieur," M. Fille said quietly, but with +apprehensive eyes. + +"Well--he wants to see me?" asked M. Mornay. "No, no, monsieur. It would +be better if he did not see you. He is in some agitation." + +"Fille! Maitre Fille--be quick now," called Jean Jacques' voice from the +other room. + +"What did I say, monsieur?" asked the Big Financier. "The mind that's +received a blow must be moving--moving; the man with the many irons must +be flying from bellows to bellows!" + +"Come, come, there's no time to lose," came Jean Jacques' voice again, +and the handle of the door of their room turned. + +M. Fille's hand caught the handle. "Excuse me, Monsieur Barbille,--a +minute please," he persisted almost querulously. "Be good enough to keep +your manners... monsieur!" he added to the Financier, "if you do not +wish to speak with him, there is a door"--he pointed--"which will let +you into the side-street." + +"What is his trouble?" asked M. Mornay. + +M. Fille hesitated, then said reflectively: "He has lost his case in the +Appeal Court, monsieur; also, his cousin, Auguste Charron, who has been +working the Latouche farm, has flitted, leaving--" + +"Leaving Jean Jacques to pay unexpected debts?" + +"So, monsieur." + +"Then I can be of no use, I fear," remarked M. Mornay dryly. + +"Fille! Fille!" came the voice of Jean Jacques insistently from the +room. + +"And so I will say au revoir, Monsieur Fille," continued the Big +Financier. + +A moment later the great man was gone, and M. Fille was alone with the +philosopher of the Manor Cartier. + +"Well, well, why do you keep me waiting! Who was it in there--anyone +that's concerned with my affairs?" asked Jean Jacques. + +In these days he was sensitive when there was no cause, and he was +credulous where he ought to be suspicious. The fact that the little man +had held the door against him made him sure that M. Fille had not wished +him to see the departed visitor. + +"Come, out with it--who was it making fresh trouble for me?" persisted +Jean Jacques. + +"No one making trouble for you, my friend," answered the Clerk of the +Court, "but someone who was trying to do you a good turn." + +"He must have been a stranger then," returned Jean Jacques bitterly. +"Who was it?" + +M. Fille, after an instant's further hesitation, told him. + +"Oh, him--M. Momay!" exclaimed Jean Jacques, with a look of relief, his +face lighting. "That's a big man with a most capable and far-reaching +mind. He takes a thing in as the ocean mouths a river. If I had had +men like that to deal with all my life, what a different ledger I'd be +balancing now! Descartes, Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel--he +has an ear for them all. That is the intellectual side of him; and in +business"--he threw up a hand--"there he views the landscape from the +mountain-top. He has vision, strategy, executive. He is Napoleon +and Anacreon in one. He is of the builders on the one hand, of the +Illuminati and the Encyclopedistes on the other." + +Even the Clerk of the Court, with his circumscribed range of thought and +experience, in that moment saw Jean Jacques as he really was. Here was +a man whose house of life was beginning to sway from an earthquake; +who had been smitten in several deadly ways, and was about to receive +buffetings beyond aught he had yet experienced, philosophizing on the +tight-rope--Blondin and Plato in one. Yet sardonically piteous as it +was, the incident had shown Jean Jacques with the germ of something big +in him. He had recognized in M. Mornay, who could level him to the dust +tomorrow financially, a master of the world's affairs, a prospector of +life's fields, who would march fearlessly beyond the farthest frontiers +into the unknown. Jean Jacques' admiration of the lion who could, and +would, slay him was the best tribute to his own character. + +M. Fille's eyes moistened as he realized it; and he knew that nothing he +could say or do would make this man accommodate his actions to the hard +rules of the business of life; he must for ever be applying to them +conceptions of a half-developed mind. + +"Quite so, quite so, Jean Jacques," M. Fille responded gently, +"but"--here came a firmer note to his voice, for he had taken to heart +the lesson M. Mornay had taught him, and he was determined to do his +duty now when the opportunity was in his hand--"but you have got to deal +with things as they are; not as they might have been. If you cannot have +the great men you have to deal with the little men like me. You have to +prove yourself bigger than the rest of us by doing things better. A man +doesn't fail only because of others, but also because of himself. You +were warned that the chances were all against you in the case that's +just been decided, yet you would go on; you were warned that your +cousin, Auguste Charron, was in debt, and that his wife was mad to get +away from the farm and go West, yet you would take no notice. Now he +has gone, and you have to pay, and your case has gone against you in the +Appellate Court besides.... I will tell you the truth, my friend, even +if it cuts me to the heart. You have not kept your judgment in hand; you +have gone ahead like a bull at a gate; and you pay the price. You listen +to those who flatter, and on those who would go through fire and water +for you, you turn your back--on those who would help you in your hour of +trouble, in your dark day." + +Jean Jacques drew himself up with a gesture, impatient, masterful and +forbidding. "I have fought my fight alone in the dark day; I have +not asked for any one's help," he answered. "I have wept on no man's +shoulder. I have been mauled by the claws of injury and shame, and I +have not flinched. I have healed my own wounds, and I wear my scars +without--" + +He stopped, for there came a sharp rat-tat-tat at the door which opened +into the street. Somehow the commonplace, trivial interruption produced +on both a strange, even startling effect. It suddenly produced in their +minds a feeling of apprehension, as though there was whispered in their +ears, "Something is going to happen--beware!" + +Rat-tat-tat! The two men looked at each other. The same thought was in +the mind of both. Jean Jacques clutched at his beard nervously, then +with an effort he controlled himself. He took off his hat as though he +was about to greet some important person, or to receive sentence in +a court. Instinctively he felt the little book of philosophy which he +always carried now in his breast-pocket, as a pietist would finger his +beads in moments of fear or anxiety. The Clerk of the Court passed his +thin hand over his hair, as he was wont to do in court when the Judge +began his charge to the Jury, and then with an action more impulsive +than was usual with him, he held out his hand, and Jean Jacques grasped +it. Something was bringing them together just when it seemed that, in +the storm of Jean Jacques' indignation, they were about to fall apart. +M. Fille's eyes said as plainly as words could do, "Courage, my friend!" + +Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! The knocking was sharp and imperative now. The +Clerk of the Court went quickly forward and threw open the door. + +There stepped inside the widow of Palass Poucette. She had a letter in +her hand. "M'sieu', pardon, if I intrude," she said to M. Fille; "but I +heard that M'sieu' Jean Jacques was here. I have news for him." + +"News!" repeated Jean Jacques, and he looked like a man who was waiting +for what he feared to hear. "They told me at the post-office that you +were here. I got the letter only a quarter of an hour ago, and I thought +I would go at once to the Manor Cartier and tell M'sieu' Jean Jacques +what the letter says. I wanted to go to the Manor Cartier for something +else as well, but I will speak of that by and by. It is the letter now." + +She pulled off first one glove and then the other, still holding the +letter, as though she was about to perform some ceremony. "It was a +good thing I found out that M'sieu' Jean Jacques was here. It saves a +four-mile drive," she remarked. + +"The news--ah, nom de Dieu, the slowness of the woman--like a river +going uphill!" exclaimed Jean Jacques, who was finding it hard to still +the trembling of his limbs. + +The widow of Palass Poucette flushed, but she had some sense in her +head, and she realized that Jean Jacques was a little unbalanced at the +moment. Indeed, Jean Jacques was not so old that she would have found +it difficult to take a well-defined and warm interest in him, were +circumstances propitious. She held out the letter to him at once. "It is +from my sister in the West--at Shilah," she explained. "There is nothing +in it you can't read, and most of it concerns you." Jean Jacques took +the letter, but he could not bring himself to read it, for Virginie +Poucette's manner was not suggestive of happy tidings. After an +instant's hesitation he handed the letter to M. Fille, who pressed his +lips with an air of determination, and put on his glasses. + +Jean Jacques saw the face of the Clerk of the Court flush and then turn +pale as he read the letter. "There, be quick!" he said before M. Fille +had turned the first page. + +Then the widow of Palass Poucette came to him and, in a simple harmless +way she had, free from coquetry or guile, stood beside him, took his +hand and held it. He seemed almost unconscious of her act, but his +fingers convulsively tightened on hers; while she reflected that here +was one who needed help sorely; here was a good, warm-hearted man on +whom a woman could empty out affection like rain and get a good harvest. +She really was as simple as a child, was Virginie Poucette, and even in +her acquaintance with Sebastian Dolores, there had only been working in +her the natural desire of a primitive woman to have a man saying that +which would keep alive in her the things that make her sing as she +toils; and certainly Virginie toiled late and early on her farm. She +really was concerned for Jean Jacques. Both wife and daughter had taken +flight, and he was alone and in trouble. At this moment she felt +she would like to be a sister to him--she was young enough to be his +daughter almost. Her heart was kind. + +"Now!" said Jean Jacques at last, as the Clerk of the Court's eyes +reached the end of the last page. "Now, speak! It is--it is my Zoe?" + +"It is our Zoe," answered M. Fille. + +"Figure de Christ, what do you wait for--she is not dead?" exclaimed +Jean Jacques with a courage which made him set his feet squarely. + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head and began. "She is alive. +Madame Poucette's sister saw her by chance. Zoe was on her way up the +Saskatchewan River to the Peace River country with her husband. Her +husband's health was bad. He had to leave the stage in the United States +where he had gone after Winnipeg. The doctors said he must live the +open-air life. He and Zoe were going north, to take a farm somewhere." + +"Somewhere! Somewhere!" murmured Jean Jacques. "The farther away from +Jean Jacques the better--that is what she thinks." + +"No, you are wrong, my friend," rejoined M. Fille. "She said to Madame +Poucette's sister"--he held up the letter--"that when they had proved +they could live without anybody's help they would come back to see you. +Zoe thought that, having taken her life in her own hands, she ought to +justify herself before she asked your forgiveness and a place at your +table. She felt that you could only love her and be glad of her, if her +man was independent of you. It is a proud and sensitive soul--but there +it is!" + +"It is romance, it is quixotism--ah, heart of God, what quixotism!" +exclaimed Jean Jacques. + +"She gets her romance and quixotism from Jean Jacques Barbille," +retorted the Clerk of the Court. "She does more feeling than +thinking--like you." + +Jean Jacques' heart was bleeding, but he drew himself up proudly, and +caught his hand away from the warm palm of Poucette's widow. As his +affairs crumbled his pride grew more insistent. M. Fille had challenged +his intellect--his intellect! + +"My life has been a procession of practical things," he declared +oracularly. "I have been a man of business who designs. I am no dreamer. +I think. I act. I suffer. I have been the victim of romance, not +its interpreter. Mercy of God, what has broken my life, what but +romance--romance, first with one and then with another! More feeling +than thinking, Maitre Fille--you say that? Why the Barbilles have ever +in the past built up life on a basis of thought and action, and I have +added philosophy--the science of thought and act. Jean Jacques Barbille +has been the man of design and the man of action also. Don Quixote was a +fool, a dreamer, but Jean Jacques is no Don Quixote. He is a man who has +done things, but also he is a man who has been broken on the wheel of +life. He is a man whose heart-strings have been torn--" + +He had worked himself up into a fit of eloquence and revolt. He was +touched by the rod of desperation, which makes the soul protest that it +is right when it knows that it is wrong. + +Suddenly, breaking off his speech, he threw up his hands and made for +the door. + +"I will fight it out alone!" he declared with rough emotion, and at the +door he turned towards them again. He looked at them both as though he +would dare them to contradict him. The restless fire of his eyes seemed +to dart from one to the other. + +"That's the way it is," said the widow of Palass Poucette coming quickly +forward to him. "It's always the way. We must fight our battles alone, +but we don't have to bear the wounds alone. In the battle you are +alone, but the hand to heal the wounds may be another's. You are a +philosopher--well, what I speak is true, isn't it?" + +Virginie had said the one thing which could have stayed the tide of Jean +Jacques' pessimism and broken his cloud of gloom. She appealed to him +in the tune of an old song. The years and the curses of years had not +dispelled the illusion that he was a philosopher. He stopped with his +hand on the door. + +"That's so, without doubt that's so," he said. "You have stumbled on a +truth of life, madame." + +Suddenly there came into his look something of the yearning and hunger +which the lonely and forsaken feel when they are not on the full tide +of doing. It was as though he must have companionship, in spite of +his brave announcement that he must fight his fight alone. He had been +wounded in the battle, and here was one who held out the hand of healing +to him. Never since his wife had left him the long lonely years ago +had a woman meant anything to him except as one of a race; but in this +moment here a woman had held his hand, and he could feel still the warm +palm which had comforted his own agitated fingers. + +Virginie Poucette saw, and she understood what was passing in his mind. +Yet she did not see and understand all by any means; and it is hard to +tell what further show of fire there might have been, but that the Clerk +of the Court was there, saying harshly under his breath, "The huzzy! The +crafty huzzy!" + +The Clerk of the Court was wrong. Virginie was merely sentimental, not +intriguing or deceitful; for Jean Jacques was not a widower--and she was +an honest woman and genuinely tender-hearted. + +"I'm coming to the Manor Cartier to-morrow," Virginie continued. "I have +a rug of yours. By mistake it was left at my house by M'sieu' Dolores." + +"You needn't do that. I will call at your place tomorrow for it," +replied Jean Jacques almost eagerly. "I told M'sieu' Dolores to-day +never to enter my house again. I didn't know it was your rug. It was +giving away your property, not his own," she hurriedly explained, and +her face flushed. + +"That is the Spanish of it," said Jean Jacques bitterly. His eyes were +being opened in many directions to-day. + +M. Fille was in distress. Jean Jacques had had a warning about Sebastian +Dolores, but here was another pit into which he might fall, the pit +digged by a widow, who, no doubt, would not hesitate to marry a divorced +Catholic philosopher, if he could get a divorce by hook or by crook. +Jean Jacques had said that he was going to Virginie Poucette's place +the next day. That was as bad as it could be; yet there was this to +the good, that it was to-morrow and not to-day; and who could tell what +might happen between to-day and to-morrow! + +A moment later the three were standing outside the office in the street. +As Jean Jacques climbed into his red wagon, Virginie Poucette's eyes +were attracted to the northern sky where a reddish glow appeared, and +she gave an exclamation of surprise. + +"That must be a fire," she said, pointing. + +"A bit of pine-land probably," said M. Fille--with anxiety, however, for +the red glow lay in the direction of St. Saviour's where were the +Manor Cartier and Jean Jacques' mills. Maitre Fille was possessed of a +superstition that all the things which threaten a man's life to wreck +it, operate awhile in their many fields before they converge like an +army in one field to deliver the last attack on their victim. It would +not have seemed strange to him, if out of the night a voice of the +unseen had said that the glow in the sky came from the Manor Cartier. +This very day three things had smitten Jean Jacques, and, if three, why +not four or five, or fifty! + +With a strange fascination Jean Jacques' eyes were fastened on the glow. +He clucked to his horses, and they started jerkily away. M. Fille and +the widow Poucette said good-bye to him, but he did not hear, or if he +heard, he did not heed. His look was set upon the red reflection which +widened in the sky and seemed to grow nearer and nearer. The horses +quickened their pace. He touched them with the whip, and they went +faster. The glow increased as he left Vilray behind. He gave the horses +the whip again sharply, and they broke into a gallop. Yet his eyes +scarcely left the sky. The crimson glow drew him, held him, till his +brain was afire also. Jean Jacques had a premonition and a conviction +which was even deeper than the imagination of M. Fille. + +In Vilray, behind him, the telegraph clerk was in the street shouting to +someone to summon the local fire-brigade to go to St. Saviour's. + +"What is it--what is it?" asked M. Fille of the telegraph clerk in +marked agitation. + +"It's M'sieu' Jean Jacques' flour-mill," was the reply. + +Wagons and buggies and carts began to take the road to the Manor +Cartier; and Maitre Fille went also with the widow of Palass Poucette. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET + +Jean Jacques did not go to the house of the widow of Palass Poucette +"next day" as he had proposed: and she did not expect him. She had seen +his flour-mill burned to the ground on the-evening when they met in the +office of the Clerk of the evening Court, when Jean Jacques had learned +that his Zoe had gone into farther and farther places away from him. +Perhaps Virginie Poucette never had shed as many tears in any whole +year of her life as she did that night, not excepting the year Palass +Poucette died, and left her his farm and seven horses, more or less +sound, and a threshing-machine in good condition. The woman had a rare +heart and there was that about Jean Jacques which made her want to help +him. She had no clear idea as to how that could be done, but she had +held his hand at any rate, and he had seemed the better for it. Virginie +had only an objective view of things; and if she was not material, still +she could best express herself through the medium of the senses. + +There were others besides her who shed tears also--those who saw Jean +Jacques' chief asset suddenly disappear in flame and smoke and all his +other assets become thereby liabilities of a kind; and there were many +who would be the poorer in the end because of it. If Jean Jacques went +down, he probably would not go alone. Jean Jacques had done a good +fire-insurance business over a course of years, but somehow he had not +insured himself as heavily as he ought to have done; and in any case +the fire-policy for the mill was not in his own hands. It was in the +safe-keeping of M. Mornay at Montreal, who had warned M. Fille of the +crisis in the money-master's affairs on the very day that the crisis +came. + +No one ever knew how it was that the mill took fire, but there was one +man who had more than a shrewd suspicion, though there was no occasion +for mentioning it. This was Sebastian Dolores. He had not set the mill +afire. That would have been profitable from no standpoint, and he had no +grudge against Jean Jacques. Why should he have a grudge? Jean Jacques' +good fortune, as things were, made his own good fortune; for he ate +and drank and slept and was clothed at his son-in-law's expense. But he +guessed accurately who had set the mill on fire, and that it was done +accidentally. He remembered that a man who smoked bad tobacco which +had to be lighted over and over again, threw a burning match down +after applying it to his pipe. He remembered that there was a heap of +flour-bags near where the man stood when the match was thrown down; and +that some loose strings for tying were also in a pile beside the bags. +So it was easy for the thing to have happened if the man did not turn +round after he threw the match down, but went swaying on out of the +mill, and over to the Manor Cartier, and up staggering to bed; for he +had been drinking potato-brandy, and he had been brought up on the mild +wines of Spain! In other words, the man who threw down the lighted match +which did the mischief was Sebastian Dolores himself. + +He regretted it quite as much as he had ever regretted anything; and +on the night of the fire there were tears in his large brown eyes which +deceived the New Cure and others; though they did not deceive the widow +of Palass Poucette, who had found him out, and who now had no pleasure +at all in his aged gallantries. But the regret Dolores experienced would +not prevent him from doing Jean Jacques still greater injury if, and +when, the chance occurred, should it be to his own advantage. + +Jean Jacques shed no tears on the night that his beloved flour-mill +became a blackened ruin, and his saw-mill had a narrow escape. He was +like one in a dream, scarcely realizing that men were saying kind things +to him; that the New Cure held his hand and spoke to him more like +a brother than one whose profession it was to be good to those who +suffered. In his eyes was the same half-rapt, intense, distant look +which came into them when, at Vilray, he saw that red reflection in the +sky over against St. Saviour's, and urged his horses onward. + +The world knew that the burning of the mill was a blow to Jean Jacques, +but it did not know how great and heavy the blow was. First one and +then another of his friends said he was insured, and that in another +six months the mill-wheel would be turning again. They said so to Jean +Jacques when he stood with his eyes fixed on the burning fabric, which +nothing could save; but he showed no desire to speak. He only nodded +and kept on staring at the fire with that curious underglow in his eyes. +Some chemistry of the soul had taken place in him in the hour when he +drove to the Manor Cartier from Vilray, and it produced a strange fire, +which merged into the reflection of the sky above the burning mill. +Later, came things which were strange and eventful in his life, but +that under-glow was for ever afterwards in his eyes. It was in singular +contrast to the snapping fire which had been theirs all the days of his +life till now--the snapping fire of action, will and design. It still +was there when they said to him suddenly that the wind had changed, and +that the flame and sparks were now blowing toward the saw-mill. Even +when he gave orders, and set to work to defend the saw-mill, arranging +a line of men with buckets on its roof, and so saving it, this look +remained. It was something spiritual and unmaterial, something, maybe, +which had to do with the philosophy he had preached, thought and +practised over long years. It did not disappear when at last, after +midnight, everyone had gone, and the smouldering ruins of his greatest +asset lay mournful in the wan light of the moon. + +Kind and good friends like the Clerk of the Court and the New Cure had +seen him to his bedroom at midnight, leaving him there with a promise +that they would come on the morrow; and he had said goodnight evenly, +and had shut the door upon them with a sort of smile. But long after +they had gone, when Sebastian Dolores and Seraphe Corniche were asleep, +he had got up again and left the house, to gaze at the spot where the +big white mill with the red roof had been-the mill which had been there +in the days of the Baron of Beaugard, and to which time had only added +size and adornment. The gold-cock weathervane of the mill, so long the +admiration of people living and dead, and indeed the symbol of himself, +as he had been told, being so full of life and pride, courage and +vigour-it lay among the ruins, a blackened relic of the Barbilles. + +He had said in M. Fille's office not many hours before, "I will fight +it all out alone," and here in the tragic quiet of the night he made his +resolve a reality. In appearance he was not now like the "Seigneur" who +sang to the sailors on the Antoine when she was fighting for the shore +of Gaspe; nevertheless there was that in him which would keep him much +the same man to the end. + +Indeed, as he got into bed that fateful night he said aloud: "They shall +see that I am not beaten. If they give me time up there in Montreal I'll +keep the place till Zoe comes back--till Zoe comes home." + +As he lay and tried to sleep, he kept saying over to himself, "Till Zoe +comes home." + +He thought that if he could but have Zoe back, it all would not matter +so much. She would keep looking at him and saying, "There's the man that +never flinched when things went wrong; there's the man that was a friend +to everyone." + +At last a thought came to him--the key to the situation as it seemed, +the one thing necessary to meet the financial situation. He would sell +the biggest farm he owned, which had been to him in its importance like +the flour-mill itself. He had had an offer for it that very day, and +a bigger offer still a week before. It was mortgaged to within eight +thousand dollars of what it could be sold for but, if he could gain +time, that eight thousand dollars would build the mill again. M. Mornay, +the Big Financier, would certainly see that this was his due--to get +his chance to pull things straight. Yes, he would certainly sell the +Barbille farm to-morrow. With this thought in his mind he went to sleep +at last, and he did not wake till the sun was high. + +It was a sun of the most wonderful brightness and warmth. Yesterday it +would have made the Manor Cartier and all around it look like Arcady. +But as it shone upon the ruins of the mill, when Jean Jacques went out +into the working world again, it made so gaunt and hideous a picture +that, in spite of himself, a cry of misery came from his lips. + +Through all the misfortunes which had come to him the outward semblance +of things had remained, and when he went in and out of the plantation +of the Manor Cartier, there was no physical change in the surroundings, +which betrayed the troubles and disasters fallen upon its overlord. +There it all was just as it had ever been, and seeming to deny that +anything had changed in the lives of those who made the place other +than a dead or deserted world. When Carmen went, when Zoe fled, when his +cousin Auguste Charron took his flight, when defeats at law abashed +him, the house and mills, and stores and offices, and goodly trees, and +well-kept yards and barns and cattle-sheds all looked the same. Thus +it was that he had been fortified. In one sense his miseries had seemed +unreal, because all was the same in the outward scene. It was as though +it all said to him: "It is a dream that those you love have vanished, +that ill-fortune sits by your fireside. One night you will go to bed +thinking that wife and child have gone, that your treasury is nearly +empty; and in the morning you will wake up and find your loved ones +sitting in their accustomed places, and your treasury will be full to +overflowing as of old." + +So it was while the picture of his home scene remained unbroken and +serene; but the hideous mass of last night's holocaust was now before +his eyes, with little streams of smoke rising from the cindered +pile, and a hundred things with which his eyes had been familiar lay +distorted, excoriated and useless. He realized with sudden completeness +that a terrible change bad come in his life, that a cyclone had ruined +the face of his created world. + +This picture did more to open up Jean Jacques' eyes to his real position +in life than anything he had experienced, than any sorrow he had +suffered. He had been in torment in the past, but he had refused to see +that he was in Hades. Now it was as though he had been led through the +streets of Hell by some dark spirit, while in vain he looked round for +his old friends Kant and Hegel, Voltaire and Rousseau and Rochefoucauld, +Plato and Aristotle. + +While gazing at the dismal scene, however, and unheeding the idlers who +poked about among the ruins, and watched him as one who was the centre +of a drama, he suddenly caught sight of the gold Cock of Beaugard, which +had stood on the top of the mill, in the very centre of the ruins. + +Yes, there it was, the crested golden cock which had typified his own +life, as he went head high, body erect, spurs giving warning, and a +clarion in his throat ready to blare forth at any moment. There was the +golden Cock of Beaugard in the cinders, the ashes and the dust. His +chin dropped on his breast, and a cloud like a fog on the coast of +Gaspe settled round him. Yet even as his head drooped, something else +happened--one of those trivial things which yet may be the pivot of +great things. A cock crowed--almost in his very ear, it seemed. He +lifted his head quickly, and a superstitious look flashed into his face. +His eyes fastened on the burnished head of the Cock among the ruins. +To his excited imagination it was as though the ancient symbol of +the Barbilles had spoken to him in its own language of good cheer and +defiance. Yes, there it was, half covered by the ruins, but its head was +erect in the midst of fire and disaster. Brought low, it was still alert +above the wreckage. The child, the dreamer, the optimist, the egoist, +and the man alive in Jean Jacques sprang into vigour again. It was as +though the Cock of Beaugard had really summoned him to action, and the +crowing had not been that of a barnyard bantam not a hundred feet away +from him. Jean Jacques' head went up too. + +"Me--I am what I always was, nothing can change me," he exclaimed +defiantly. "I will sell the Barbille farm and build the mill again." + +So it was that by hook or by crook, and because the Big Financier had +more heart than he even acknowledged to his own wife, Jean Jacques +did sell the Barbille farm, and got in cash--in good hard cash-eight +thousand dollars after the mortgage was paid. M. Mornay was even willing +to take the inadequate indemnity of the insurance policy on the mill, +and lose the rest, in order that Jean Jacques should have the eight +thousand dollars to rebuild. This he did because Jean Jacques showed +such amazing courage after the burning of the mill, and spread himself +out in a greater activity than his career had yet shown. He shaved +through this financial crisis, in spite of the blow he had received by +the loss of his lawsuits, the flitting of his cousin, Auguste Charron, +and the farm debts of this same cousin. It all meant a series of +manipulations made possible by the apparent confidence reposed in him by +M. Mornay. + +On the day he sold his farm he was by no means out of danger of absolute +insolvency--he was in fact ruined; but he was not yet the victim of +those processes which would make him legally insolvent. The vultures +were hovering, but they had not yet swooped, and there was the Manor +saw-mill going night and day; for by the strangest good luck Jean +Jacques received an order for M. Mornay's new railway (Judge Carcasson +was behind that) which would keep his saw-mill working twenty-four hours +in the day for six months. + +"I like his pluck, but still, ten to one, he loses," remarked M. Mornay +to Judge Carcasson. "He is an unlucky man, and I agree with Napoleon +that you oughtn't to be partner with an unlucky man." + +"Yet you have had to do with Monsieur Jean Jacques," responded the aged +Judge. + +M. Mornay nodded indulgently. + +"Yes, without risk, up to the burning of the mill. Now I take my +chances, simply because I'm a fool too, in spite of all the wisdom I see +in history and in life's experiences. I ought to have closed him up, but +I've let him go on, you see." + +"You will not regret it," remarked the Judge. "He really is worth it." + +"But I think I will regret it financially. I think that this is the +last flare of the ambition and energy of your Jean Jacques. That often +happens--a man summons up all his reserves for one last effort. It's +partly pride, partly the undefeated thing in him, partly the gambling +spirit which seizes men when nothing is left but one great spectacular +success or else be blotted out. That's the case with your philosopher; +and I'm not sure that I won't lose twenty thousand dollars by him yet." + +"You've lost more with less justification," retorted the Judge, who, in +his ninetieth year, was still as alive as his friend at sixty. + +M. Mornay waved a hand in acknowledgment, and rolled his cigar from +corner to corner of his mouth. "Oh, I've lost a lot more in my +time, Judge, but with a squint in my eye! But I'm doing this with no +astigmatism. I've got the focus." + +The aged Judge gave a conciliatory murmur-he had a fine persuasive +voice. "You would never be sorry for what you have done if you had known +his daughter--his Zoe. It's the thought of her that keeps him going. He +wants the place to be just as she left it when she comes back." + +"Well, well, let's hope it will. I'm giving him a chance," replied M. +Mornay with his wineglass raised. "He's got eight thousand dollars in +cash to build his mill again; and I hope he'll keep a tight hand on it +till the mill is up." + +Keep a tight hand on it? + +That is what Jean Jacques meant to do; but if a man wants to keep a +tight hand on money he should not carry it about in his pocket in cold, +hard cash. It was a foolish whim of Jean Jacques that he must have the +eight thousand dollars in cash--in hundred-dollar bills--and not in the +form of a cheque; but there was something childlike in him. When, as he +thought, he had saved himself from complete ruin, he wanted to keep and +gloat over the trophy of victory, and his trophy was the eight thousand +dollars got from the Barbille farm. He would have to pay out two +thousand dollars in cash to the contractors for the rebuilding of the +mill at once,--they were more than usually cautious--but he would have +six thousand left, which he would put in the bank after he had let +people see that he was well fortified with cash. + +The child in him liked the idea of pulling out of his pocket a few +thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He had always carried a good +deal of money loose in his pocket, and now that his resources were so +limited he would still make a gallant show. After a week or two he would +deposit six thousand dollars in the bank; but he was so eager to begin +building the mill, that he paid over the stipulated two thousand dollars +to the contractors on the very day he received the eight thousand. A few +days later the remaining six thousand were housed in a cupboard with an +iron door in the wall of his office at the Manor Cartier. + +"There, that will keep me in heart and promise," said Jean Jacques as he +turned the key in the lock. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER + +The day after Jean Jacques had got a new lease of life and become his +own banker, he treated himself to one of those interludes of pleasure +from which he had emerged in the past like a hermit from his cave. He +sat on the hill above his lime-kilns, reading the little hand-book of +philosophy which had played so big a part in his life. Whatever else had +disturbed his mind and diverted him from his course, nothing had weaned +him from this obsession. He still interlarded all his conversation with +quotations from brilliant poseurs like Chateaubriand and Rochefoucauld, +and from missionaries of thought like Hume and Hegel. + +His real joy, however, was in withdrawing for what might be called +a seance of meditation from the world's business. Some men make +celebration in wine, sport and adventure; but Jean Jacques made it in +flooding his mind with streams of human thought which often tried to run +uphill, which were frequently choked with weeds, but still were like +the pool of Siloam to his vain mind. They bathed that vain mind in the +illusion that it could see into the secret springs of experience. + +So, on as bright a day as ever the New World offered, Jean Jacques sat +reciting to himself a spectacular bit of logic from one of his idols, +wedged between a piece of Aristotle quartz and Plato marble. The sound +of it was good in his ears. He mouthed it as greedily and happily +as though he was not sitting on the edge of a volcano instead of the +moss-grown limestone on a hill above his own manor. + +"The course of events in the life of a man, whatever their gravity or +levity, are only to be valued and measured by the value and measure of +his own soul. Thus, what in its own intrinsic origin and material +should in all outer reason be a tragedy, does not of itself shake the +foundations or make a fissure in the superstructure. Again--" + +Thus his oracle, but Jean Jacques' voice suddenly died down, for, as +he sat there, the face of a woman made a vivid call of recognition. He +slowly awakened from his self-hypnotism, to hear a woman speaking to +him; to see two dark eyes looking at him from under heavy black brows +with bright, intent friendliness. + +"They said at the Manor you had come this way, so I thought I'd not have +my drive for nothing, and here I am. I wanted to say something to you, +M'sieu' Jean Jacques." + +It was the widow of Palass Poucette. She looked very fresh and friendly +indeed, and she was the very acme of neatness. If she was not handsome, +she certainly had a true and sweet comeliness of her own, due to the +deep rose-colour of her cheeks, the ivory whiteness round the lustrous +brown eyes, the regular shining teeth which showed so much when she +smiled, and the look half laughing, half sentimental which dominated +all. + +Before she had finished speaking Jean Jacques was on his feet with +his hat off. Somehow she seemed to be a part of that abstraction, +that intoxication, in which he had just been drowning his accumulated +anxieties. Not that Virginie Poucette was logical or philosophical, or +a child of thought, for she was wholly the opposite-practical, sensuous, +emotional, a child of nature and of Eve. But neither was Jean Jacques +a real child of thought, though he made unconscious pretence of it. He +also was a child of nature--and Adam. He thought he had the courage +of his convictions, but it was only the courage of his emotions. His +philosophy was but the bent or inclination of a mind with a capacity +to feel things rather than to think them. He had feeling, the first +essential of the philosopher, but there he stayed, an undeveloped +chrysalis. + +His look was abstracted still as he took the hand of the widow of Palass +Poucette; but he spoke cheerfully. "It is a pleasure, madame, to welcome +you among my friends," he said. + +He made a little flourish with the book which had so long been his bosom +friend, and added: "But I hope you are in no trouble that you come to +me--so many come to me in their troubles," he continued with an air of +satisfaction. + +"Come to you--why, you have enough troubles of your own!" she made +answer. "It's because you have your own troubles that I'm here." + +"Why you are here," he remarked vaguely. + +There was something very direct and childlike in Virginie Poucette. She +could not pretend; she wore her heart on her sleeve. She travelled a +long distance in a little while. + +"I've got no trouble myself," she responded. "But, yes, I have," she +added. "I've got one trouble--it's yours. It's that you've been having +hard times--the flour-mill, your cousin Auguste Charron, the lawsuits, +and all the rest. They say at Vilray that you have all you can do to +keep out of the Bankruptcy Court, and that--" + +Jean Jacques started, flushed, and seemed about to get angry; but she +put things right at once. + +"People talk more than they know, but there's always some fire where +there's smoke," she hastened to explain. "Besides, your father-in-law +babbles more than is good for him or for you. I thought at first that M. +Dolores was a first-class kind of man, that he had had hard times too, +and I let him come and see me; but I found him out, and that was the end +of it, you may be sure. If you like him, I don't want to say anything +more, but I'm sure that he's no real friend to you-or to anybody. If +that man went to confession--but there, that's not what I've come for. +I've come to say to you that I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life +as I do for you. I cried all night after your beautiful mill was burned +down. You were coming to see me next day--you remember what you said in +M. Fille's office--but of course you couldn't. Of course, there was no +reason why you should come to see me really--I've 'only got two hundred +acres and the house. It's a good house, though--Palass saw to that--and +it's insured; but still I know you'd have come just the same if I'd +had only two acres. I know. There's hosts of people you've been good +to here, and they're sorry for you; and I'm sorrier than any, for I'm +alone, and you're alone, too, except for the old Dolores, and he's no +good to either of us--mark my words, no good to you! I'm sorry for you, +M'sieu' Jean Jacques, and I've come to say that I'm ready to lend you +two thousand dollars, if that's any help. I could make it more if I had +time; but sometimes money on the spot is worth a lot more than what's +just crawling to you--snailing along while you eat your heart out. Two +thousand dollars is two thousand dollars--I know what it's worth to me, +though it mayn't be much to you; but I didn't earn it. It belonged to +a first-class man, and he worked for it, and he died and left it to +me. It's not come easy, go easy with me. I like to feel I've got two +thousand cash without having to mortgage for it. But it belonged to +a number-one man, a man of brains--I've got no brains, only some +sense--and I want another good man to use it and make the world easier +for himself." + +It was a long speech, and she delivered it in little gasps of oratory +which were brightened by her wonderfully kind smile and the heart--not +to say sentiment--which showed in her face. The sentiment, however, +did not prejudice Jean Jacques against her, for he was a sentimentalist +himself. His feelings were very quick, and before she had spoken fifty +words the underglow of his eyes was flooded by something which might +have been mistaken for tears. It was, however, only the moisture of +gratitude and the soul's good feeling. + +"Well there, well there," he said when she had finished, "I've never had +anything like this in my life before. It's the biggest thing in the +art of being a neighbour I've ever seen. You've only been in the parish +three years, and yet you've shown me a confidence immense, inspiring! It +is as the Greek philosopher said, 'To conceive the human mind aright is +the greatest gift from the gods.' And to you, who never read a line of +philosophy, without doubt, you have done the thing that is greatest. It +says, 'I teach neighbourliness and life's exchange.' Madame, your house +ought to be called Neighbourhood House. It is the epitome of the spirit, +it is the shrine of--" + +He was working himself up to a point where he could forget all the +things that trouble humanity, in the inebriation of an idealistic soul +which had a casing of passion, but the passion of the mind and not of +the body; for Jean Jacques had not a sensual drift in his organism. If +there had been a sensual drift, probably Carmen would still have been +the lady of his manor, and he would still have been a magnate and not a +potential bankrupt; for in her way Carmen had been a kind of balance to +his judgment in the business of life, in spite of her own material and +(at the very last) sensual strain. It was a godsend to Jean Jacques to +have such an inspiration as Virginie Poucette had given him. He could +not in these days, somehow, get the fires of his soul lighted, as he was +wont to do in the old times, and he loved talking--how he loved talking +of great things! He was really going hard, galloping strong, when +Virginie interrupted him, first by an exclamation, then, as insistently +he repeated the words, "It is the epitome of the spirit, the shrine +of--" + +She put out a hand, interrupting him, and said: "Yes, yes, M'sieu' +Jean Jacques, that's as good as Moliere, I s'pose, or the Archbishop at +Quebec, but are you going to take it, the two thousand dollars? I made +a long speech, I know, but that was to tell you why I come with the +money"--she drew out a pocketbook--"with the order on my lawyer to hand +the cash over to you. As a woman I had to explain to you, there being +lots of ideas about what a woman should do and what she shouldn't do; +but there's nothing at all for you to explain, and Mere Langlois and a +lot of others would think I'm vain enough now without your compliments. +I'm a neighbour if you like, and I offer you a loan. Will you take +it--that's all?" + +He held out his hand in silence and took the paper from her. Putting his +head a little on one side, he read it. At first he seemed hardly to get +the formal language clear in his mind; however, or maybe his mind was +still away in that abstraction into which he had whisked it when he +began his reply to her fine offer; but he read it out aloud, first +quickly, then very slowly, and he looked at the signature with a deeply +meditative air. + +"Virginie Poucette--that's a good name," he remarked; "and also good for +two thousand dollars!" He paused to smile contentedly over his own joke. +"And good for a great deal more than that too," he added with a nod. + +"Yes, ten times as much as that," she responded quickly, her eyes fixed +on his face. She scarcely knew herself what she was thinking when +she said it; but most people who read this history will think she was +hinting that her assets might be united with his, and so enable him to +wipe out his liabilities and do a good deal more besides. Yet, how could +that be, since Carmen Dolores was still his wife if she was alive; and +also they both were Catholics, and Catholics did not recognize divorce! + +Truth is, Virginie Poucette's mind did not define her feelings at all +clearly, or express exactly what she wanted. Her actions said one thing +certainly; but if the question had been put to her, whether she was +doing this thing because of a wish to take the place of Carmen Dolores +in Jean Jacques' life she would have said no at once. She had not come +to that--yet. She was simply moved by a sentiment of pity for Jean +Jacques, and as she had no child, or husband, or sister, or brother, or +father, or mother, but only relatives who tried to impose upon her, she +needed an objective for the emotions of her nature, for the overflow of +her unused affection and her unsatisfied maternal spirit. Here, then, +was the most obvious opportunity--a man in trouble who had not deserved +the bitter bad luck which had come to him. Even old Mere Langlois in the +market-place at Vilray had admitted that, and had said the same later on +in Virginie's home. + +For an instant Jean Jacques was fascinated by the sudden prospect which +opened out before him. If he asked her, this woman would probably loan +him five thousand dollars--and she had mentioned nothing about security! + +"What security do you want?" he asked in a husky voice. + +"Security? I don't understand about that," she replied. "I'd not offer +you the money if I didn't think you were an honest man, and an honest +man would pay me back. A dishonest man wouldn't pay me back, security or +no security." + +"He'd have to pay you back if the security was right to start with," +Jean Jacques insisted. "But you don't want security, because you think +I'm an honest man! Well, for sure you're right. I am honest. I never +took a cent that wasn't mine; but that's not everything. If you lend +you ought to have security. I've lost a good deal from not having +enough security at the start. You are willing to lend me money without +security--that's enough to make me feel thirty again, and I'm fifty--I'm +fifty," he added, as though with an attempt to show her that she +could not think of him in any emotional way; though the day when his +flour-mill was burned he had felt the touch of her fingers comforting +and thrilling. + +"You think Jean Jacques Barbille's word as good as his bond?" he +continued. "So it is; but I'm going to pull this thing through alone. +That's what I said to you and Maitre Fille at his office. I meant it +too--help of God, it is the truth!" + +He had forgotten that if M. Mornay had not made it easy for him, and +had not refrained from insisting on his pound of flesh, he would now be +insolvent and with no roof over him. Like many another man Jean Jacques +was the occasional slave of formula, and also the victim of phases of +his own temperament. In truth he had not realized how big a thing M. +Mornay had done for him. He had accepted the chance given him as the +tribute to his own courage and enterprise and integrity, and as though +it was to the advantage of his greatest creditor to give him another +start; though in reality it had made no difference to the Big Financier, +who knew his man and, with wide-open eyes, did what he had done. + +Virginie was not subtle. She did not understand, was never satisfied +with allusions, and she had no gift for catching the drift of things. +She could endure no peradventure in her conversation. She wanted plain +speaking and to be literally sure. + +"Are you going to take it?" she asked abruptly. + +He could not bear to be checked in his course. He waved a hand and +smiled at her. Then his eyes seemed to travel away into the distance, +the look of the dreamer in them; but behind all was that strange, ruddy +underglow of revelation which kept emerging from shadows, retreating and +emerging, yet always there now, in much or in little, since the burning +of the mill. + +"I've lent a good deal of money without security in my time," he +reflected, "but the only people who ever paid me back were a deaf and +dumb man and a flyaway--a woman that was tired of selling herself, and +started straight and right with the money I lent her. She had been +the wife of a man who studied with me at Laval. She paid me back every +penny, too, year by year for five years. The rest I lent money to never +paid; but they paid, the dummy and the harlot that was, they paid! But +they paid for the rest also! If I had refused these two because of the +others, I'd not be fit to visit at Neighbourhood House where Virginie +Poucette lives." + +He looked closely at the order she had given him again, as though to let +it sink in his mind and be registered for ever. "I'm going to do without +any further use of your two thousand dollars," he continued cheer fully. +"It has done its work. You've lent it to me, I've used it"--he put +the hand holding it on his breast--"and I'm paying it back to you, but +without interest." He gave the order to her. + +"I don't see what you mean," she said helplessly, and she looked at the +paper, as though it had undergone some change while it was in his hand. + +"That you would lend it me is worth ten times two thousand to me, +Virginie Poucette," he explained. "It gives me, not a kick from +behind--I've not had much else lately--but it holds a light in front of +me. It calls me. It says, 'March on, Jean Jacques--climb the mountain.' +It summons me to dispose my forces for the campaign which will restore +the Manor Cartier to what it has ever been since the days of the Baron +of Beaugard. It quickens the blood at my heart. It restores--" + +Virginie would not allow him to go on. "You won't let me help you? +Suppose I do lose the money--I didn't earn it; it was earned by Palass +Poucette, and he'd understand, if he knew. I can live without the money, +if I have to, but you would pay it back, I know. You oughtn't to take +any extra risks. If your daughter should come back and not find you +here, if she returned to the Manor Cartier, and--" + +He made an insistent gesture. "Hush! Be still, my friend--as good a +friend as a man could have. If my Zoe came back I'd like to feel--I'd +like to feel that I had saved things alone; that no woman's money made +me safe. If Zoe or if--" + +He was going to say, "If Carmen came back," for his mind was moving in +past scenes; but he stopped short and looked around helplessly. Then +presently, as though by an effort, he added with a bravura note in his +voice: + +"The world has been full of trouble for a long time, but there have +always been men to say to trouble, 'I am master, I have the mind to get +above it all.' Well, I am one of them." + +There was no note of vanity or bombast in his voice as he said this, +and in his eyes that new underglow deepened and shone. Perhaps in this +instant he saw more of his future than he would speak of to anyone on +earth. Perhaps prevision was given him, and it was as the Big Financier +had said to Maitre Fille, that his philosophy was now, at the last, to +be of use to him. When his wife had betrayed him, and his wife and child +had left him, he had said, "Moi je suis philosophe!" but he was a man +of wealth in those days, and money soothes hurts of that kind in rare +degree. Would he still say, whatever was yet to come, that he was a +philosopher? + +"Well, I've done what I thought would help you, and I can't say more +than that," Virginie remarked with a sigh, and there was despondency +in her eyes. Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; she +looked at him as she had done in Maitre Fille's office, and a wave +of feeling passed over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, in +response to her look, the thrill of his fingers in her palm. His face +now flushed also, and he had an impulse to ask her to sit down beside +him. He put it away from him, however, for the present, at any rate-who +could tell what to-morrow might bring forth!--and then he held out his +hand to her. His voice shook a little when he spoke; but it cleared, and +began to ring, before he had said a dozen words. + +"I'll never forget what you've said and done this morning, Virginie +Poucette," he declared; "and if I break the back of the trouble that's +in my way, and come out cock o' the walk again"--the gold Cock of +Beaugard in the ruins near and the clarion of the bantam of his barnyard +were in his mind and ears--"it'll be partly because of you. I hug that +thought to me." + +"I could do a good deal more than that," she ventured, with a tremulous +voice, and then she took her warm hand from his nervous grasp, and +turned sharply into the path which led back towards the Manor. She did +not turn around, and she walked quickly away. + +There was confusion in her eyes and in her mind. It would take some time +to make the confusion into order, and she was now hot, now cold, in all +her frame, when at last she climbed into her wagon. + +This physical unrest imparted itself to all she did that day. First her +horses were driven almost at a gallop; then they were held down to a +slow walk; then they were stopped altogether, and she sat in the shade +of the trees on the road to her home, pondering--whispering to herself +and pondering. + +As her horses were at a standstill she saw a wagon approaching. +Instantly she touched her pair with the whip, and moved on. Before +the approaching wagon came alongside, she knew from the grey and the +darkbrown horses who was driving them, and she made a strong effort for +composure. She succeeded indifferently, but her friend, Mere Langlois, +did not notice this fact as her wagon drew near. There was excitement in +Mere Langlois' face. + +"There's been a shindy at the 'Red Eagle' tavern," she said. "That +father-in-law of M'sieu' Jean Jacques and Rocque Valescure, the +landlord, they got at each other's throats. Dolores hit Valescure on the +head with a bottle." + +"He didn't kill Valescure, did he?" + +"Not that--no. But Valescure is hurt bad--as bad. It was six to one and +half a dozen to the other--both no good at all. But of course they'll +arrest the old man--your great friend! He'll not give you any more +fur-robes, that's sure. He got away from the tavern, though, and he's +hiding somewhere. M'sieu' Jean Jacques can't protect him now; he isn't +what he once was in the parish. He's done for, and old Dolores will have +to go to trial. They'll make it hot for him when they catch him. No +more fur-robes from your Spanish friend, Virginie! You'll have to look +somewhere else for your beaux, though to be sure there are enough that'd +be glad to get you with that farm of yours, and your thrifty ways, if +you keep your character." + +Virginie was quite quiet now. The asperity and suggestiveness of the +other's speech produced a cooling effect upon her. + +"Better hurry, Mere Langlois, or everybody won't hear your story before +sundown. If your throat gets tired, there's Brown's Bronchial Troches--" +She pointed to an advertisement on the fence near by. "M. Fille's cook +says they cure a rasping throat." + +With that shot, Virginie Poucette whipped up her horses and drove on. +She did not hear what Mere Langlois called after her, for Mere Langlois +had been slow to recover from the unexpected violence dealt by one whom +she had always bullied. + +"Poor Jean Jacques!" said Virginie Poucette to herself as her horses +ate up the ground. "That's another bit of bad luck. He'll not sleep +to-night. Ah, the poor Jean Jacques--and all alone--not a hand to hold; +no one to rumple that shaggy head of his or pat him on the back! His +wife and Ma'm'selle Zoe, they didn't know a good thing when they had it. +No, he'll not sleep to-night-ah, my dear Jean Jacques!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP + +But Jean Jacques did sleep well that night; though it would have been +better for him if he had not done so. The contractor's workmen had +arrived in the early afternoon, he had seen the first ton of debris +removed from the ruins of the historic mill, and it was crowned by the +gold Cock of Beaugard, all grimy with the fire, but jaunty as of yore. +The cheerfulness of the workmen, who sang gaily an old chanson of +mill-life as they tugged at the timbers and stones, gave a fillip to the +spirits of Jean Jacques, to whom had come a red-letter day. + +Like Mirza on the high hill of Bagdad he had had his philosophic +meditations; his good talk with Virginie Poucette had followed; and the +woman of her lingered in the feeling of his hand all day, as something +kind and homelike and true. Also in the evening had come M. Fille, who +brought him a message from Judge Carcasson, that he must make the world +sing for himself again. + +Contrary to what Mere Langlois had thought, he had not been perturbed by +the parish noise about the savage incident at "The Red Eagle," and the +desperate affair which would cause the arrest of his father-in-law. He +was at last well inclined to be rid of Sebastian Dolores, who had ceased +to be a comfort to him, and who brought him hateful and not kindly +memories of his lost women, and the happy hours of the past they +represented. + +M. Fille had come to the Manor in much alarm, lest the news of the +miserable episode at "The Red Eagle" should bring Jean Jacques down +again to the depths. He was infinitely relieved, however, to find that +the lord of the Manor Cartier seemed only to be grateful that Sebastian +Dolores did not return, and nodded emphatically when M. Fille remarked +that perhaps it would be just as well if he never did return. + +As M. Fille sat with his host at the table in the sunset light, Jean +Jacques seemed quieter and steadier of body and mind than he had been +for a long, long time. He even drank three glasses of the cordial which +Mere Langlois had left for him, with the idea that it might comfort him +when he got the bad news about Sebastian Dolores; and parting with M. +Fille at the door, he waved a hand and said: "Well, good-night, master +of the laws. Safe journey! I'm off to bed, and I'll sleep without +rocking, that's very sure and sweet." + +He stood and waved his hand several times to M. Fille--till he was +out of sight indeed; and the Clerk of the Court smiled to himself long +afterwards, recalling Jean Jacques' cheerful face as he had seen it at +their parting in the gathering dusk. As for Jean Jacques, when he locked +up the house at ten o'clock, with Dolores still absent, he had the air +of a man from whose shoulders great weights had fallen. + +"Now I've shut the door on him, it'll stay shut," he said firmly. "Let +him go back to work. He's no good here to me, to himself, or to anyone. +And that business of the fur-robe and Virginie Poucette--ah, that!" + +He shook his head angrily, then seeing the bottle of cordial still +uncorked on the sideboard, he poured some out and drank it very slowly, +till his eyes were on the ceiling above him and every drop had gone +home. Presently, with the bedroom lamp in his hand, he went upstairs, +humming to himself the chanson the workmen had sung that afternoon as +they raised again the walls of the mill: + + "Distaff of flax flowing behind her + Margatton goes to the mill + On the old grey ass she goes, + The flour of love it will blind her + Ah, the grist the devil will grind her, + When Margatton goes to the mill! + On the old grey ass she goes, + And the old grey ass, he knows!" + +He liked the sound of his own voice this night of his Reconstruction +Period--or such it seemed to him; and he thought that no one heard +his singing save himself. There, however, he was mistaken. Someone was +hidden in the house--in the big kitchen-bunk which served as a bed or +a seat, as needed. This someone had stolen in while Jean Jacques and M. +Fille were at supper. His name was Dolores, and he had a horse just over +the hill near by, to serve him when his work was done, and he could get +away. + +The constables of Vilray had twice visited the Manor to arrest him that +day, but they had been led in another direction by a clue which he had +provided; and afterwards in the dusk he had doubled back and hid himself +under Jean Jacques' roof. He had very important business at the Manor +Cartier. + +Jean Jacques' voice ceased one song, and then, after a silence, it took +up another, not so melodious. Sebastian Dolores had impatiently waited +for this later "musicale" to begin--he had heard it often before; and +when it was at last a regular succession of nasal explosions, he crawled +out and began to do the business which had brought him to the Manor +Cartier. + +He did it all alone and with much skill; for when he was an anarchist in +Spain, those long years ago, he had learned how to use tools with expert +understanding. Of late, Spain had been much in his mind. He wanted to go +back there. Nostalgia had possessed him ever since he had come again to +the Manor Cartier after Zoe had left. He thought much of Spain, and but +little of his daughter. Memory of her was only poignant, in so far as it +was associated with the days preceding the wreck of the Antoine. He +had had far more than enough of the respectable working life of the New +World; but there never was sufficient money to take him back to Europe, +even were it safe to go. Of late, however, he felt sure that he might +venture, if he could only get cash for the journey. He wanted to drift +back to the idleness and adventure and the "easy money" of the old +anarchist days in Cadiz and Madrid. He was sick for the patio and the +plaza, for the bull-fight, for the siesta in the sun, for the lazy +glamour of the gardens and the red wine of Valladolid, for the redolent +cigarette of the roadside tavern. This cold iron land had spoiled him, +and he would strive to get himself home again before it was too late. +In Spain there would always be some woman whom he could cajole; some +comrade whom he could betray; some priest whom he could deceive, +whose pocket he could empty by the recital of his troubles. But if, +peradventure, he returned to Spain with money to spare in his pocket, +how easy indeed it would all be, and how happy he would find himself +amid old surroundings and old friends! + +The way had suddenly opened up to him when Jean Jacques had brought home +in hard cash, and had locked away in the iron-doored cupboard in +the officewall, his last, his cherished, eight thousand dollars. Six +thousand of that eight were still left, and it was concern for this six +thousand which had brought Dolores to the Manor this night when Jean +Jacques snored so loudly. The events of the day at "The Red Eagle" had +brought things to a crisis in the affairs of Carmen's father. It was a +foolish business that at the tavern--so, at any rate, he thought, when +it was all over, and he was awake to the fact that he must fly or go to +jail. From the time he had, with a bottle of gin, laid Valescure low, +Spain was the word which went ringing through his head, and the way to +Spain was by the Six Thousand Dollar Route, the New World terminal of +which was the cupboard in the wall at the Manor Cartier. + +Little cared Sebastian Dolores that the theft of the money would mean +the end of all things for Jean Jacques Barbille-for his own daughter's +husband. He was thinking of himself, as he had always done. + +He worked for two whole hours before he succeeded in quietly forcing +open the iron door in the wall; but it was done at last. Curiously +enough, Jean Jacques' snoring stopped on the instant that Sebastian +Dolores' fingers clutched the money; but it began cheerfully again when +the door in the wall closed once more. + +Five minutes after Dolores had thrust the six thousand dollars into his +pocket, his horse was galloping away over the hills towards the River +St. Lawrence. If he had luck, he would reach it by the morning. As it +happened, he had the luck. Behind him, in the Manor Cartier, the man +who had had no luck and much philosophy, snored on till morning in +unconscious content. + +It was a whole day before Jean Jacques discovered his loss. When he had +finished his lonely supper the next evening, he went to the cupboard in +his office to cheer himself with the sight of the six thousand dollars. +He felt that he must revive his spirits. They had been drooping all day, +he knew not why. + +When he saw the empty pigeon-hole in the cupboard, his sight swam. It +was some time before it cleared, but, when it did, and he knew beyond +peradventure the crushing, everlasting truth, not a sound escaped him. +His heart stood still. His face filled with a panic confusion. He seemed +like one bereft of understanding. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. "AU 'VOIR, M'SIEU' JEAN JACQUES" + +It is seldom that Justice travels as swiftly as Crime, and it is also +seldom that the luck is more with the law than with the criminal. It +took the parish of St. Saviour's so long to make up its mind who stole +Jean Jacques' six thousand dollars, that when the hounds got the scent +at last the quarry had reached the water--in other words, Sebastian +Dolores had achieved the St. Lawrence. The criminal had had near a day's +start before a telegram was sent to the police at Montreal, Quebec, and +other places to look out for the picaroon who had left his mark on the +parish of St. Saviour's. The telegram would not even then have been sent +had it not been for M. Fille, who, suspecting Sebastian Dolores, still +refrained from instant action. This he did because he thought Jean +Jacques would not wish his beloved Zoe's grandfather sent to prison. But +when other people at last declared that it must have been Dolores, +M. Fille insisted on telegrams being sent by the magistrate at Vilray +without Jean Jacques' consent. He had even urged the magistrate to +"rush" the wire, because it came home to him with stunning force that, +if the money was not recovered, Jean Jacques would be a beggar. It was +better to jail the father-in-law, than for the little money-master to +take to the road a pauper, or stay on at St. Saviour's as an underling +where he had been overlord. + +As for Jean Jacques, in his heart of hearts he knew who had robbed him. +He realized that it was one of the radii of the comedy-tragedy which +began on the Antoine, so many years before; and it had settled in his +mind at last that Sebastian Dolores was but part of the dark machinery +of fate, and that what was now had to be. + +For one whole day after the robbery he was like a man +paralysed--dispossessed of active being; but when his creditors began +to swarm, when M. Mornay sent his man of business down to foreclose his +mortgages before others could take action, Jean Jacques waked from his +apathy. He began an imitation of his old restlessness, and made essay +again to pull the strings of his affairs. They were, however, so +confused that a pull at one string tangled them all. + +When the constables and others came to him, and said that they were on +the trail of the robber, and that the rogue would be caught, he nodded +his head encouragingly; but he was sure in his own mind that the flight +of Dolores would be as successful as that of Carmen and Zoe. + +This is the way he put it: "That man--we will just miss finding him, as +I missed Zoe at the railroad junction when she went away, as I missed +catching Carmen at St. Chrisanthine. When you are at the shore, he will +be on the river; when you are getting into the train, he will be getting +out. It is the custom of the family. At Bordeaux, the Spanish detectives +were on the shore gnashing their teeth, when he was a hundred yards away +at sea on the Antoine. They missed him like that; and we'll miss him +too. What is the good! It was not his fault--that was the way of his +bringing up beyond there at Cadiz, where they think more of a toreador +than of John the Baptist. It was my fault. I ought to have banked the +money. I ought not to have kept it to look at like a gamin with his +marbles. There it was in the wall; and there was Dolores a long way from +home and wanting to get back. He found the way by a gift of the tools; +and I wish I had the same gift now; for I've got no other gift that'll +earn anything for me." + +These were the last dark or pessimistic words spoken at St. Saviour's +by Jean Jacques; and they were said to the Clerk of the Court, who +could not deny the truth of them; but he wrung the hand of Jean Jacques +nevertheless, and would not leave him night or day. M. Fille was like a +little cruiser protecting a fort when gunboats swarm near, not daring to +attack till their battleship heaves in sight. The battleship was the +Big Financier, who saw that a wreck was now inevitable, and was only +concerned that there should be a fair distribution of the assets. That +meant, of course, that he should be served first, and then that those +below the salt should get a share. + +Revelation after revelation had been Jean Jacques' lot of late years, +but the final revelation of his own impotence was overwhelming. When he +began to stir about among his affairs, he was faced by the fact that +the law stood in his way. He realized with inward horror his shattered +egotism and natural vanity; he saw that he might just as well be in +jail; that he had no freedom; that he could do nothing at all in regard +to anything he owned; that he was, in effect, a prisoner of war where he +had been the general commanding an army. + +Yet the old pride intervened, and it was associated with some innate +nobility; for from the hour in which it was known that Sebastian Dolores +had escaped in a steamer bound for France, and could not be overhauled, +and the chances were that he would never have to yield up the six +thousand dollars, Jean Jacques bustled about cheerfully, and as though +he had still great affairs of business to order and regulate. It was a +make-believe which few treated with scorn. Even the workmen at the mill +humoured him, as he came several times every day to inspect the work +of rebuilding; and they took his orders, though they did not carry +them out. No one really carried out any of his orders except Seraphe +Corniche, who, weeping from morning till night, protested that there +never was so good a man as M'sieu' Jean Jacques; and she cooked his +favourite dishes, giving him no peace until he had eaten them. + +The days, the weeks went on, with Jean Jacques growing thinner and +thinner, but going about with his head up like the gold Cock of +Beaugard, and even crowing now and then, as he had done of yore. He +faced the inevitable with something of his old smiling volubility; +treating nothing of his disaster as though it really existed; signing +off this asset and that; disposing of this thing and that; stripping +himself bare of all the properties on his life's stage, in such a manner +as might have been his had he been receiving gifts and not yielding up +all he owned. He chatted as his belongings were, figuratively speaking, +being carried away--as though they were mechanical, formal things to +be done as he had done them every day of a fairly long life; as a clerk +would check off the boxes or parcels carried past him by the porters. +M. Fille could hardly bear to see him in this mood, and the New Cure +hovered round him with a mournful and harmlessly deceptive kindness. But +the end had to come, and practically all the parish was present when it +came. That was on the day when the contents of the Manor were sold at +auction by order of the Court. One thing Jean Jacques refused absolutely +and irrevocably to do from the first--refused it at last in anger and +even with an oath: he would not go through the Bankruptcy Court. No +persuasion had any effect. The very suggestion seemed to smirch his +honour. His lawyer pleaded with him, said he would be able to save +something out of the wreck, and that his creditors would be willing that +he should take advantage of the privileges of that court; but he only +said in reply: + +"Thank you, thank you altogether, monsieur, but it is impossible--'non +possumus, non possumus, my son,' as the Pope said to Bonaparte. I owe +and I will pay what I can; and what I can't pay now I will try to pay +in the future, by the cent, by the dollar, till all is paid to the last +copper. It is the way with the Barbilles. They have paid their way and +their debts in honour, and it is in the bond with all the Barbilles of +the past that I do as they do. If I can't do it, then that I have tried +to do it will be endorsed on the foot of the bill." + +No one could move him, not even Judge Carcasson, who from his armchair +in Montreal wrote a feeble-handed letter begging him to believe that +it was "well within his rights as a gentleman"--this he put in at +the request of M. Mornay--to take advantage of the privileges of +the Bankruptcy Court. Even then Jean Jacques had only a few moments' +hesitation. What the Judge said made a deep impression; but he had +determined to drink the cup of his misfortune to the dregs. He was set +upon complete renunciation; on going forth like a pilgrim from the place +of his troubles and sorrows, taking no gifts, no mercies save those +which heaven accorded him. + +When the day of the auction came everything went. Even his best suit +of clothes was sold to a blacksmith, while his fur-coat was bought by a +horse-doctor for fifteen dollars. Things that had been part of his life +for a generation found their way into hands where he would least have +wished them to go--of those who had been envious of him, who had cheated +or deceived him, of people with whom he had had nothing in common. The +red wagon and the pair of little longtailed stallions, which he had +driven for six years, were bought by the owner of a rival flour-mill in +the parish of Vilray; but his best sleigh, with its coon-skin robes, +was bought by the widow of Palass Poucette, who bought also the famous +bearskin which Dolores had given her at Jean Jacques' expense, and had +been returned by her to its proper owner. The silver fruitdish, once (it +was said) the property of the Baron of Beaugard, which each generation +of Barbilles had displayed with as much ceremony as though it was a +chalice given by the Pope, went to Virginie Poucette. Virginie also +bought the furniture from Zoe's bedroom as it stood, together with the +little upright piano on which she used to play. The Cure bought Jean +Jacques' writing-desk, and M. Fille purchased his armchair, in which had +sat at least six Barbilles as owners of the Manor. The beaver-hat which +Jean Jacques wore on state occasions, as his grandfather had done, +together with the bonnet rouge of the habitant, donned by him in his +younger days--they fell to the nod of Mere Langlois, who declared that, +as she was a cousin, she would keep the things in the family. Mere +Langlois would have bought the fruit-dish also if she could have +afforded to bid against Virginie Poucette; but the latter would have had +the dish if it had cost her two hundred dollars. The only time she +had broken bread in Jean Jacques' house, she had eaten cake from +this fruit-dish; and to her, as to the parish generally, the dish so +beautifully shaped, with its graceful depth and its fine-chased handles, +was symbol of the social caste of the Barbilles, as the gold Cock of +Beaugard was sign of their civic and commercial glory. + +Jean Jacques, who had moved about all day with an almost voluble +affability, seeming not to realize the tragedy going on, or, if he +realized it, rising superior to it, was noticed to stand still suddenly +when the auctioneer put up the fruit-dish for sale. Then the smile left +his face, and the reddish glow in his eyes, which had been there since +the burning of the mill, fled, and a touch of amazement and confusion +took its place. All in a moment he was like a fluttered dweller of the +wilds to whom comes some tremor of danger. + +His mouth opened as though he would forbid the selling of the heirloom; +but it closed again, because he knew he had no right to withhold it from +the hammer; and he took on a look like that which comes to the eyes of a +child when it faces humiliating denial. Quickly as it came, however, it +vanished, for he remembered that he could buy the dish himself. He could +buy it himself and keep it.... Yet what could he do with it? Even so, he +could keep it. It could still be his till better days came. + +The auctioneer's voice told off the value of the fruitdish--"As an +heirloom, as an antique; as a piece of workmanship impossible of +duplication in these days of no handicraft; as good pure silver, bearing +the head of Louis Quinze--beautiful, marvellous, historic, honourable," +and Jean Jacques made ready to bid. Then he remembered he had no +money--he who all his life had been able to take a roll of bills from +his pocket as another man took a packet of letters. His glance fell +in shame, and the words died on his lips, even as M. Manotel, the +auctioneer, was about to add another five-dollar bid to the price, which +already was standing at forty dollars. + +It was at this moment Jean Jacques heard a woman's voice bidding, then +two women's voices. Looking up he saw that one of the women was Mere +Langlois and the other was Virginie Poucette, who had made the first +bid. For a moment they contended, and then Mere Langlois fell out of +the contest, and Virginie continued it with an ambitious farmer from the +next county, who was about to become a Member of Parliament. Presently +the owner of a river pleasure-steamer entered into the costly emulation +also, but he soon fell away; and Virginie Poucette stubbornly raised +the bidding by five dollars each time, till the silver symbol of the +Barbilles' pride had reached one hundred dollars. Then she raised the +price by ten dollars, and her rival, seeing that he was face to face +with a woman who would now bid till her last dollar was at stake, +withdrew; and Virginie was left triumphant with the heirloom. + +At the moment when Virginie turned away with the handsome dish from M. +Manotel, and the crowd cheered her gaily, she caught Jean-Jacques' eye, +and she came straight towards him. She wanted to give the dish to him +then and there; but she knew that this would provide annoying gossip for +many a day, and besides, she thought he would refuse. More than that, +she had in her mind another alternative which might in the end secure +the heirloom to him, in spite of all. As she passed him, she said: + +"At least we keep it in the parish. If you don't have it, well, then..." + +She paused, for she did not quite know what to say unless she spoke what +was really in her mind, and she dared not do that. + +"But you ought to have an heirloom," she added, leaving unsaid what was +her real thought and hope. With sudden inspiration, for he saw she was +trying to make it easy for him, he drew the great silver-watch from his +pocket, which the head of the Barbilles had worn for generations, and +said: + +"I have the only heirloom I could carry about with me. It will keep time +for me as long as I'll last. The Manor clock strikes the time for the +world, and this watch is set by the Manor clock." + +"Well said--well and truly said, M'sieu' Jean Jacques," remarked the +lean watchmaker and so-called jeweller of Vilray, who stood near. "It is +a watch which couldn't miss the stroke of Judgment Day." + +It was at that moment, in the sunset hour, when the sale had drawn to a +close, and the people had begun to disperse, that the avocat of Vilray +who represented the Big Financier came to Jean Jacques and said: + +"M'sieu', I have to say that there is due to you three hundred and fifty +dollars from the settlement, excluding this sale, which will just do +what was expected of it. I am instructed to give it to you from the +creditors. Here it is." + +He took out a roll of bills and offered it to Jean Jacques. + +"What creditors?" asked Jean Jacques. + +"All the creditors," responded the other, and he produced a receipt for +Jean Jacques to sign. "A formal statement will be sent you, and if there +is any more due to you, it will be added then. But now--well, there it +is, the creditors think there is no reason for you to wait." + +Jean Jacques did not yet take the roll of bills. "They come from M. +Mornay?" he asked with an air of resistance, for he did not wish to be +under further obligations to the man who would lose most by him. + +The lawyer was prepared. M. Mornay had foreseen the timidity +and sensitiveness of Jean Jacques, had anticipated his mistaken +chivalry--for how could a man decline to take advantage of the +Bankruptcy Court unless he was another Don Quixote! He had therefore +arranged with all the creditors for them to take responsibility with +'himself, though he provided the cash which manipulated this settlement. + +"No, M'sieu' Jean Jacques," the lawyer replied, "this comes from all the +creditors, as the sum due to you from all the transactions, so far as +can be seen as yet. Further adjustment may be necessary, but this is the +interim settlement." + +Jean Jacques was far from being ignorant of business, but so bemused was +his judgment and his intelligence now, that he did not see there was +no balance which could possibly be his, since his liabilities vastly +exceeded his assets. Yet with a wave of the hand he accepted the roll of +bills, and signed the receipt with an air which said, "These forms must +be observed, I suppose." + +What he would have done if the three hundred and fifty dollars had not +been given him, it would be hard to say, for with gentle asperity he +had declined a loan from his friend M. Fille, and he had but one silver +dollar in his pocket, or in the world. Indeed, Jean Jacques was living +in a dream in these dark days--a dream of renunciation and sacrifice, +and in the spirit of one who gives up all to some great cause. He was +not yet even face to face with the fulness of his disaster. Only at +moments had the real significance of it all come to him, and then he had +shivered as before some terror menacing his path. Also, as M. Mornay had +said, his philosophy was now in his bones and marrow rather than in his +words. It had, after all, tinctured his blood and impregnated his mind. +He had babbled and been the egotist, and played cock o' the walk; and +now at last his philosophy was giving some foundation for his feet. +Yet at this auction-sale he looked a distracted, if smiling, whimsical, +rather bustling figure of misfortune, with a tragic air of exile, of +isolation from all by which he was surrounded. A profound and wayworn +loneliness showed in his figure, in his face, in his eyes. + +The crowd thinned in time, and yet very many lingered to see the last +of this drama of lost fortunes. A few of the riff-raff, who invariably +attend these public scenes, were now rather the worse for drink, +from the indifferent liquor provided by the auctioneer, and they were +inclined to horseplay and coarse chaff. More than one ribald reference +to Jean Jacques had been checked by his chivalrous fellow-citizens; +indeed, M. Fille had almost laid himself open to a charge of assault +in his own court by raising his stick at a loafer, who made insulting +references to Jean Jacques. But as the sale drew to a close, an air of +rollicking humour among the younger men would not be suppressed, and it +looked as though Jean Jacques' exit would be attended by the elements of +farce and satire. + +In this world, however, things do not happen logically, and Jean Jacques +made his exit in a wholly unexpected manner. He was going away by the +train which left a new railway junction a few miles off, having gently +yet firmly declined M. Fille's invitation, and also the invitations of +others--including the Cure and Mere Langlois--to spend the night with +them and start off the next day. He elected to go on to Montreal that +very night, and before the sale was quite finished he prepared to start. +His carpet-bag containing a few clothes and necessaries had been sent on +to the junction, and he meant to walk to the station in the cool of the +evening. + +M. Manotel, the auctioneer, hoarse with his heavy day's work, was +announcing that there were only a few more things to sell, and no doubt +they could be had at a bargain, when Jean Jacques began a tour of +the Manor. There was something inexpressibly mournful in this lonely +pilgrimage of the dismantled mansion. Yet there was no show of cheap +emotion by Jean Jacques; and a wave of the hand prevented any one from +following him in his dry-eyed progress to say farewell to these haunts +of childhood, manhood, family, and home. There was a strange numbness +in his mind and body, and he had a feeling that he moved immense and +reflective among material things. Only tragedy can produce that feeling. +Happiness makes the universe infinite and stupendous, despair makes it +small and even trivial. + +It was when he had reached the little office where he had done the +business of his life--a kind of neutral place where he had ever isolated +himself from the domestic scene--that the final sensation, save one, of +his existence at the Manor came to him. Virginie Poucette had divined +his purpose when he began the tour of the house, and going by a +roundabout way, she had placed herself where she could speak with him +alone before he left the place for ever--if that was to be. She was not +sure that his exit was really inevitable--not yet. + +When Jean Jacques saw Virginie standing beside the table in his office +where he lead worked over so many years, now marked Sold, and waiting to +be taken away by its new owner, he started and drew back, but she held +out her hand and said: + +"But one word, M'sieu' Jean Jacques; only one word from a friend--indeed +a friend." + +"A friend of friends," he answered, still in abstraction, his eyes +having that burnished light which belonged to the night of the fire; but +yet realizing that she was a sympathetic soul who had offered to lend +him money without security. + +"Oh, indeed yes, as good a friend as you can ever have!" she added. + +Something had waked the bigger part of her, which had never been awake +in the days of Palass Poucette. Jean Jacques was much older than she, +but what she felt had nothing to do with age, or place or station. It +had only to do with understanding, with the call of nature and of a +motherhood crying for expression. Her heart ached for him. + +"Well, good-bye, my friend," he said, and held out his hand. "I must be +going now." + +"Wait," she said, and there was something insistent and yet pleading in +her voice. "I've got something to say. You must hear it.... Why should +you go? There is my farm--it needs to be worked right. It has got +good chances. It has water-power and wood and the best flax in the +province--they want to start a flax-mill on it--I've had letters from +big men in Montreal. Well, why shouldn't you do it instead? There it is, +the farm, and there am I a woman alone. I need help. I've got no head. +I have to work at a sum of figures all night to get it straight.... Ah, +m'sieu', it is a need both sides! You want someone to look after you; +you want a chance again to do things; but you want someone to look +after you, and it is all waiting there on the farm. Palass Poucette +left behind him seven sound horses, and cows and sheep, and a +threshing-machine and a fanning-mill, and no debts, and two thousand +dollars in the bank. You will never do anything away from here. You must +stay here, where--where I can look after you, Jean Jacques." + +The light in his eyes flamed up, died down, flamed up again, and +presently it covered all his face, as he grasped what she meant. + +"Wonder of God, do you forget?" he asked. "I am married--married still, +Virginie Poucette. There is no divorce in the Catholic Church--no, none +at all. It is for ever and ever." + +"I said nothing about marriage," she said bravely, though her face +suffused. + +"Hand of Heaven, what do you mean? You mean to say you would do that for +me in spite of the Cure and--and everybody and everything?" + +"You ought to be taken care of," she protested. "You ought to have your +chance again. No one here is free to do it all but me. You are alone. +Your wife that was--maybe she is dead. I am alone, and I'm not afraid of +what the good God will say. I will settle with Him myself. Well, then, +do you think I'd care what--what Mere Langlois or the rest of the world +would say?... I can't bear to think of you going away with nothing, with +nobody, when here is something and somebody--somebody who would be good +to you. Everybody knows that you've been badly used--everybody. I'm +young enough to make things bright and warm in your life, and the place +is big enough for two, even if it isn't the Manor Cartier." + +"Figure de Christ, do you think I'd let you do it--me?" declared Jean +Jacques, with lips trembling now and his shoulders heaving. Misfortune +and pain and penalty he could stand, but sacrifice like this and--and +whatever else it was, were too much for him. They brought him back to +the dusty road and everyday life again; they subtracted him from his +big dream, in which he had been detached from the details of his +catastrophe. + +"No, no, no," he added. "You go look another way, Virginie. Turn your +face to the young spring, not to the dead winter. To-morrow I'll be gone +to find what I've got to find. I've finished here, but there's many a +good man waiting for you--men who'll bring you something worth while +besides themselves. Make no mistake, I've finished. I've done my term +of life. I'm only out on ticket-of-leave now--but there, enough, I shall +always want to think of you. I wish I had something to give you--but +yes, here is something." He drew from his pocket a silver napkin-ring. +"I've had that since I was five years old. My uncle Stefan gave it to +me. I've always used it. I don't know why I put it in my pocket this +morning, but I did. Take it. It's more than money. It's got something +of Jean Jacques about it. You've got the Barbille fruit-dish-that is a +thing I'll remember. I'm glad you've got it, and--" + +"I meant we should both eat from it," she said helplessly. + +"It would cost too much to eat from it with you, Virginie--" + +He stopped short, choked, then his face cleared, and his eyes became +steady. + +"Well then, good-bye, Virginie," he said, holding out his hand. + +"You don't think I'd say to any other living man what I've said to you?" +she asked. + +He nodded understandingly. "That's the best part of it. It was for me +of all the world," he answered. "When I look back, I'll see the light +in your window--the light you lit for the lost one--for Jean Jacques +Barbille." + +Suddenly, with eyes that did not see and hands held out before him, he +turned, felt for the door and left the room. + +She leaned helplessly against the table. "The poor Jean Jacques--the +poor Jean Jacques!" she murmured. "Cure or no Cure, I'd have done it," +she declared, with a ring to her voice. "Ah, but Jean Jacques, come with +me!" she added with a hungry and compassionate gesture, speaking into +space. "I could make life worth while for us both." + +A moment later Virginie was outside, watching the last act in the career +of Jean Jacques in the parish of St. Saviour's. + +This was what she saw. + +The auctioneer was holding up a bird-cage containing a canary-Carmen's +bird-cage, and Zoe's canary which had remained to be a vocal memory of +her in her old home. + +"Here," said the rhetorical, inflammable auctioneer, "here is the +choicest lot left to the last. I put it away in the bakery, meaning to +sell it at noon, when everybody was eating-food for the soul and food +for the body. I forgot it. But here it is, worth anything you like to +anybody that loves the beautiful, the good, and the harmonious. What do +I hear for this lovely saffron singer from the Elysian fields? What did +the immortal poet of France say of the bird in his garret, in 'L'Oiseau +de Mon Crenier'? What did he say: + + 'Sing me a song of the bygone hour, + A song of the stream and the sun; + Sing of my love in her bosky bower, + When my heart it was twenty-one.' + +"Come now, who will renew his age or regale her youth with the divine +notes of nature's minstrel? Who will make me an offer for this vestal +virgin of song--the joy of the morning and the benediction of the +evening? What do I hear? The best of the wine to the last of the feast! +What do I hear?--five dollars--seven dollars--nine dollars--going at +nine dollars--ten dollars--Well, ladies and gentlemen, the bird can +sing--ah, voila!" + +He stopped short for a moment, for as the evening sun swept its veil +of rainbow radiance over the scene, the bird began to sing. Its little +throat swelled, it chirruped, it trilled, it called, it soared, it lost +itself in a flood of ecstasy. In the applausive silence, the emotional +recess of the sale, as it were, the man to whom the bird and the song +meant most, pushed his way up to the stand where M. Manotel stood. When +the people saw who it was, they fell back, for there was that in his +face which needed no interpretation. It filled them with a kind of awe. + +He reached up a brown, eager, affectionate hand--it had always been +that--fat and small, but rather fine and certainly emotional, though not +material or sensual. + +"Go on with your bidding," he said. + +He was going to buy the thing which had belonged to his daughter, was +beloved by her--the living oracle of the morning, the muezzin of his +mosque of home. It had been to the girl who had gone as another such a +bird had been to the mother of the girl, the voice that sang, "Praise +God," in the short summer of that bygone happiness of his. Even this +cage and its homebird were not his; they belonged to the creditors. + +"Go on. I buy--I bid," Jean Jacques said in a voice that rang. It had +no blur of emotion. It had resonance. The hammer that struck the bell of +his voice was the hammer of memory, and if it was plaintive it also was +clear, and it was also vibrant with the silver of lost hopes. + +M. Manotel humoured him, while the bird still sang. "Four dollars--five +dollars: do I hear no more than five dollars?--going once, going twice, +going three times--gone!" he cried, for no one had made a further bid; +and indeed M. Manotel would not have heard another voice than Jean +Jacques' if it had been as loud as the falls of the Saguenay. He was a +kind of poet in his way, was M. Manotel. He had been married four times, +and he would be married again if he had the chance; also he wrote verses +for tombstones in the churchyard at St. Saviour's, and couplets for +fetes and weddings. + +He handed the cage to Jean Jacques, who put it down on the ground at his +feet, and in an instant had handed up five dollars for one of the idols +of his own altar. Anyone else than M. Manotel, or perhaps M. Fille or +the New Cure, would have hesitated to take the five dollars, or, if they +had done so, would have handed it back; but they had souls to +understand this Jean Jacques, and they would not deny him his insistent +independence. And so, in a moment, he was making his way out of the +crowd with the cage in his hand, the bird silent now. + +As he went, some one touched his arm and slipped a book into his hand. +It was M. Fille, and the book was his little compendium of philosophy +which his friend had retrieved from his bedroom in the early morning. + +"You weren't going to forget it, Jean Jacques?" M. Fille said +reproachfully. "It is an old friend. It would not be happy with any one +else." + +Jean Jacques looked M. Fille in the eyes. "Moi--je suis philosophe," he +said without any of the old insistence and pride and egotism, but as one +would make an affirmation or repeat a creed. + +"Yes, yes, to be sure, always, as of old," answered M. Fille firmly; +for, from that formula might come strength, when it was most needed, +in a sense other and deeper far than it had been or was now. "You will +remember that you will always know where to find us--eh?" added the +little Clerk of the Court. + +The going of Jean Jacques was inevitable; all persuasion had failed to +induce him to stay--even that of Virginie; and M. Fille now treated +it as though it was the beginning of a new career for Jean Jacques, +whatever that career might be. It might be he would come back some day, +but not to things as they were, not ever again, nor as the same man. + +"You will move on with the world outside there," continued M. Fille, +"but we shall be turning on the same swivel here always; and whenever +you come--there, you understand. With us it is semper fidelis, always +the same." + +Jean Jacques looked at M. Fille again as though to ask him a question, +but presently he shook his head in negation to his thought. + +"Well, good-bye," he said cheerfully--"A la bonne heure!" + +By that M. Fille knew that Jean Jacques did not wish for company as he +went--not even the company of his old friend who had loved the bright +whimsical emotional Zoe; who had hovered around his life like a +protecting spirit. + +"A bi'tot," responded M. Fille, declining upon the homely patois. + +But as Jean Jacques walked away with his little book of philosophy in +his pocket, and the bird-cage in his hand, someone sobbed. M. Fille +turned and saw. It was Virginie Poucette. Fortunately for Virginie other +women did the same, not for the same reason, but out of a sympathy which +was part of the scene. + +It had been the intention of some friends of Jean Jacques to give him +a cheer when he left, and even his sullen local creditors, now that +the worst had come, were disposed to give him a good send-off; but the +incident of the canary in its cage gave a turn to the feeling of the +crowd which could not be resisted. They were not a people who could cut +and dry their sentiments; they were all impulse and simplicity, with an +obvious cocksure shrewdness too, like that of Jean Jacques--of the old +Jean Jacques. He had been the epitome of all their faults and all their +virtues. + +No one cheered. Only one person called, "Au 'voir, M'sieu' Jean +Jacques!" and no one followed him--a curious, assertive, feebly-brisk, +shock-headed figure in the brown velveteen jacket, which he had bought +in Paris on his Grand Tour. + +"What a ridiculous little man!" said a woman from Chalfonte over the +water, who had been buying freely all day for her new "Manor," her +husband being a member of the provincial legislature. + +The words were no sooner out of her mouth than two women faced her +threateningly. + +"For two pins I'd slap your face," said old Mere Langlois, her great +breast heaving. "Popinjay--you, that ought to be in a cage like his +canary." + +But Virginie Poucette also was there in front of the offender, and she +also had come from Chalfonte--was born in that parish; and she knew what +she was facing. + +"Better carry a bird-cage and a book than carry swill to swine," she +said; and madame from Chalfonte turned white, for it had been said that +her father was once a swine-herd, and that she had tried her best to +forget it when, with her coarse beauty, she married the well-to-do +farmer who was now in the legislature. + +"Hold your tongues, all of you, and look at that," said M. Manotel, who +had joined the agitated group. He was pointing towards the departing +Jean Jacques, who was now away upon his road. + +Jean Jacques had raised the cage on a level with his face, and was +evidently speaking to the bird in the way birds love--that soft kissing +sound to which they reply with song. + +Presently there came a chirp or two, and then the bird thrust up +its head, and out came the full blessedness of its song, exultant, +home-like, intimate. + +Jean Jacques walked on, the bird singing by his side; and he did not +look back. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME + +Nothing stops when we stop for a time, or for all time, except +ourselves. Everything else goes on--not in the same way; but it does go +on. Life did not stop at St. Saviour's after Jean Jacques made his exit. +Slowly the ruined mill rose up again, and very slowly indeed the widow +of Palass Poucette recovered her spirits, though she remained a widow +in spite of all appeals; but M. Fille and his sister never were the same +after they lost their friend. They had great comfort in the dog +which Jean Jacques had given to them, and they roused themselves to a +malicious pleasure when Bobon, as he had been called by Zoe, rushed out +at the heels of an importunate local creditor who had greatly worried +Jean Jacques at the last. They waited in vain for a letter from Jean +Jacques, but none came; nor did they hear anything from him, or of him, +for a long, long time. + +Jean Jacques did not mean that they should. When he went away with his +book of philosophy and his canary he had but one thing in his mind, and +that was to find Zoe and make her understand that he knew he had been +in the wrong. He had illusions about starting life again, in which he +probably did not believe; but the make-believe was good for him. Long +before the crash came, in Zoe's name--not his own--he had bought from +the Government three hundred and twenty acres of land out near the +Rockies and had spent five hundred dollars in improvements on it. + +There it was in the West, one remaining asset still his own--or rather +Zoe's--but worth little if he or she did not develop it. As he left St. +Saviour's, however, he kept fixing his mind on that "last domain," as he +called it to himself. If this was done intentionally, that he might be +saved from distraction and despair, it was well done; if it was a real +illusion--the old self-deception which had been his bane so often in the +past--it still could only do him good at the present. It prevented him +from noticing the attention he attracted on the railway journey from St. +Saviour's to Montreal, cherishing his canary and his book as he went. + +He was not so self-conscious now as in the days when he was surprised +that Paris did not stop to say, "Bless us, here is that fine fellow, +Jean Jacques Barbille of St. Saviour's!" He could concentrate himself +more now on things that did not concern the impression he was making on +the world. At present he could only think of Zoe and of her future. + +When a patronizing and aggressive commercial traveller in the little +hotel on a side-street where he had taken a room in Montreal said to +him, "Bien, mon vieux" (which is to say, "Well, old cock"), "aren't +you a long way from home?" something of a new dignity came into Jean +Jacques' bearing, very different from the assurance of the old days, and +in reply he said: + +"Not so far that I need be careless about my company." This made the +landlady of the little hotel laugh quite hard, for she did not like the +braggart "drummer" who had treated her with great condescension for a +number of years. Also Madame Glozel liked Jean Jacques because of his +canary. She thought there must be some sentimental reason for a man of +fifty or more carrying a bird about with him; and she did not rest +until she had drawn from Jean Jacques that he was taking the bird to his +daughter in the West. There, however, madame was stayed in her search +for information. Jean Jacques closed up, and did but smile when she +adroitly set traps for him, and at last asked him outright where his +daughter was. + +Why he waited in Montreal it would be hard to say, save that it was a +kind of middle place between the old life and the new, and also because +he must decide what was to be his plan of search. First the West--first +Winnipeg, but where after that? He had at last secured information of +where Zoe and Gerard Fynes had stayed while in Montreal; and now he +followed clues which would bring him in touch with folk who knew them. +He came to know one or two people who were with Zoe and Gerard in the +last days they spent in the metropolis, and he turned over and over in +his mind every word said about his girl, as a child turns a sweetmeat in +its mouth. This made him eager to be off; but on the very day he decided +to start at once for the West, something strange happened. + +It was towards the late afternoon of a Saturday, when the streets were +full of people going to and from the shops in a marketing quarter, that +Madame Glozel came to him and said: + +"M'sieu', I have an idea, and you will not think it strange, for you +have a kind heart. There is a woman--look you, it is a sad, sad story +hers. She is ill and dying in a room a little way down the street. But +yes, I am sure she is dying--of heart disease it is. She came here first +when the illness took her, but she could not afford to stay. She went to +those cheaper lodgings down the street. She used to be on the stage over +in the States, and then she came back here, and there was a man--married +to him or not I do not know, and I will not think. Well, the man--the +brute--he left her when she got ill--but yes, forsook her absolutely! He +was a land-agent or something like that, and all very fine to your face, +to promise and to pretend--just make-believe. When her sickness got +worse, off he went with 'Au revoir, my dear--I will be back to supper.' +Supper! If she'd waited for her supper till he came back, she'd have +waited as long as I've done for the fortune the gipsy promised me forty +years ago. Away he went, the rogue, without a thought of her, and with +another woman. That's what hurt her most of all. Straight from her that +could hardly drag herself about--ah, yes, and has been as handsome a +woman as ever was!--straight from her he went to a slut. She was a slut, +m'sieu'--did I not know her? Did Ma'm'selle Slut not wait at table in +this house and lead the men a dance here night and day-day and night +till I found it out! Well, off he went with the slut, and left the lady +behind.... You men, you treat women so." + +Jean Jacques put out a hand as though to argue with her. "Sometimes it +is the other way," he retorted. "Most of us have seen it like that." + +"Well, for sure, you're right enough there, m'sieu'," was the response. +"I've got nothing to say to that, except that it's a man that runs away +with a woman, or that gets her to leave her husband when she does go. +There's always a man that says, 'Come along, I'm the better chap for +you.'" + +Jean Jacques wearily turned his head away towards the cage where his +canary was beginning to pipe its evening lay. + +"It all comes to the same thing in the end," he said pensively; and then +he who had been so quiet since he came to the little hotel--Glozel's, it +was called--began to move about the room excitedly, running his fingers +through his still bushy hair, which, to his credit, was always as clean +as could be, burnished and shiny even at his mid-century period. He +began murmuring to himself, and a frown settled on his fore head. Mme. +Glozel saw that she had perturbed him, and that no doubt she had roused +some memories which made sombre the sunny little room where the canary +sang; where, to ravish the eyes of the pessimist, was a picture of Louis +XVI. going to heaven in the arms of St. Peter. + +When started, however, the good woman could no more "slow down" than her +French pony would stop when its head was turned homewards from market. +So she kept on with the history of the woman down the street. + +"Heart disease," she said, nodding with assurance and finality; "and we +know what that is--a start, a shock, a fall, a strain, and pht! off the +poor thing goes. Yes, heart disease, and sometimes with such awful pain. +But so; and yesterday she told me she had only a hundred dollars left. +'Enough to last me through,' she said to me. Poor thing, she lifted up +her eyes with a way she has, as if looking for something she couldn't +find, and she says, as simple as though she was asking about the price +of a bed-tick, 'It won't cost more than fifty dollars to bury me, I +s'pose?' Well, that made me squeamish, for the poor dear's plight came +home to me so clear, and she young enough yet to get plenty out of life, +if she had the chance. So I asked her again about her people--whether I +couldn't send for someone belonging to her. 'There's none that belongs +to me,' she says, 'and there's no one I belong to.' + +"I thought very likely she didn't want to tell me about herself; perhaps +because she had done wrong, and her family had not been good to her. +Yet it was right I should try and get her folks to come, if she had any +folks. So I said to her, 'Where was your home?' And now, what do you +think she answered, m'sieu'?' 'Look there,' she said to me, with her +big eyes standing out of her head almost--for that's what comes to her +sometimes when she is in pain, and she looks more handsome then than at +any other time--'Look there,' she said to me, 'it was in heaven, that's +where--my home was; but I didn't know it. I hadn't been taught to know +the place when I saw it.' + +"Well, I felt my skin go goosey, for I saw what was going on in her +mind, and how she was remembering what had happened to her some time, +somewhere; but there wasn't a tear in her eyes, and I never saw her +cry-never once, m'sieu'--well, but as brave as brave. Her eyes are +always dry--burning. They're like two furnaces scorching up her face. So +I never found out her history, and she won't have the priest. I believe +that's because she wants to die unknown, and doesn't want to confess. I +never saw a woman I was sorrier for, though I think she wasn't married +to the man that left her. But whatever she was, there's good in her--I +haven't known hundreds of women and had seven sisters for nothing. Well, +there she is--not a friend near her at the last; for it's coming soon, +the end--no one to speak to her, except the woman she pays to come in +and look after her and nurse her a bit. Of course there's the landlady +too, Madame Popincourt, a kind enough little cricket of a woman, but +with no sense and no head for business. And so the poor sick thing has +not a single pleasure in the world. She can't read, because it makes her +head ache, she says; and she never writes to any one. One day she tried +to sing a little, but it seemed to hurt her, and she stopped before she +had begun almost. Yes, m'sieu', there she is without a single pleasure +in the long hours when she doesn't sleep." + +"There's my canary--that would cheer her up," eagerly said Jean Jacques, +who, as the story of the chirruping landlady continued, became master of +his agitation, and listened as though to the tale of some life for which +he had concern. "Yes, take my canary to her, madame. It picked me up +when I was down. It'll help her--such a bird it is! It's the best singer +in the world. It's got in its throat the music of Malibran and Jenny +Lind and Grisi, and all the stars in heaven that sang together. Also, +to be sure, it doesn't charge anything, but just as long as there's +daylight it sings and sings, as you know." + +"M'sieu'--oh, m'sieu', it was what I wanted to ask you, and I didn't +dare!" gushingly declared madame. "I never heard a bird sing like +that--just as if it knew how much good it was doing, and with all the +airs of a grand seigneur. It's a prince of birds, that. If you mean it, +m'sieu', you'll do as good a thing as you have ever done." + +"It would have to be much better, or it wouldn't be any use," remarked +Jean Jacques. + +The woman made a motion of friendliness with both hands. "I don't +believe that. You may be queer, but you've got a kind eye. It won't be +for long she'll need the canary, and it will cheer her. There certainly +was never a bird so little tied to one note. Now this note, now that, +and so amusing. At times it's as though he was laughing at you." + +"That's because, with me for his master, he has had good reason to +laugh," remarked Jean Jacques, who had come at last to take a despondent +view of himself. + +"That's bosh," rejoined Mme. Glozel; "I've seen several people odder +than you." + +She went over to the cage eagerly, and was about to take it away. +"Excuse me," interposed Jean Jacques, "I will carry 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 armchair, so pale yet +so splendid in her death-beauty, raised herself up. With eyes that +Francesca might have turned to the vision of her fate, she looked at the +opening door, as though to learn if he who came was one she had wished +to see through long, relentless days. + +"Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!" she cried out presently +in a voice like a wisp of sound, for she had little breath; and then +with a smile she sank back, too late to hear, but not too late to know, +what Jean Jacques said to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY + +However far Jean Jacques went, however long the day since leaving the +Manor Cartier, he could not escape the signals from his past. He heard +more than once the bells of memory ringing at the touch of the invisible +hand of Destiny which accepts no philosophy save its own. At Montreal, +for one hallowed instant, he had regained his lost Carmen, but he had +turned from her grave--the only mourners being himself, Mme. Glozel and +Mme. Popincourt, together with a barber who had coiffed her wonderful +hair once a week--with a strange burning at his heart. That iceberg +which most mourners carry in their breasts was not his, as he walked +down the mountainside from Carmen's grave. Behind him trotted Mme. +Glozel and Mme. Popincourt, like little magpies, attendants on +this eagle of sorrow whose life-love had been laid to rest, her +heart-troubles over. Passion or ennui would no more vex her. + +She had had a soul, had Carmen Dolores, though she had never known it +till her days closed in on her, and from the dusk she looked out of the +casements of life to such a glowing as Jean Jacques had seen when his +burning mill beatified the evening sky. She had known passion and vivid +life in the days when she went hand-in-hand with Carvillho Gonzales +through the gardens of Granada; she had known the smothering +home-sickness which does not alone mean being sick for a distant home, +but a sickness of the home that is; and she had known what George Masson +gave her for one thrilling hour, and then--then the man who left her in +her death-year, taking not only the last thread of hope which held her +to life. This vulture had taken also little things dear to her daily +life, such as the ring Carvillho Gonzales had given her long ago in +Cadiz, also another ring, a gift of Jean Jacques, and things less +valuable to her, such as money, for which she knew surely she would have +no long use. + +As she lay waiting for the day when she must go from the garish scene, +she unconsciously took stock of life in her own way. There intruded on +her sight the stages of the theatres where she had played and danced, +and she heard again the music of the paloma and those other Spanish airs +which had made the world dance under her girl's feet long ago. At +first she kept seeing the faces of thousands looking up at her from the +stalls, down at her from the gallery, over at her from the boxes; and +the hot breath of that excitement smote her face with a drunken odour +that sent her mad. Then, alas! somehow, as disease took hold of her, +there were the colder lights, the colder breath from the few who +applauded so little. And always the man who had left her in her day of +direst need; who had had the last warm fires of her life, the last brief +outrush of her soul, eager as it was for a joy which would prove she +had not lost all when she fled from the Manor Cartier--a joy which would +make her forget! + +What she really did feel in this last adventure of passion only made her +remember the more when she was alone now, her life at the Manor +Cartier. She was wont to wake up suddenly in the morning--the very early +morning--with the imagined sound of the gold Cock of Beaugard crowing in +her ears. Memory, memory, memory--yet never a word, and never a hearsay +of what had happened at the Manor Cartier since she had left it! Then +there came a time when she longed intensely to see Jean Jacques before +she died, though she could not bring herself to send word to him. She +dreaded what the answer might be--not Jean Jacques' answer, but the +answer of Life. Jean Jacques and her child, her Zoe--more his than hers +in years gone by--one or both might be dead! She dared not write, but +she cherished a desire long denied. Then one day she saw everything in +her life more clearly than she had ever done. She found an old book of +French verse, once belonging to Mme. Popincourt's husband, who had been +a professor. Some lines therein opened up a chamber of her being never +before unlocked. At first only the feeling of the thing came, then +slowly the spiritual meaning possessed her. She learnt it by heart and +let it sing to her as she lay half-sleeping and half-waking, half-living +and half-dying: + + "There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o'er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home. + + "A land that triumphs over shame and pain, + Penitence and passion and the parting breath, + Over the former and the latter rain, + The birth-morn fire and the frost of death. + + "From its safe shores the white boats ride away, + Salving the wreckage of the portless ships + The light desires of the amorous day, + The wayward, wanton wastage of the lips. + + "Star-mist and music and the pensive moon + These when I harboured at that perfumed shore; + And then, how soon! the radiance of noon, + And faces of dear children at the door. + + "Land of the Greater Love--men call it this; + No light-o'-love sets here an ambuscade; + No tender torture of the secret kiss + Makes sick the spirit and the soul afraid. + + "Bright bowers and the anthems of the free, + The lovers absolute--ah, hear the call! + Beyond the long island and the sheltering sea, + That World I found which holds my world in thrall. + + "There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o'er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home." + +At last the inner thought of it got into her heart, and then it was in +reply to Mme. Glozel, who asked her where her home was, she said: "In +Heaven, but I did not know it!" And thus it was, too, that at the +very last, when Jean Jacques followed the singing bird into her +death-chamber, she cried out, "Ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!" + +And because Jean Jacques knew that, at the last, she had been his, soul +and body, he went down from the mountain-side, the two black magpies +fluttering mournfully and yet hopefully behind him, with more warmth at +his heart than he had known for years. It never occurred to him that the +two elderly magpies would jointly or severally have given the rest of +their lives and their scant fortunes to have him with them either as +husband, or as one who honourably hires a home at so much a day. + +Though Jean Jacques did not know this last fact, when he fared forth +again he left behind his canary with Mme. Glozel; also all Carmen's +clothes, except the dress she died in, he gave to Mme. Popincourt, on +condition that she did not wear them till he had gone. The dress in +which Carmen died he wrapped up carefully, with her few jewels and her +wedding-ring, and gave the parcel to Mme. Glozel to care for till he +should send for it or come again. + +"The bird--take him on my birthday to sing at her grave," he said to +Mme. Glozel just before he went West. "It is in summer, my birthday, and +you shall hear how he will sing there," he added in a low voice at the +very door. Then he took out a ten-dollar bill, and would have given it +to her to do this thing for him; but she would have none of his money. +She only wiped her eyes and deplored his going, and said that if ever +he wanted a home, and she was alive, he would know where to find it. +It sounded and looked sentimental, yet Jean Jacques was never less +sentimental in a very sentimental life. This particular morning he was +very quiet and grave, and not in the least agitated; he spoke like one +from a friendly, sun-bright distance to Mme. Glozel, and also to Mme. +Popincourt as he passed her at the door of her house. + +Jean Jacques had no elation as he took the Western trail; there was not +much hope in his voice; but there was purpose and there was a little +stream of peace flowing through his being--and also, mark, a stream of +anger tumbling over rough places. He had read two letters addressed to +Carmen by the man--Hugo Stolphe--who had left her to her fate; and there +was a grim devouring thing in him which would break loose, if ever the +man crossed his path. He would not go hunting him, but if he passed +him or met him on the way--! Still he would go hunting--to find his +Carmencita, his little Carmen, his Zoe whom he had unwittingly, God +knew! driven forth into the far world of the millions of acres--a wide, +wide hunting-ground in good sooth. + +So he left his beloved province where he no longer had a home, and +though no letters came to him from St. Saviour's, from Vilray or the +Manor Cartier, yet he heard the bells of memory when the Hand Invisible +arrested his footsteps. One day these bells rang so loud that he would +have heard them were he sunk in the world's deepest well of shame; but, +as it was, he now marched on hills far higher than the passes through +the mountains which his patchwork philosophy had ever provided. + +It was in the town of Shilah on the Watloon River that the bells boomed +out--not because he had encountered one he had ever known far down by +the Beau Cheval, or in his glorious province, not because he had +found his Zoe, but because a man, the man--not George Masson, but the +other--met him in the way. + +Shilah was a place to which, almost unconsciously, he had deviated his +course, because once Virginie Poucette had read him a letter from there. +That was in the office of the little Clerk of the Court at Vilray. The +letter was from Virginie's sister at Shilah, and told him that Zoe and +her husband had gone away into farther fields of homelessness. Thus it +was that Shilah ever seemed to him, as he worked West, a goal in his +quest--not the last goal perhaps, but a goal. + +He had been far past it by another route, up, up and out into the more +scattered settlements, and now at last he had come to it again, having +completed a kind of circle. As he entered it, the past crowded on to him +with a hundred pictures. Shilah--it was where Virginie Poucette's sister +lived; and Virginie had been a part of the great revelation of his life +at St. Saviour's. + +As he was walking by the riverside at Shilah, a woman spoke to him, +touching his arm as she did so. He was in a deep dream as she spoke, +but there certainly was a look in her face that reminded him of someone +belonging to the old life. For an instant he could not remember. For a +moment he did not even realize that he was at Shilah. His meditation +had almost been a trance, and it took him time to adjust himself to +the knowledge of the conscious mind. His subconsciousness was very +powerfully alive in these days. There was not the same ceaselessly +active eye, nor the vibration of the impatient body which belonged to +the money-master and miller of the Manor Cartier. Yet the eye had more +depth and force, and the body was more powerful and vigorous than it had +ever been. The long tramping, the everlasting trail on false scents, the +mental battling with troubles past and present, had given a fortitude +and vigour to the body beyond what it had ever known. In spite of +his homelessness and pilgrim equipment he looked as though he had a +home--far off. The eyes did not smile; but the lips showed the goodness +of his heart--and its hardness too. Hardness had never been there in +the old days. It was, however, the hardness of resentment, and not +of cruelty. It was not his wife's or his daughter's flight that he +resented, nor yet the loss of all he had, nor the injury done him by +Sebastian Dolores. No, his resentment was against one he had never seen, +but was now soon to see. As his mind came back from the far places where +it had been, and his eyes returned to the concrete world, he saw what +the woman recalled to him. It was--yes, it was Virginie Poucette--the +kind and beautiful Virginie--for her goodness had made him remember +her as beautiful, though indeed she was but comely, like this woman who +stayed him as he walked by the river. + +"You are M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille?" she said questioningly. + +"How did you know?" he asked.... "Is Virginie Poucette here?" + +"Ah, you knew me from her?" she asked. + +"There was something about her--and you have it also--and the look in +the eyes, and then the lips!" he replied. + +Certainly they were quite wonderful, luxurious lips, and so shapely +too--like those of Virginie. + +"But how did you know I was Jean Jacques Barbille?" he repeated. + +"Well, then it is quite easy," she replied with a laugh almost like a +giggle, for she was quite as simple and primitive as her sister. "There +is a photographer at Vilray, and Virginie got one of your pictures +there, and sent, it to me. 'He may come your way,' said Virginie to me, +'and if he does, do not forget that he is my friend.'" + +"That she is my friend," corrected Jean Jacques. "And what a +friend--merci, what a friend!" Suddenly he caught the woman's arm. "You +once wrote to your sister about my Zoe, my daughter, that married and +ran away--" + +"That ran away and got married," she interrupted. + +"Is there any more news--tell me, do you know-?" + +But Virginie's sister shook her head. "Only once since I wrote Virginie +have I heard, and then the two poor children--but how helpless they +were, clinging to each other so! Well, then, once I heard from Faragay, +but that was much more than a year ago. Nothing since, and they were +going on--on to Fort Providence to spend the winter--for his health--his +lungs." + +"What to do--on what to live?" moaned Jean Jacques. + +"His grandmother sent him a thousand dollars, so your Madame Zoe wrote +me." + +Jean Jacques raised a hand with a gesture of emotion. "Ah, the blessed +woman! May there be no purgatory for her, but Heaven at once and +always!" + +"Come home with me--where are your things?" she asked. + +"I have only a knapsack," he replied. "It is not far from here. But I +cannot stay with you. I have no claim. No, I will not, for--" + +"As to that, we keep a tavern," she returned. "You can come the same +as the rest of the world. The company is mixed, but there it is. You +needn't eat off the same plate, as they say in Quebec." + +Quebec! He looked at her with the face of one who saw a vision. How like +Virginie Poucette--the brave, generous Virginie--how like she was! + +In silence now he went with her, and seeing his mood she did not talk to +him. People stared as they walked along, for his dress was curious and +his head was bare, and his hair like the coat of a young lion. Besides, +this woman was, in her way, as brave and as generous as Virginie +Poucette. In the very doorway of the tavern by the river a man jostled +them. He did not apologize. He only leered. It made his foreign-looking, +coarsely handsome face detestable. + +"Pig!" exclaimed Virginie Poucette's sister. "That's a man--well, look +out! There's trouble brewing for him. If he only knew! If suspicion +comes out right and it's proved--well, there, he'll jostle the door-jamb +of a jail." + +Jean Jacques stared after the man, and somehow every nerve in his +body became angry. He had all at once a sense of hatred. He shook the +shoulder against which the man had collided. He remembered the leer on +the insolent, handsome face. + +"I'd like to see him thrown into the river," said Virginie Poucette's +sister. "We have a nice girl here--come from Ireland--as good as can be. +Well, last night--but there, she oughtn't to have let him speak to her. +'A kiss is nothing,' he said. Well, if he kissed me I would kill him--if +I didn't vomit myself to death first. He's a mongrel--a South American +mongrel with nigger blood." + +Jean Jacques kept looking after the man. "Why don't you turn him out?" +he asked sharply. + +"He's going away to-morrow anyhow," she replied. "Besides, the girl, +she's so ashamed--and she doesn't want anyone to know. 'Who'd want to +kiss me after him' she said, and so he stays till to-morrow. He's not in +the tavern itself, but in the little annex next door-there, where he's +going now. He's only had his meals here, though the annex belongs to us +as well. He's alone there on his dung-hill." + +She brought Jean Jacques into a room that overlooked the river--which, +indeed, hung on its very brink. From the steps at its river-door, a +little ferry-boat took people to the other side of the Watloon, and very +near--just a few hand-breadths away--was the annex where was the man who +had jostled Jean Jacques. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO + +A single lighted lamp, turned low, was suspended from the ceiling of the +raftered room, and through the open doorway which gave on to a little +wooden piazza with a slight railing and small, shaky gate came the swish +of the Watloon River. No moon was visible, but the stars were radiant +and alive--trembling with life. There was something soothing, something +endlessly soothing in the sound of the river. It suggested the ceaseless +movement of life to the final fulness thereof. + +So still was the room that it might have seemed to be without life, were +it not for a faint sound of breathing. The bed, however, was empty, +and no chair was occupied; but on a settle in a corner beside an unused +fireplace sat a man, now with hands clasped between his knees, again +with arms folded across his breast; but with his head always in a +listening attitude. The whole figure suggested suspense, vigilance and +preparedness. The man had taken off his boots and stockings, and his +bare feet seemed to grip the floor; also the sleeves of his jacket were +rolled up a little. It was not a figure you would wish to see in +your room at midnight unasked. Once or twice he sighed heavily, as he +listened to the river slishing past and looked out to the sparkle of the +skies. It was as though the infinite had drawn near to the man, or else +that the man had drawn near to the infinite. Now and again he brought +his fists down on his knees with a savage, though noiseless, force. The +peace of the river and the night could not contend successfully against +a dark spirit working in him. When, during his vigil, he shook his +shaggy head and his lips opened on his set teeth, he seemed like one who +would take toll at a gateway of forbidden things. + +He started to his feet at last, hearing footsteps outside upon the +stairs. Then he settled back again, drawing near to the chimney-wall, +so that he should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently there +was the click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smoke +invaded the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspended +oil-lamp and twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, there +was a slight noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, the +man under the lamp saw at the door the man who had been sitting in +the corner. The man had a key in his hand. Exit now could only be had +through the door opening on to the river. + +"Who are you? What the hell do you want here?" asked the fellow under +the lamp, his swarthy face drawn with fear and yet frowning with anger. + +"Me--I am Jean Jacques Barbille," said the other in French, putting +the key of the door in his pocket. The other replied in French, with +a Spanish-English accent. "Barbille--Carmen's husband! Well, who would +have thought--!" + +He ended with a laugh not pleasant to hear, for it was coarse with +sardonic mirth; yet it had also an unreasonable apprehension; for why +should he fear the husband of the woman who had done that husband such +an injury! + +"She treated you pretty bad, didn't she--not much heart, had Carmen!" he +added. + +"Sit down. I want to talk to you," said Jean Jacques, motioning to two +chairs by a table at the side of the room. This table was in the middle +of the room when the man under the lamp-Hugo Stolphe was his name--had +left it last. Why had the table been moved? + +"Why should I sit down, and what are you doing here?--I want to know +that," Stolphe demanded. Jean Jacques' hands were opening and shutting. +"Because I want to talk to you. If you don't sit down, I'll give you no +chance at all.... Sit down!" Jean Jacques was smaller than Stolphe, +but he was all whipcord and leather; the other was sleek and soft, but +powerful too; and he had one of those savage natures which go blind with +hatred, and which fight like beasts. He glanced swiftly round the room. + +"There is no weapon here," said Jean Jacques, nodding. "I have put +everything away--so you could not hurt me if you wanted.... Sit down!" + +To gain time Stolphe sat down, for he had a fear that Jean Jacques was +armed, and might be a madman armed--there were his feet bare on the +brown painted boards. They looked so strange, so uncanny. He surely must +be a madman if he wanted to do harm to Hugo Stolphe; for Hugo Stolphe +had only "kept" the woman who had left her husband, not because of +himself, but because of another man altogether--one George Masson. Had +not Carmen herself told him that before she and he lived together? What +grudge could Carmen's husband have against Hugo Stolphe? + +Jean Jacques sat down also, and, leaning on the table said: "Once I was +a fool and let the other man escape-George Masson it was. Because of +what he did, my wife left me." + +His voice became husky, but he shook his throat, as it were, cleared it, +and went on. "I won't let you go. I was going to kill George Masson--I +had him like that!" He opened and shut his hand with a gesture of +fierce possession. "But I did not kill him. I let him go. He was so +clever--cleverer than you will know how to be. She said to me--my wife +said to me, when she thought I had killed him, 'Why did you not +fight him? Any man would have fought him.' That was her view. She was +right--not to kill without fighting. That is why I did not kill you at +once when I knew." + +"When you knew what?" Stolphe was staring at the madman. + +"When I knew you were you. First I saw that ring--that ring on your +hand. It was my wife's. I gave it to her the first New Year after we +married. I saw it on your hand when you were drinking at the bar next +door. Then I asked them your name. I knew it. I had read your letters to +my wife--" + +"Your wife once on a time!" + +Jean Jacques' eyes swam red. "My wife always and always--and at the last +there in my arms." Stolphe temporized. "I never knew you. She did not +leave you because of me. She came to me because--because I was there +for her to come to, and you weren't there. Why do you want to do me any +harm?" He still must be careful, for undoubtedly the man was mad--his +eyes were too bright. + +"You were the death of her," answered Jean Jacques, leaning forward. +"She was most ill-ah, who would not have been sorry for her! She was +poor. She had been to you--but to live with a woman day by day, but to +be by her side when the days are done, and then one morning to say, 'Au +revoir till supper' and then go and never come back, and to take money +and rings that belonged to her!... That was her death--that was the end +of Carmen Barbille; and it was your fault." + +"You would do me harm and not hurt her! Look how she treated you--and +others." + +Jean Jacques half rose from his seat in sudden rage, but he restrained +himself, and sat down again. "She had one husband--only one. It was Jean +Jacques Barbille. She could only treat one as she treated me--me, her +husband. But you, what had you to do with that! You used her--so!" +He made a motion as though to stamp out an insect with his foot. +"Beautiful, a genius, sick and alone--no husband, no child, and you used +her so! That is why I shall kill you to-night. We will fight for it." + +Yes, but surely the man was mad, and the thing to do was to humour +him, to gain time. To humour a madman--that is what one always advised, +therefore Stolphe would make the pourparler, as the French say. + +"Well, that's all right," he rejoined, "but how is it going to be done? +Have you got a pistol?" He thought he was very clever, and that he would +now see whether Jean Jacques Barbille was armed. If he was not armed, +well, then, there would be the chances in his favour; it wasn't easy to +kill with hands alone. + +Jean Jacques ignored the question, however. He waved a hand impatiently, +as though to dismiss it. "She was beautiful and splendid; she had been +a queen down there in Quebec. You lied to her, and she was blind at +first--I can see it all. She believed so easily--but yes, always! There +she was what she was, and you were what you are, not a Frenchman, not +Catholic, and an American--no, not an American--a South American. But +no, not quite a South American, for there was the Portuguese nigger in +you--Sit down!" + +Jean Jacques was on his feet bending over the enraged mongrel. He had +spoken the truth, and Carmen's last lover had been stung as though a +serpent's tooth was in his flesh. Of all things that could be said about +him, that which Jean Jacques said was the worst--that he was not all +white, that he had nigger blood! Yet it was true; and he realized that +Jean Jacques must have got his information in Shilah itself where he +had been charged with it. Yet, raging as he was, and ready to take the +Johnny Crapaud--that is the name by which he had always called Carmen's +husband--by the throat, he was not yet sure that Jean Jacques was +unarmed. He sat still under an anger greater than his own, for there was +in it that fanaticism which only the love or hate of a woman could breed +in a man's mind. + +Suddenly Stolphe laughed outright, a crackling, mirthless, ironical +laugh; for it really was absurdity made sublime that this man, who +had been abandoned by his wife, should now want to kill one who had +abandoned her! This outdid Don Quixote over and over. + +"Well, what do you want?" he asked. + +"I want you to fight," said Jean Jacques. "That is the way. That was +Carmen's view. You shall have your chance to live, but I shall throw you +in the river, and you can then fight the river. The current is swift, +the banks are steep and high as a house down below there. Now, I am +ready...!" + +He had need to be, for Stolphe was quick, kicking the chair from beneath +him, and throwing himself heavily on Jean Jacques. He had had his day at +that in South America, and as Jean Jacques Barbille had said, the water +was swift and deep, and the banks of the Watloon high and steep! + +But Jean Jacques was unconscious of everything save a debt to be +collected for a woman he had loved, a compensation which must be taken +in flesh and blood. Perhaps at the moment, as Stolphe had said to +himself, he was a little mad, for all his past, all his plundered, +squandered, spoiled life was crying out at him like a hundred ghosts, +and he was fighting with beasts at Ephesus. An exaltation possessed +him. Not since the day when his hand was on the lever of the flume with +George Masson below; not since the day he had turned his back for ever +on the Manor Cartier had he been so young and so much his old self-an +egotist, with all the blind confidence of his kind; a dreamer inflamed +into action with all a mad dreamer's wild power. He was not fifty-two +years of age, but thirty-two at this moment, and all the knowledge got +of the wrestling river-drivers of his boyhood, when he had spent hours +by the river struggling with river-champions, came back to him. It was +a relief to his sick soul to wrench and strain, and propel and twist +and force onward, step by step, to the door opening on the river, this +creature who had left his Carmen to die alone. + +"No, you don't--not yet. The jail before the river!" called a cool, +sharp, sour voice; and on the edge of the trembling platform overhanging +the river, Hugo Stolphe was dragged back from the plunge downward he was +about to take, with Jean Jacques' hand at his throat. + +Stolphe had heard the door of the bedroom forced, but Jean Jacques had +not heard it; he was only conscious of hands dragging him back just at +the moment of Stolphe's deadly peril. + +"What is it?" asked Jean Jacques, seeing Stolphe in the hands of two +men, and hearing the snap of steel. "Wanted for firing a house for +insurance--wanted for falsifying the accounts of a Land Company--wanted +for his own good, Mr. Hugo Stolphe, C.O.D.--collect on delivery!" said +the officer of the law. "And collected just in time!" + +"We didn't mean to take him till to-morrow," the officer added, "but out +on the river one of us saw this gladiator business here in the red-light +zone, and there wasn't any time to lose.... I don't know what your +business with him was," the long-moustached detective said to Jean +Jacques, "but whatever the grudge is, if you don't want to appear in +court in the morning, the walking's good out of town night or day--so +long!" + +He hustled his prisoner out. + +Jean Jacques did not want to appear in court, and as the walking was +officially good at dawn, he said good-bye to Virginie Poucette's sister +through the crack of a door, and was gone before she could restrain him. + +"Well, things happen that way," he said, as he turned back to look at +Shilah before it disappeared from view. + +"Ah, the poor, handsome vaurien!" the woman at the tavern kept saying to +her husband all that day; and she could not rest till she had written to +Virginie how Jean Jacques came to Shilah in the evening, and went with +the dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED + +The Young Doctor of Askatoon had a good heart, and he was exercising it +honourably one winter's day near three years after Jean Jacques had left +St. Saviour's. + +"There are many French Canadians working on the railway now, and a +good many habitant farmers live hereabouts, and they have plenty of +children--why not stay here and teach school? You are a Catholic, of +course, monsieur?" + +This is what the Young Doctor said to one who had been under his anxious +care for a few, vivid days. The little brown-bearded man with the +grey-brown hair nodded in reply, but his gaze was on the billowing waste +of snow, which stretched as far as eye could see to the pine-hills in +the far distance. He nodded assent, but it was plain to be seen that the +Young Doctor's suggestion was not in tune with his thought. His nod only +acknowledged the reasonableness of the proposal. In his eyes, however, +was the wanderlust which had possessed him for three long years, in +which he had been searching for what to him was more than Eldorado, for +it was hope and home. Hope was all he had left of the assets which had +made him so great a figure--as he once thought--in his native parish of +St. Saviour's. It was his fixed idea--une idee fixe, as he himself said. +Lands, mills, manor, lime-kilns, factories, store, all were gone, +and his wife Carmen also was gone. He had buried her with simple +magnificence in Montreal--Mme. Glozel had said to her neighbours +afterwards that the funeral cost over seventy-five dollars--and had set +up a stone to her memory on which was carved, "Chez nous autrefois, et +chez Dieu maintenant"--which was to say, "Our home once, and God's Home +now." + +That done, with a sorrow which still had the peace of finality in his +mind, he had turned his face to the West. His long, long sojourning had +brought him to Shilah where a new chapter of his life was closed, and +at last to Askatoon, where another chapter still closed an epoch in +his life, and gave finality to all. There he had been taken down with +congestion of the lungs, and, fainting at the door of a drug-store, had +been taken possession of by the Young Doctor, who would not send him to +the hospital. He would not send him there because he found inside the +waistcoat of this cleanest tramp--if he was a tramp--that he had ever +seen, a book of philosophy, the daguerreotype photo of a beautiful +foreign-looking woman, and some verses in a child's handwriting. The +book of philosophy was underlined and interlined on every page, and +every margin had comment which showed a mind of the most singular +simplicity, searching wisdom, and hopeless confusion, all in one. + +The Young Doctor was a man of decision, and he had whisked the little +brown-grey sufferer to his own home, and tended him there like a brother +till the danger disappeared; and behold he was rewarded for his +humanity by as quaint an experience as he had ever known. He had not +succeeded--though he tried hard--in getting at the history of his +patient's life; but he did succeed in reading the fascinating story of a +mind; for Jean Jacques, if not so voluble as of yore, had still moments +when he seemed to hypnotize himself, and his thoughts were alive in an +atmosphere of intellectual passion ill in accord with his condition. + +Presently the little brown man withdrew his eyes from the window of the +Young Doctor's office and the snowy waste beyond. They had a curious red +underglow which had first come to them an evening long ago, when they +caught from the sky the reflection of a burning mill. There was distance +and the far thing in that underglow of his eyes. It had to do with the +horizon, not with the place where his feet were. It said, "Out there, +beyond, is what I go to seek, what I must find, what will be home to +me." + +"Well, I must be getting on," he said in a low voice to the Young +Doctor, ignoring the question which had been asked. + +"If you want work, there's work to be had here, as I said," responded +the Young Doctor. "You are a man of education--" + +"How do you know that?" asked Jean Jacques. + +"I hear you speak," answered the other, and then Jean Jacques drew +himself up and threw back his head. He had ever loved appreciation, not +to say flattery, and he had had very little of it lately. + +"I was at Laval," he remarked with a flash of pride. "No degree, but a +year there, and travel abroad--the Grand Tour, and in good style, with +plenty to do it with. Oh, certainly, no thought for sous, hardly for +francs! It was gold louis abroad and silver dollars at home--that was +the standard." + +"The dollars are much scarcer now, eh?" asked the Young Doctor +quizzically. + +"I should think I had just enough to pay you," said the other, bridling +up suddenly; for it seemed to him the Young Doctor had become ironical +and mocking; and though he had been mocked much in his day, there were +times when it was not easy to endure it. + +The truth is the Young Doctor was somewhat of an expert in human nature, +and he deeply wanted to know the history of this wandering habitant, +because he had a great compassionate liking for him. If he could get the +little man excited, he might be able to find out what he wanted. During +the days in which the wanderer had been in his house, he had been far +from silent, for he joked at his own suffering and kept the housekeeper +laughing at his whimsical remarks; while he won her heart by the +extraordinary cleanliness of his threadbare clothes, and the perfect +order of his scantily-furnished knapsack. It had the exactness of one +who was set upon a far course and would carry it out on scientific +calculation. He had been full of mocking quips and sallies at himself, +but from first to last he never talked. The things he said were nothing +more than surface sounds, as it were--the ejaculations of a mind, not +its language or its meanings. + +"He's had some strange history, this queer little man," said the +housekeeper to the Young Doctor; "and I'd like to know what it is. Why, +we don't even know his name." + +"So would I," rejoined the Young Doctor, "and I'll have a good try for +it." + +He had had his try more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps a +little torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rather +tactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look was +incredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to pay the +fee. + +"When you searched me you forgot to look in the right place," continued +Jean Jacques; and he drew from the lining of the hat he held in his hand +a little bundle of ten-dollar bills. "Here--take your pay from them," he +said, and held out the roll of bills. "I suppose it won't be more than +four dollars a day; and there's enough, I think. I can't pay you for +your kindness to me, and I don't want to. I'd like to owe you that; and +it's a good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness. He remembers +it when he gets older. It helps him to forgive himself more or less for +what he's sorry for in life. I've enough in this bunch to pay for board +and professional attendance, or else the price has gone up since I had a +doctor before." + +He laughed now, and the laugh was half-ironical, half-protesting. It +seemed to come from the well of a hidden past; and no past that is +hidden has ever been a happy past. + +The Young Doctor took the bills, looked at them as though they were +curios, and then returned them with the remark that they were of a kind +and denomination of no use to him. There was a twinkle in his eye as he +said it. Then he added: + +"I agree with you that it's a good thing for a man to lay up a little +credit of kindness here and there for his old age. Well, anything I did +for you was meant for kindness and nothing else. You weren't a bit of +trouble, and it was simply your good constitution and a warm room and a +few fly-blisters that pulled you through. It wasn't any skill of mine. +Go and thank my housekeeper if you like. She did it all." + +"I did my best to thank her," answered Jean Jacques. "I said she +reminded me of Virginie Palass Poucette, and I could say nothing better +than that, except one thing; and I'm not saying that to anybody." + +The Young Doctor had a thrill. Here was a very unusual man, with mystery +and tragedy, and yet something above both, in his eyes. + +"Who was Virginie Palass Poucette?" he asked. Jean Jacques threw out a +hand as though to say, "Attend--here is a great thing," and he began, +"Virginie Poucette--ah, there...!" + +Then he paused, for suddenly there spread out before him that past, now +so far away, in which he had lived--and died. Strange that when he had +mentioned Virginie's name to the housekeeper he had no such feeling as +possessed him now. It had been on the surface, and he had used her name +without any deep stir of the waters far down in his soul. But the Young +Doctor was fingering the doors of his inner life--all at once this +conviction came to him--and the past rushed upon him with all its +disarray and ignominy, its sorrow, joy, elation and loss. Not since he +had left the scene of his defeat, not since the farewell to his dead +Carmen, that sweet summer day when he had put the lovely, ruined being +away with her words, "Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques," +ringing in his ears, had he ever told anyone his story. He had had a +feeling that, as Carmen had been restored to him without his crying out, +or vexing others with his sad history, so would Zoe also come back to +him. Patience and silence was his motto. + +Yet how was it that here and now there came an overpowering feeling, +that he must tell this healer of sick bodies the story of an invalid +soul? This man with the piercing dark-blue eyes before him, who looked +so resolute, who had the air of one who could say, + +"This is the way to go," because he knew and was sure; he was not to be +denied. + +"Who was Virginie Poucette?" repeated the Young Doctor insistently, yet +ever so gently. "Was she such a prize among women? What did she do?" + +A flood of feeling passed over Jean Jacques' face. He looked at his hat +and his knapsack lying in a chair, with a desire to seize them and fly +from the inquisitor; then a sense of fatalism came upon him. As though +he had received an order from within his soul, he said helplessly: + +"Well, if it must be, it must." + +Then he swept the knapsack and his hat from the chair to the floor, and +sat down. + +"I will begin at the beginning," he said with his eyes fixed on those +of the Young Doctor, yet looking beyond him to far-off things. "I will +start from the time when I used to watch the gold Cock of Beaugard +turning on the mill, when I sat in the doorway of the Manor Cartier +in my pinafore. I don't know why I tell you, but maybe it was meant +I should. I obey conviction. While you are able to keep logic and +conviction hand in hand then everything is all right. I have found that +out. Logic, philosophy are the props of life, but still you must obey +the impulse of the soul--oh, absolutely! You must--" + +He stopped short. "But it will seem strange to you," he added after a +moment, in which the Young Doctor gestured to him to proceed, "to hear +me talk like this--a wayfarer--a vagabond you may think. But in other +days I was in places--" + +The Young Doctor interjected with abrupt friendliness that there was no +need to say he had been in high places. It would still be apparent, if +he were in rags. + +"Then, there, I will speak freely," rejoined Jean Jacques, and he took +the cherry-brandy which the other offered him, and drank it off with +gusto. + +"Ah, that--that," he said, "is like the cordials Mere Langlois used to +sell at Vilray. She and Virginie Poucette had a place together on the +market--none better than Mere Langlois except Virginie Poucette, and she +was like a drink of water in the desert.... Well, there, I will begin. +Now my father was--" + +It was lucky there were no calls for the Young Doctor that particular +early morning, else the course of Jean Jacques' life might have been +greatly different from what it became. He was able to tell his story +from the very first to the last. Had it been interrupted or unfinished +one name might not have been mentioned. When Jean Jacques used it, the +Young Doctor sat up and leaned forward eagerly, while a light came into +his face-a light of surprise, of revelation and understanding. + +When Jean Jacques came to that portion of his life when manifest +tragedy began--it began of course on the Antoine, but then it was not +manifest--when his Carmen left him after the terrible scene with George +Masson, he paused and said: "I don't know why I tell you this, for it +is not easy to tell; but you saved my life, and you have a right to know +what it is you have saved, no matter how hard it is to put it all before +you." + +It was at this point that he mentioned Zoe's name--he had hitherto only +spoken of her as "my daughter"; and here it was the Young Doctor showed +startled interest, and repeated the name after Jean Jacques. "Zoe! +Zoe!--ah!" he said, and became silent again. + +Jean Jacques had not noticed the Young Doctor's pregnant interruption, +he was so busy with his own memories of the past; and he brought the +tale to the day when he turned his face to the West to look for Zoe. +Then he paused. + +"And then?" the Young Doctor asked. "There is more--there is the search +for Zoe ever since." + +"What is there to say?" continued Jean Jacques. "I have searched till +now, and have not found." + +"How have you lived?" asked the other. + +"Keeping books in shops and factories, collecting accounts for +storekeepers, when they saw they could trust me, working at threshings +and harvests, teaching school here and there. Once I made fifty dollars +at a railway camp telling French Canadian tales and singing chansons +Canadiennes. I have been insurance agent, sold lightning-rods, and been +foreman of a gang building a mill--but I could not bear that. Every time +I looked up I could see the Cock of Beaugard where the roof should be. +And so on, so on, first one thing and then another till now--till I came +to Askatoon and fell down by the drug-store, and you played the good +Samaritan. So it goes, and I step on from here again, looking--looking." + +"Wait till spring," said the Young Doctor. "What is the good of going on +now! You can only tramp to the next town, and--" + +"And the next," interposed Jean Jacques. "But so it is my orders." He +put his hand on his heart, and gathered up his hat and knapsack. + +"But you haven't searched here at Askatoon." + +"Ah?... Ah-well, surely that is so," answered Jean Jacques wistfully. "I +had forgotten that. Perhaps you can tell me, you who know all. Have you +any news about my Zoe for me? Do you know--was she ever here? Madame +Gerard Fynes would be her name. My name is Jean Jacques Barbille." + +"Madame Zoe was here, but she has gone," quietly answered the Young +Doctor. + +Jean Jacques dropped the hat and the knapsack. His eyes had a glad, yet +staring and frightened look, for the Young Doctor's face was not the +bearer of good tidings. + +"Zoe--my Zoe! You are sure?... When was she here?" he added huskily. + +"A month ago." + +"When did she go?" Jean Jacques' voice was almost a whisper. + +"A month ago." + +"Where did she go?" asked Jean Jacques, holding himself steady, for he +had a strange dreadful premonition. + +"Out of all care at last," answered the Young Doctor, and took a step +towards the little man, who staggered, then recovered himself. + +"She--my Zoe is dead! How?" questioned Jean Jacques in a ghostly sort of +voice, but there was a steadiness and control unlike what he had shown +in other tragic moments. + +"It was a blizzard. She was bringing her husband's body in a sleigh to +the railway here. He had died of consumption. She and the driver of the +sleigh went down in the blizzard. Her body covered the child and saved +it. The driver was lost also." + +"Her child--Zoe's child?" quavered Jean Jacques. "A little girl--Zoe. +The name was on her clothes. There were letters. One to her father--to +you. Your name is Jean Jacques Barbille, is it not? I have that letter +to you. We buried her and her husband in the graveyard yonder." He +pointed. "Everybody was there--even when they knew it was to be a +Catholic funeral." + +"Ah! she was buried a Catholic?" Jean Jacques' voice was not quite so +blurred now. + +"Yes. Her husband had become Catholic too. A priest who had met them in +the Peace River Country was here at the time." + +At that, with a moan, Jean Jacques collapsed. He shed no tears, but he +sat with his hands between his knees, whispering his child's name. + +The Young Doctor laid a hand on his shoulder gently, but presently +went out, shutting the door after him. As he left the room, however, he +turned and said, "Courage, Monsieur Jean Jacques! Courage!" + +When the Young Doctor came back a half-hour later he had in his hand the +letters found in Zoe's pocket. "Monsieur Jean Jacques," he said gently +to the bowed figure still sitting as he left him. + +Jean Jacques got up slowly and looked at him as though scarce +understanding where he was. + +"The child--the child--where is my Zoe's child? Where is Zoe's Zoe?" he +asked in agitation. His whole body seemed to palpitate. His eyes were +all red fire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE? + +The Young Doctor did not answer Jean Jacques at once. As he looked at +this wayworn fugitive he knew that another, and perhaps the final crisis +of his life, was come to Jean Jacques Barbille, and the human pity in +him shrank from the possible end to it all. It was an old-world figure +this, with the face of a peasant troubadour and the carriage of an +aboriginal--or an aristocrat. Indeed, the ruin, the lonely wandering +which had been Jean Jacques' portion, had given him that dignity which +often comes to those who defy destiny and the blows of angry fate. Once +there had been in his carriage something jaunty. This was merely life +and energy and a little vain confidence; now there was the look of +courage which awaits the worst the world can do. The life which, +according to the world's logic, should have made Jean Jacques a +miserable figure, an ill-nourished vagabond, had given him a physical +grace never before possessed by him. The face, however, showed the +ravages which loss and sorrow had made. It was lined and shadowed with +dark reflection, yet the forehead had a strange smoothness and serenity +little in accord with the rest of the countenance. It was like the +snow-summit of a mountain below which are the ragged escarpments of +trees and rocks, making a look of storm and warfare. + +"Where is she--the child of my Zoe?" Jean Jacques repeated with an +almost angry emphasis; as though the Young Doctor were hiding her from +him. + +"She is with the wife of Nolan Doyle, my partner in horse-breeding, not +very far from here. Norah Doyle was married five years, and she had no +child. This was a grief to her, even more than to Nolan, who, like her, +came of a stock that was prolific. It was Nolan who found your daughter +on the prairie--the driver dead, but she just alive when found. To give +her ease of mind, Nolan said he would make the child his own. When he +said that, she smiled and tried to speak, but it was too late, and she +was gone." + +In sudden agony Jean Jacques threw up his hands. "So young and so soon +to be gone!" he exclaimed. "But a child she was and had scarce tasted +the world. The mercy of God--what is it!" + +"You can't take time as the measure of life," rejoined the Young +Doctor with a compassionate gesture. "Perhaps she had her share of +happiness--as much as most of us get, maybe, in a longer course." + +"Share! She was worth a hundred years of happiness!" bitterly retorted +Jean Jacques. + +"Perhaps she knew her child would have it?" gently remarked the Young +Doctor. + +"Ah, that--that!... Do you think that possible, m'sieu'? Tell me, do you +think that was in her mind--to have loved, and been a mother, and given +her life for the child, and then the bosom of God. Answer that to me, +m'sieu'?" + +There was intense, poignant inquiry in Jean Jacques' face, and a light +seemed to play over it. The Young Doctor heeded the look and all that +was in the face. It was his mission to heal, and he knew that to heal +the mind was often more necessary than to heal the body. Here he would +try to heal the mind, if only in a little. + +"That might well have been in her thought," he answered. "I saw her +face. It had a wonderful look of peace, and a smile that would reconcile +anyone she loved to her going. I thought of that when I looked at her. I +recall it now. It was the smile of understanding." + +He had said the only thing which could have comforted Jean Jacques +at that moment. Perhaps it was meant to be that Zoe's child should +represent to him all that he had lost--home, fortune, place, Carmen and +Zoe. Perhaps she would be home again for him and all that home should +mean--be the promise of a day when home would again include that fled +from Carmen, and himself, and Carmen's child. Maybe it was sentiment in +him, maybe it was sentimentality--and maybe it was not. + +"Come, m'sieu'," Jean Jacques said impatiently: "let us go to the house +of that M'sieu' Doyle. But first, mark this: I have in the West here +some land--three hundred and twenty acres. It may yet be to me a home, +where I shall begin once more with my Zoe's child--with my Zoe of +Zoe--the home-life I lost down by the Beau Cheval.... Let us go at +once." + +"Yes, at once," answered the Young Doctor. Yet his feet were laggard, +for he was not so sure that there would be another home for Jean Jacques +with his grandchild as its star. He was thinking of Norah, to whom a +waif of the prairie had made home what home should be for herself and +Nolan Doyle. + +"Read these letters first," he said, and he put the letters found on Zoe +in Jean Jacques' eager hands. + +A half-hour later, at the horse-breeding ranch, the Young Doctor +introduced Jean Jacques to Norah Doyle, and instantly left the house. He +had no wish to hear the interview which must take place between the two. +Nolan Doyle was not at home, but in the room where they were shown to +Norah was a cradle. Norah was rocking it with one foot while, standing +by the table, she busied herself with sewing. + +The introduction was of the briefest. "Monsieur Barbille wishes a +word with you, Mrs. Doyle," said the Young Doctor. "It's a matter that +doesn't need me. Monsieur has been in my care, as you know.... Well, +there, I hope Nolan is all right. Tell him I'd like to see him to-morrow +about the bay stallion and the roans. I've had an offer for them. +Good-bye--good-bye, Mrs. Doyle"--he was at the door--"I hope you +and Monsieur Barbille will decide what's best for the child without +difficulty." + +The door opened quickly and shut again, and Jean Jacques was alone with +the woman and the child. "What's best for the child!" + +That was what the Young Doctor had said. Norah stopped rocking the +cradle and stared at the closed door. What had this man before her, this +tramp habitant of whom she had heard, of course, to do with little +Zoe in the cradle--her little Zoe who had come just when she was most +needed; who had brought her man and herself close together again after +an estrangement which neither had seemed able to prevent. + +"What's best for the child!" How did the child in the cradle concern +this man? Then suddenly his name almost shrieked in her brain. +Barbille--that was the name on the letter found on the body of the woman +who died and left Zoe behind--M. Jean Jacques Barbille. + +Yes, that was the name. What was going to happen? Did the man intend to +try and take Zoe from her? + +"What is your name--all of it?" she asked sharply. She had a very fine +set of teeth, as Jean Jacques saw mechanically; and subconsciously +he said to himself that they seemed cruel, they were so white and +regular--and cruel. The cruelty was evident to him as she bit in two +the thread for the waistcoat she was mending, and then plied her needle +again. Also the needle in her fingers might have been intended to sew +up his shroud, so angry did it appear at the moment. But her teeth had +something almost savage about them. If he had seen them when she was +smiling, he would have thought them merely beautiful and rare, atoning +for her plain face and flat breast--not so flat as it had been; for +since the child had come into her life, her figure, strangely enough, +had rounded out, and lines never before seen in her contour appeared. + +He braced himself for the contest he knew was at hand, and replied to +her. "My name is Jean Jacques Barbille. I was of the Manor Cartier, in +St. Saviour's parish, Quebec. The mother of the child Zoe, there, was +born at the Manor Cartier. I was her father. I am the grandfather of +this Zoe." He motioned towards the cradle. + +Then, with an impulse he could not check and did not seek to check--why +should he? was not the child his own by every right?--he went to the +cradle and looked down at the tiny face on its white pillow. There +could be no mistake about it; here was the face of his lost Zoe, with +something, too, of Carmen, and also the forehead of the Barbilles. As +though the child knew, it opened its eyes wide-big, brown eyes like +those of Carmen Dolores. + +"Ah, the beautiful, beloved thing!" he exclaimed in a low-voice, ere +Norah stepped between and almost pushed him back. An outstretched arm in +front of her prevented him from stooping to kiss the child. "Stand back. +The child must not be waked," she said. "It must sleep another hour. +It has its milk at twelve o'clock. Stand aside. I won't have my child +disturbed." + +"Have my child disturbed"--that was what she had said, and Jean Jacques +realized what he had to overbear. Here was the thing which must be +fought out at once. + +"The child is not yours, but mine," he declared. "Here is proof--the +letter found on my Zoe when she died--addressed to me. The doctor knew. +There is no mistake." + +He held out the letter for her to see. "As you can read here, my +daughter was on her way back to the Manor Cartier, to her old home at +St. Saviour's. She was on her way back when she died. If she had lived +I should have had them both; but one is left, according to the will of +God. And so I will take her--this flower of the prairie--and begin life +again." + +The face Norah turned on him had that look which is in the face of +an animal, when its young is being forced from it--fierce, hungering, +furtive, vicious. + +"The child is mine," she exclaimed--"mine and no other's. The prairie +gave it to me. It came to me out of the storm. 'Tis mine-mine only. I +was barren and wantin', and my man was slippin' from me, because there +was only two of us in our home. I was older than him, and yonder was a +girl with hair like a sheaf of wheat in the sun, and she kept lookin' at +him, and he kept goin' to her. 'Twas a man she wanted, 'twas a child +he wanted, and there they were wantin', and me atin' my heart out with +passion and pride and shame and sorrow. There was he wantin' a child, +and the girl wantin' a man, and I only wantin' what God should grant all +women that give themselves to a man's arms after the priest has blessed +them. And whin all was at the worst, and it looked as if he was away +with her--the girl yonder--then two things happened. A man--he was me +own brother and a millionaire if I do say it--he took her and married +her; and then, too, Heaven's will sent this child's mother to her last +end and the child itself to my Nolan's arms. To my husband's arms first +it came, you understand; and he give the child to me, as it should be, +and said he, 'We'll make believe it is our own.' But I said to him, +'There's no make-believe. 'Tis mine. 'Tis mine. It came to me out of the +storm from the hand of God.' And so it was and is; and all's well here +in the home, praise be to God. And listen to me: you'll not come here +to take the child away from me. It can't be done. I'll not have it. Yes, +you can let that sink down into you--I'll not have it." + +During her passionate and defiant appeal Jean Jacques was restless with +the old unrest of years ago, and his face twitched with emotion; but +before she had finished he had himself in some sort of control. + +"You--madame, you are only thinking of yourself in this. You are only +thinking what you want, what you and your man need. But it's not to be +looked at that way only, and--" + +"Well, then it isn't to be looked at that way only," she interrupted. +"As you say, it isn't Nolan and me alone to be considered. There's--" + +"There's me," he interrupted sharply. "The child is bone of my bone. It +is bone of all the Barbilles back to the time of Louis XI."--he had said +that long ago to Zoe first, and it was now becoming a fact in his mind. +"It is linked up in the chain of the history of the Barbilles. It is one +with the generations of noblesse and honour and virtue. It is--" + +"It's one with Abel the son of Adam, if it comes to that, and so am I," +Norah bitingly interjected, while her eyes flashed fire, and she rocked +the cradle more swiftly than was good for the child's sleep. + +Jean Jacques flared up. "There were sons and daughters of the family of +Adam that had names, but there were plenty others you whistled to as you +would to a four-footer, and they'd come. The Barbilles had names--always +names of their own back to Adam. The child is a Barbille--Don't rock the +cradle so fast," he suddenly added with an irritable gesture, breaking +off from his argument. "Don't you know better than that when a child's +asleep? Do you want it to wake up and cry?" + +She flushed to the roots of her hair, for he had said something for +which she had no reply. She had undoubtedly disturbed the child. It +stirred in its sleep, then opened its eyes, and at once began to cry. + +"There," said Jean Jacques, "what did I tell you? Any one that had ever +had children would know better than that." + +Norah paid no attention to his mocking words, to the undoubted-truth +of his complaint. Stooping over, she gently lifted the child up. With +hungry tenderness she laid it against her breast and pressed its cheek +to her own, murmuring and crooning to it. + +"Acushla! Acushla! Ah, the pretty bird--mother's sweet--mother's angel!" +she said softly. + +She rocked backwards and forwards. Her eyes, though looking at Jean +Jacques as she crooned and coaxed and made lullaby, apparently did not +see him. She was as concentrated as though it were a matter of life and +death. She was like some ancient nurse of a sovereign-child, plainly +dressed, while the dainty white clothes of the babe in her arms--ah, +hadn't she raided the hoard she had begun when first married, in the +hope of a child of her own, to provide this orphan with clothes good +enough for a royal princess! + +The flow of the long, white dress of the waif on the dark blue of +Norah's gown, which so matched the deep sapphire of her eyes, caught +Jean Jacques' glance, allured his mind. It was the symbol of youth and +innocence and home. Suddenly he had a vision of the day when his own Zoe +had been given to the cradle for the first time, and he had done exactly +what Norah had done--rocked too fast and too hard, and waked his little +one; and Carmen had taken her up in her long white draperies, and had +rocked to and fro, just like this, singing a lullaby. That lullaby +he had himself sung often afterwards; and now, with his grandchild in +Norah's arms there before him--with this other Zoe--the refrain of it +kept lilting in his brain. In the pause ensuing, when Norah stooped +to put the pacified child again in its nest, he also stooped over the +cradle and began to hum the words of the lullaby: + + "Sing, little bird, of the whispering leaves, + Sing a song of the harvest sheaves; + Sing a song to my Fanchonette, + Sing a song to my Fanchonette! + Over her eyes, over her eyes, over her eyes of violet, + See the web that the weaver weaves, + The web of sleep that the weaver weaves-- + Weaves, weaves, weaves! + Over those eyes of violet, + Over those eyes of my Fanchonette, + Weaves, weaves, weaves-- + See the web that the weaver weaves!" + +For quite two minutes Jean Jacques and Norah Doyle stooped over +the cradle, looking at Zoe's rosy, healthy, pretty face, as though +unconscious of each other, and only conscious of the child. When Jean +Jacques had finished the long first verse of the chanson, and would have +begun another, Norah made a protesting gesture. + +"She's asleep, and there's no more need," she said. "Wasn't it a good +lullaby, madame?" Jean Jacques asked. + +"So, so," she replied, on her defence again. + +"It was good enough for her mother," he replied, pointing to the cradle. + +"It's French and fanciful," she retorted--"both music and words." + +"The child's French--what would you have?" asked Jean Jacques +indignantly. + +"The child's father was English, and she's goin' to be English, the +darlin', from now on and on and on. That's settled. There's manny an +English and Irish lullaby that'll be sung to her hence and onward; and +there's manny an English song she'll sing when she's got her voice, and +is big enough. Well, I think she'll sing like a canary." + +"Do the birds sing in English?" exclaimed Jean Jacques, with anger in +his face now. Was there ever any vanity like the vanity of these people +who had made the conquest of Quebec, when sixteen Barbilles lost their +lives, one of them being aide-de-camp to M. Vaudreuil, the governor! + +"All the canaries I ever heard sung in English," she returned +stubbornly. + +"How do Frenchmen understand their singing, then?" irritably questioned +Jean Jacques. + +"Well, in translation only," she retorted, and with her sharp white +teeth she again bit the black thread of her needle, tied the end into a +little knot, and began to mend the waistcoat which she had laid down in +the first moments of the interview. + +"I want the child," Jean Jacques insisted abruptly. "I'll wait till she +wakes, and then I'll wrap her up and take her away." + +"Didn't you hear me say she was to be brought up English?" asked Norah, +with a slowness which clothed her fiercest impulses. + +"Name of God, do you think I'll let you have her!" returned Jean Jacques +with asperity and decision. "You say you are alone, you and your M'sieu' +Nolan. Well, I am alone--all alone in the world, and I need her--Mother +of God, I need her more than I ever needed anything in my life! You have +each other, but I have only myself, and it is not good company. Besides, +the child is mine, a Barbille of Barbilles, une legitime--a rightful +child of marriage. But if it was a love-child only it would still be +mine, being my daughter's child. Look you, it is no such thing. It is of +those who can claim inheritance back to Louis XI. She will be to me the +gift of God in return for the robbery of death." + +He leaned over the cradle, and his look was like that of one who had +found a treasure in the earth. + +Now she struck hard. Yet very subtly too did she attack him. "You--you +are thinking of yourself, m'sieu', only of yourself. Aren't you going to +think of the child at all? It isn't yourself that counts so much. You've +had your day, or the part of it that matters most. But her time is +not yet even begun. It's all--all--before her. You say you'll take her +away--well, to what? To what will you take her? What have you got to +give her? What--" + +"I have the three hundred and twenty acres out there"--he pointed +westward--"and I will make a home and begin again with her." + +"Three hundred and twenty acres--'out there'!" she exclaimed in scorn. +"Any one can have a farm here for the askin'. What is that? Is it a +home? What have you got to start a home with? Do you deny you are no +better than a tramp? Have you got a hundred dollars in the world? Have +you got a roof over your head? Have you got a trade? You'll take her +where--to what? Even if you had a home, what then? You would have to get +someone to look after her--some old crone, a wench maybe, who'd be as +fit to bring up a child as I would be to--" she paused and looked round +in helpless quest for a simile, when, in despair, she caught sight of +Jean Jacques' watch-chain--"as I would be to make a watch!" she added. + +Instinctively Jean Jacques drew out the ancient timepiece he had worn +on the Grand Tour; which had gone down with the Antoine and come up with +himself. It gave him courage to make the fight for his own. + +"The good God would see that--" he began. + +"The good God doesn't interfere in bringing up babies," she retorted. +"That's the work for the fathers and mothers, or godfathers and +godmothers." + +"You are neither," exclaimed Jean Jacques. "You have no rights at all." + +"I have no rights--eh? I have no rights! Look at the child. Look at the +way she's clothed. Look at the cradle in which it lies. It cost fifteen +dollars; and the clothes--what they cost would keep a family half a +year. I have no rights, is it?--I who stepped in and took the child +without question, without bein' asked, and made it my own, and treated +it as if it was me own. No, by the love of God, I treated it far, far +better than if it had been me own. Because a child was denied me, the +hunger of the years made me love the child as a mother would on a desert +island with one child at her knees." + +"You can get another-one not your own, as this isn't," argued Jean +Jacques fiercely. + +She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly. She chose her +own course to convince. "Nolan loves this child as if it was his," she +declared, her eyes all afire, "but he mightn't love another--men are +queer creatures. Then where would I be? and what would the home be but +what it was before--as cold, as cold and bitter! It was the hand of God +brought the child to the door of two people who had no child and who +prayed for one. Do you deny it was the hand of God that brought your +daughter here away, that put the child in my arms? Not its mother, am +I not? But I love her better than twenty mothers could. It's the +hunger--the hunger--the hunger in me. She's made a woman of me. She has +a home where everything is hers--everything. To see Nolan play with her, +tossin' her up and down in his arms as if he'd done it all his life--as +natural as natural! To take her away from that--all the comfort here +where she can have anything she wants! With my old mother to care for +her, if so be I was away to market or whereabouts--one that brought up +six children, a millionaire among them, praise be to God as my mother +did--to take this delicate little thing away from here, what a sin and +crime 'twould be! She herself 'd never forgive you for it, if ever she +grew up--though that's not likely, things bein' as they are with you, +and you bein' what you are. Ah, there--there she is awake and smilin', +and kickin' up her pretty toes this minute! There she is, the lovely +little Zoe, with eyes like black pearls.... See now--see now which +she'll come to--to you or me, m'sieu'. There, put out your arms to +her, and I'll put out mine, and see which she'll take. I'll stand by +that--I'll stand by that. Let the child decide. Hold out your arms, and +so will I." + +With an impassioned word Jean Jacques reached down his arms to the +child, which lay laughing up at them and kicking its pink toes into the +air, and Norah Doyle did the same, murmuring an Irish love-name for a +child. Jean Jacques was silent, but in his face was the longing of a +soul sick for home, of one who desires the end of a toilsome road. + +The laughing child crooned and spluttered and shook its head, as though +it was playing some happy game. It looked first at Norah, then at +Jean Jacques, then at Norah again, and then, with a little gurgle of +pleasure, stretched out its arms to her and half-raised itself from +the pillow. With a glad cry Norah gathered it to her bosom, and triumph +shone in her face. + +"Ah, there, you see!" she said, as she lifted her face from the blossom +at her breast. + +"There it is," said Jean Jacques with shaking voice. + +"You have nothing to give her--I have everything," she urged. "My rights +are that I would die for the child--oh, fifty times!... What are you +going to do, m'sieu'?" + +Jean Jacques slowly turned and picked up his hat. He moved with the +dignity of a hero who marches towards a wall to meet the bullets of a +firing-squad. + +"You are going?" Norah whispered, and in her eyes was a great relief and +the light of victory. The golden link binding Nolan and herself was in +her arms, over her heart. + +Jean Jacques did not speak a word in reply, though his lips moved. She +held out the little one to him for a good-bye, but he shook his head. +If he did that--if he once held her in his arms--he would not be able to +give her up. Gravely and solemnly, however, he stooped over and kissed +the lips of the child lying against Norah's breast. As he did so, with a +quick, mothering instinct Norah impulsively kissed his shaggy head, and +her eyes filled with tears. She smiled too, and Jean Jacques saw how +beautiful her teeth were--cruel no longer. + +He moved away slowly. At the door he turned, and looked back at the +two--a long, lingering look he gave. Then he faced away from them again. + +"Moi je suis philosophe," he said gently, and opened the door and +stepped out and away into the frozen world. + + + + +EPILOGUE. + +Change might lay its hand on the parish of St. Saviour's, and it did +so on the beautiful sentient living thing, as on the thing material and +man-made; but there was no change in the sheltering friendship of Mont +Violet or the flow of the illustrious Beau Cheval. The autumns also +changed not at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scene +which Jean Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom. + +One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but a +rainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring, +a traveller came back to St. Saviour's after a long journey. He came by +boat to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train to +the railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles to +Vilray. At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of the +days of Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which covered +the hands but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meek +crinoline. + +"Ah, Fille--ah, dear Fille!" said the little fragment of an antique day, +as the Clerk of the Court--rather, he that had been for so many years +Clerk of the Court--stepped from the boat. "I can scarce believe that +you are here once more. Have you good news?" + +"It was to come back with good news that I went," her brother answered +smiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation. + +"Dear, dear Fille!" She always called him that now, and not by his +Christian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since the +Government had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honoured +him with the degree of doctor of laws. + +She was leading him to the pony-carriage in which she had come to meet +him, when he said: + +"Do you think you could walk the distance, my dear?... It would be like +old times," he added gently. + +"I could walk twice as far to-day," she answered, and at once gave +directions for the young coachman to put "His Honour's" bag into the +carriage. In spite of Fille's reproofs she insisted in calling him that +to the servants. They had two servants now, thanks to the legacy left +them by the late Judge Carcasson. Presently M. Fille took her by the +hand. "Before we start--one look yonder," he murmured, pointing towards +the mill which had once belonged to Jean Jacques, now rebuilt and +looking almost as of old. "I promised Jean Jacques that I would come and +salute it in his name, before I did aught else, and so now I do salute +it." + +He waved a hand and made a bow to the gold Cock of Beaugard, the pride +of all the vanished Barbilles. "Jean Jacques Barbille says that his +head is up like yours, M. le Coq, and he wishes you many, many winds to +come," he recited quite seriously, and as though it was not out of tune +with the modern world. + +The gold Cock of Beaugard seemed to understand, for it swung to the +left, and now a little to the right, and then stood still, as if looking +at the little pair of exiles from an ancient world--of which the only +vestiges remaining may be found in old Quebec. + +This ceremony over, they walked towards Mont Violet, averting their +heads as they passed the Manor Cartier, in a kind of tribute to its +departed master--as a Stuart Legitimist might pass the big palace at +the end of the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister's +hand. + +"I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear," he said. "There +they are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie--that best of best women." + +"To think--married to Virginie Poucette--to think of that!" His sister's +voice fluttered as she spoke. "But entirely. There was nothing in the +way--and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame her, for +at bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him 'That dear +fool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all,' and our Judge +was always right--but yes, nearly always right." + +After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. "Well, when Virginie +sold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah in +the West, she said, 'If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the land +which was Zoe's, which he bought for her. If he is alive--then!' So +it was, and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like +Virginie, who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they +met on that three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of +Jean Jacques to have done that one right thing which would save him in +the end--a thing which came out of his love for his child--the emotion +of an hour. Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his +salvation after he learned of Zoe's death, and the other little Zoe, his +grandchild, was denied to him--to close his heart against what seemed +that last hope, was it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward of +his own soul--a home at last once more." + +"With Virginie Poucette--Fille, Fille, how things come round!" exclaimed +the little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings. + +"More than Virginie came round," he replied almost oracularly. "Who, +think you, brought him the news that coal was found on his acres--who +but the husband of Virginie's sister! Then came Virginie. On the day +Jean Jacques saw her again, he said to her, 'What you would have given +me at such cost, now let me pay for with the rest of my life. It is the +great thought which was in your heart that I will pay for with the days +left to me.'" + +A flickering smile brightened the sensitive ascetic face, and humour was +in the eyes. "What do you think Virginie said to that? Her sister told +me. Virginie said to that, 'You will have more days left, Jean Jacques, +if you have a better cook. What do you like best for supper?' And Jean +Jacques laughed much at that. Years ago he would have made a speech at +it!" + +"Then he is no more a philosopher?" + +"Oh always, always, but in his heart, and not with his tongue. I cried, +and so did he, when we met and when we parted. I think I am getting old, +for indeed I could not help it: yet there was peace in his eyes--peace." + +"His eyes used to rustle so." + +"Rustle--that is the word. Now, that is what, he has learned in +life--the way to peace. When I left him, it was with Virginie close +beside him, and when I said to him, 'Will you come back to us one day, +Jean Jacques?' he said, 'But no, Fille, my friend; it is too far. I see +it--it is a million miles away--too great a journey to go with the feet, +but with the soul I will visit it. The soul is a great traveller. I see +it always--the clouds and the burnings and the pitfalls gone--out +of sight--in memory as it was when I was a child. Well, there it is, +everything has changed, except the child-memory. I have had, and I have +had not; and there it is. I am not the same man--but yes, in my love +just the same, with all the rest--' He did not go on, so I said, 'If not +the same, then what are you, Jean Jacques?'" + +"Ah, Fille, in the old days he would have said that he was a +philosopher"--said his sister interrupting. "Yes, yes, one knows--he +said it often enough and had need enough to say it. Well, said he to me, +'Me, I am a'--then he stopped, shook his head, and so I could scarcely +hear him, murmured, 'Me--I am a man who has been a long journey with a +pack on his back, and has got home again.' Then he took Virginie's hand +in his." + +The old man's fingers touched the corner of his eye as though to find +something there; then continued. "'Ah, a pedlar!' said I to him, to hear +what he would answer. 'Follies to sell for sous of wisdom,' he answered. +Then he put his arm around Virginie, and she gave him his pipe." + +"I wish M. Carcasson knew," the little grey lady remarked. + +"But of course he knows," said the Clerk of the Court, with his face +turned to the sunset. + + + ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + + Air of certainty and universal comprehension + Always calling to something, for something outside ourselves + Being generous with other people's money + Came of a race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers + Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit often + Courage which awaits the worst the world can do + Enjoy his own generosity + Good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness + Grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter + Grow more intense, more convinced, more thorough, as they talk + Had the slight flavour of the superior and the paternal + He had only made of his wife an incident in his life + He was in fact not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist + He was not always sorry when his teasing hurt + He admired, yet he wished to be admired + He hated irony in anyone else + I had to listen to him, and he had to pay me for listening + I can't pay you for your kindness to me, and I don't want to + I said I was not falling in love--I am in love + If you have a good thought, act on it + Inclined to resent his own insignificance + Lacks a balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough + Law. It is expensive whether you win or lose + Lyrical in his enthusiasms + Man who tells the story in a new way, that is genius + Missed being a genius by an inch + No past that is hidden has ever been a happy past + No man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced + Not content to do even the smallest thing ill + Of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with self-creation + Philosophers are often stupid in human affairs + Protest that it is right when it knows that it is wrong + She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly + Spurting out little geysers of other people's cheap wisdom + That iceberg which most mourners carry in their breasts + The beginning of the end of things was come for him + The soul is a great traveller + Untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life + You can't take time as the measure of life + You went north towards heaven and south towards hell + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Money Master, Complete, by Gilbert Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, COMPLETE *** + +***** This file should be named 6280.txt or 6280.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/8/6280/ + +Produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: The Money Master, Complete + +Author: Gilbert Parker + +Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6280] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 28, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, PARKER, ENTIRE*** + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +THE MONEY MASTER, Complete + +By Gilbert Parker + + + + +CONTENTS + +EPOCH THE FIRST +I. THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE +II. THE REST OF THE STORY "TO-MORROW" +III. "TO-MORROW" + +EPOCH THE SECOND +IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A STORY +V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY +VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY +VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP +VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL +IX. "MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE" +X. "QUIEN SABE"--WHO KNOWS! +XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE +XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM + +EPOCH THE THIRD +XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE +XIV. "I DO NOT WANT TO GO" +XV. BON MARCHE + +EPOCH THE FOURTH +XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY +XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET +XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER +XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP +XX. "AU 'VOIR, M'SIEU' JEAN JACQUES" +XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME + +EPOCH THE FIFTH +XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY +XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO +XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED. +XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE + +EPILOGUE + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +This book is in a place by itself among the novels I have written. Many +critics said that it was a welcome return to Canada, where I had made my +first success in the field of fiction. This statement was only meagrely +accurate, because since 'The Right of Way' was published in 1901 I had +written, and given to the public, 'Northern Lights', a book of short +stories, 'You Never Know Your Luck', a short novel, and 'The World for +Sale', though all of these dealt with life in Western Canada, and not +with the life of the French Canadians, in which field I had made my first +firm impression upon the public. In any case, The Money Master was +favourably received by the press and public both in England and America, +and my friends were justified in thinking, and in saying, that I was at +home in French Canada and gave the impression of mastery of my material. +If mastery of material means a knowledge of the life, and a sympathy with +it, then my friends are justified; for I have always had an intense +sympathy with, and admiration for, French Canadian life. I think the +French Canadian one of the most individual, original, and distinctive +beings of the modern world. He has kept his place, with his own customs, +his own Gallic views of life, and his religious habits, with an assiduity +and firmness none too common. He is essentially a man of the home, of +the soil, and of the stream; he has by nature instinctive philosophy and +temperamental logic. As a lover of the soil of Canada he is not +surpassed by any of the other citizens of the country, English or +otherwise. + +It would almost seem as though the pageantry of past French Canadian +history, and the beauty and vigour of the topographical surroundings of +French Canadian life, had produced an hereditary pride and exaltation-- +perhaps an excessive pride and a strenuous exaltation, but, in any case, +there it was, and is. The French Canadian lives a more secluded life on +the whole than any other citizen of Canada, though the native, +adventurous spirit has sent him to the Eastern States of the American +Union for work in the mills and factories, or up to the farthest reaches +of the St. Lawrence, Ottawa, and their tributaries in the wood and timber +trade. + +Domestically he is perhaps the most productive son of the North American +continent. Families of twenty, or even twenty-five, are not unknown, +and, when a man has had more than one wife, it has even exceeded that. +Life itself is full of camaraderie and good spirit, marked by religious +traits and sacerdotal influence. + +The French Canadian is on the whole sober and industrious; but when he +breaks away from sobriety and industry he becomes a vicious element in +the general organism. Yet his vices are of the surface, and do not +destroy the foundations of his social and domestic scheme. A French +Canadian pony used to be considered the most virile and lasting stock on +the continent, and it is fair to say that the French Canadians themselves +are genuinely hardy, long-lived, virile, and enduring. + +It was among such people that the hero of The Money Master, Jean Jacques +Barbille, lived. He was the symbol or pattern of their virtues and of +their weaknesses. By nature a poet, a philosopher, a farmer and an +adventurer, his life was a sacrifice to prepossession and race instinct; +to temperament more powerful than logic or common sense, though he was +almost professionally the exponent of both. + +There is no man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced as +the French Canadian. He is at once modest and vain; he is even lyrical +in his enthusiasms; he is a child in the intrigues and inventions of +life; but he has imagination, he has a heart, he has a love of tradition, +and is the slave of legend. To him domestic life is the summum bonum of +being. His four walls are the best thing which the world has to offer, +except the cheerful and sacred communion of the Mass, and his dismissal +from life itself under the blessing of his priest and with the promise of +a good immortality. + +Jean Jacques Barbille had the French Canadian life of pageant, pomp, and +place extraordinarily developed. His love of history and tradition was +abnormal. A genius, he was, within an inch, a tragedy to the last +button. Probably the adventurous spirit of his forefathers played a +greater part in his development and in the story of his days than +anything else. He was wide-eyed, and he had a big soul. He trained +himself to believe in himself and to follow his own judgment; therefore, +he invited loss upon loss, he made mistake upon mistake, he heaped +financial adventure upon financial adventure, he ran great risks; and it +is possible that his vast belief in himself kept him going when other men +would have dropped by the wayside. He loved his wife and daughter, and +he lost them both. He loved his farms, his mills and his manor, and they +disappeared from his control. + +It must be remembered that the story of The Money Master really runs for +a generation, and it says something for Jean Jacques Barbille that he +could travel through scenes, many of them depressing, for long years, and +still, in the end, provoke no disparagement, by marrying the woman who +had once out of the goodness of her heart offered him everything-- +herself, her home, her honour; and it was to Jean Jacques's credit +that he took neither until the death of his wife made him free; but the +tremendous gift offered him produced a powerful impression upon his mind +and heart. + +One of the most distinguished men of the world to-day wrote me in praise +and protest concerning The Money Master. He declared that the first half +of the book was as good as anything that had been done by anybody, and +then he bemoaned the fact, which he believed, that the author had +sacrificed his two heroines without real cause and because he was tired +of them. There he was wrong. In the author's mind the story was planned +exactly as it worked out. He was never tired; he was resolute. He was +intent to produce, if possible, a figure which would breed and develop +its own disasters, which would suffer profoundly for its own mistakes; +but which, in the end, would triumph over the disasters of life and time. +It was all deliberate in the main intention and plan. Any failures that +exist in the book are due to the faults of the author, and to nothing +else. + +Some critics have been good enough to call 'The Money Master' a beautiful +book, and there are many who said that it was real, true, and faithful. +Personally I think it is real and true, and as time goes on, and we get +older, that is what seems to matter to those who love life and wish to +see it well harvested. + +I do not know what the future of the book may be; what the future of any +work of mine will be; but I can say this, that no one has had the +pleasure in reading my books which I have had in making them. They have +been ground out of the raw material of the soul. I have a hope that they +will outlast my brief day, but, in any case, it will not matter. They +have given me a chance of showing to the world life as I have seen it, +and indirectly, and perhaps indistinctly, my own ideas of that life. +'The Money Master' is a vivid and somewhat emotional part of it. + + + + +EPOCH THE FIRST + +CHAPTER I + +THE GRAND TOUR OF JEAN JACQUES BARBILLE + +"Peace and plenty, peace and plenty"--that was the phrase M. Jean Jacques +Barbille, miller and moneymaster, applied to his home-scene, when he was +at the height of his career. Both winter and summer the place had a look +of content and comfort, even a kind of opulence. There is nothing like a +grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter and an air of coolness +in summer, so does the slightest breeze make the pine-needles swish like +the freshening sea. But to this scene, where pines made a friendly +background, there were added oak, ash, and hickory trees, though in less +quantity on the side of the river where were Jean Jacques Barbille's +house and mills. They flourished chiefly on the opposite side of the +Beau Cheval, whose waters flowed so waywardly--now with a rush, now +silently away through long reaches of country. Here the land was rugged +and bold, while farther on it became gentle and spacious, and was flecked +or striped with farms on which low, white houses with dormer-windows and +big stoops flashed to the passer-by the message of the pioneer, "It is +mine. I triumph." + +At the Manor Cartier, not far from the town of Vilray, where Jean Jacques +was master, and above it and below it, there had been battles and the +ravages of war. At the time of the Conquest the stubborn habitants, +refusing to accept the yielding of Quebec as the end of French power +in their proud province, had remained in arms and active, and had only +yielded when the musket and the torch had done their work, and smoking +ruins marked the places where homes had been. They took their fortune +with something of the heroic calm of men to whom an idea was more than +aught else. Jean Jacques' father, grandfather, and great-great- +grandfather had lived here, no one of them rising far, but none worthless +or unnoticeable. They all had had "a way of their own," as their +neighbours said, and had been provident on the whole. Thus it was that +when Jean Jacques' father died, and he came into his own, he found +himself at thirty a man of substance, unmarried, who "could have had the +pick of the province." This was what the Old Cure said in despair, when +Jean Jacques did the incomprehensible thing, and married l'Espagnole, or +"the Spanische," as the lady was always called in the English of the +habitant. + +When she came it was spring-time, and all the world was budding, exuding +joy and hope, with the sun dancing over all. It was the time between +the sowing and the hay-time, and there was a feeling of alertness in +everything that had life, while even the rocks and solid earth seemed to +stir. The air was filled with the long happy drone of the mill-stones as +they ground the grain; and from farther away came the soft, stinging cry +of a saw-mill. Its keen buzzing complaint was harmonious with the +grumble of the mill-stones, as though a supreme maker of music had tuned +it. So said a master-musician and his friend, a philosopher from Nantes, +who came to St. Saviour's in the summer just before the marriage, and +lodged with Jean Jacques. Jean Jacques, having spent a year at Laval +University at Quebec, had almost a gift of thought, or thinking; and he +never ceased to ply the visiting philosopher and musician with questions +which he proceeded to answer himself before they could do so; his quaint, +sentimental, meretricious observations on life saddening while they +amused his guests. They saddened the musician more than the other +because he knew life, while the philosopher only thought it and saw it. + +But even the musician would probably have smiled in hope that day when +the young "Spanische" came driving up the river-road from the steamboat- +landing miles away. She arrived just when the clock struck noon in the +big living-room of the Manor. As she reached the open doorway and the +wide windows of the house which gaped with shady coolness, she heard the +bell summoning the workers in the mills and on the farm--yes, M. Barbille +was a farmer, too--for the welcome home to "M'sieu' Jean Jacques," as he +was called by everyone. + +That the wedding had taken place far down in Gaspe and not in St. +Saviour's was a reproach and almost a scandal; and certainly it was +unpatriotic. It was bad enough to marry the Spanische, but to marry +outside one's own parish, and so deprive that parish and its young people +of the week's gaiety, which a wedding and the consequent procession and +tour through the parish brings, was little less than treason. But there +it was; and Jean Jacques was a man who had power to hurt, to hinder, or +to help; for the miller and the baker are nearer to the hearthstone of +every man than any other, and credit is a good thing when the oven is +empty and hard times are abroad. The wedding in Gaspe had not been +attended by the usual functions, for it had all been hurriedly arranged, +as the romantic circumstances of the wooing required. Romance indeed it +was; so remarkable that the master-musician might easily have found a +theme for a comedy--or tragedy--and the philosopher would have shaken his +head at the defiance it offered to the logic of things. + +Now this is the true narrative, though in the parish of St. Saviour's it +is more highly decorated and has many legends hanging to it like tassels +to a curtain. Even the Cure of to-day, who ought to know all the truth, +finds it hard to present it in its bare elements; for the history of Jean +Jacques Barbille affected the history of many a man in St. Saviour's; and +all that befel him, whether of good or evil, ran through the parish in a +thousand invisible threads. + + ....................... + +What had happened was this. After the visit of the musician and the +philosopher, Jean Jacques, to sustain his reputation and to increase it, +had decided to visit that Normandy from which his people had come at the +time of Frontenac. He set forth with much 'eclat' and a little innocent +posturing and ritual, in which a cornet and a violin figured, together +with a farewell oration by the Cure. + +In Paris Jean Jacques had found himself bewildered and engulfed. He had +no idea that life could be so overbearing, and he was inclined to resent +his own insignificance. However, in Normandy, when he read the names on +the tombstones and saw the records in the baptismal register of other +Jean Jacques Barbilles, who had come and gone generations before, his +self-respect was somewhat restored. This pleasure was dashed, however, +by the quizzical attitude of the natives of his ancestral parish, who +walked round about inspecting him as though he were a zoological +specimen, and who criticized his accent--he who had been at Laval for one +whole term; who had had special instruction before that time from the Old +Cure and a Jesuit brother; and who had been the friend of musicians and +philosophers! + +His cheerful, kindly self-assurance stood the test with difficulty, but +it became a kind of ceremonial with him, whenever he was discomfited, to +read some pages of a little dun-coloured book of philosophy, picked up on +the quay at Quebec just before he sailed, and called, "Meditations in +Philosophy." He had been warned by the bookseller that the Church had no +love for philosophy; but while at Laval he had met the independent minds +that, at eighteen to twenty-two, frequent academic groves; and he was not +to be put off by the pious bookseller--had he not also had a philosopher +in his house the year before, and was he not going to Nantes to see this +same savant before returning to his beloved St. Saviour's parish. + +But Paris and Nantes and Rouen and Havre abashed and discomfited him, +played havoc with his self-esteem, confused his brain, and vexed him by +formality, and, more than all, by their indifference to himself. He +admired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished all +people and things to be humble with him. When he halted he wanted the +world to halt; when he entered a cathedral--Notre Dame or any other; or a +great building--the Law Courts at Rouen or any other; he simply wanted +people to say, wanted the cathedral, or at least the cloister, to whisper +to itself, "Here comes Jean Jacques Barbille." + +That was all he wanted, and that would have sufficed. He would not have +had them whisper about his philosophy and his intellect, or the mills and +the ash-factory which he meant to build, the lime-kilns he had started +even before he left, and the general store he intended to open when he +returned to St. Saviour's. Not even his modesty was recognized; and, in +his grand tour, no one was impressed by all that he was, except once. An +ancestor, a grandmother of his, had come from the Basque country; and so +down to St. Jean Pied de Port he went; for he came of a race who set +great store by mothers and grandmothers. At St. Jean Pied de Port he was +more at home. He was, in a sense, a foreigner among foreigners there, +and the people were not quizzical, since he was an outsider in any case +and not a native returned, as he had been in Normandy. He learned to +play pelota, the Basque game taken from the Spaniards, and he even +allowed himself a little of that oratory which, as they say, has its +habitat chiefly in Gascony. And because he had found an audience at +last, he became a liberal host, and spent freely of his dollars, as he +had never done either in Normandy, Paris, or elsewhere. So freely did he +spend, that when he again embarked at Bordeaux for Quebec, he had only +enough cash left to see him through the remainder of his journey in the +great world. Yet he left France with his self-respect restored, and he +even waved her a fond adieu, as the creaking Antoine broke heavily into +the waters of the Bay of Biscay, while he cried: + + "My little ship, + It bears me far + From lights of home + To alien star. + O vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, dear land, + Provence, adieu." + +Then a further wave of sentiment swept over him, and he was vaguely +conscious of a desire to share the pains of parting which he saw in +labour around him--children from parents, lovers from loved. He could +not imagine the parting from a parent, for both of his were in the bosom +of heaven, having followed his five brothers, all of whom had died in +infancy, to his good fortune, for otherwise his estate would now be only +one-sixth of what it was. But he could imagine a parting with some sweet +daughter of France, and he added another verse to the thrilling of the +heart of Casimir Delavigne: + + "Beloved Isaure, + Her hand makes sign-- + No more, no more, + To rest in mine. + O vierge Marie, + Pour moi priez Dieu! + Adieu, dear land, + Isaure, adieu!" + +As he murmured with limpid eye the last words, he saw in the forecastle +not far from him a girl looking at him. There was unmistakable sadness +in her glance of interest. In truth she was thinking of just such a man +as Jean Jacques, whom she could never see any more, for he had paid with +his life the penalty of the conspiracy in which her father, standing now +behind her on the leaky Antoine, had been a tool, and an evil tool. Here +in Jean Jacques was the same ruddy brown face, black restless eye, and +young, silken, brown beard. Also there was an air of certainty and +universal comprehension, and though assertion and vanity were apparent, +there was no self-consciousness. The girl's dead and gone conspirator +had not the same honesty of face, the same curve of the ideal in the +broad forehead, the same poetry of rich wavy brown hair, the same +goodness of mind and body so characteristic of Jean Jacques--he was but +Jean Jacques gone wrong at the start; but the girl was of a nature that +could see little difference between things which were alike +superficially, and in the young provincial she only saw one who looked +like the man she had loved. True, his moustaches did not curl upwards at +the ends as did those of Carvillho Gonzales, and he did not look out of +the corner of his eyes and smoke black cigarettes; but there he was, her +Carvillho with a difference--only such a difference that made him to her +Carvillho II., and not the ghost of Carvillho I. + +She was a maiden who might have been as good as need be for all life, +so far as appearances went. She had a wonderful skin, a smooth, velvety +cheek, where faint red roses came and went, as it might seem at will; +with a deep brown eye; and eh, but she was grandly tall--so Jean Jacques +thought, while he drew himself up to his full five feet, six and a half +with a determined air. Even at his best, however, Jean Jacques could not +reach within three inches of her height. + +Yet he did not regard her as at all overdone because of that. He thought +her hair very fine, as it waved away from her low forehead in a grace +which reminded him of the pictures of the Empress Eugenie, and of the +sister of that monsieur le duc who had come fishing to St. Saviour's a +few years before. He thought that if her hair was let down it would +probably reach to her waist, and maybe to her ankles. She had none of +the plump, mellow softness of the beauties he had seen in the Basque +country. She was a slim and long limbed Diana, with fine lines and a +bosom of extreme youth, though she must have been twenty-one her last +birthday. The gown she wore was a dark green well-worn velvet, which +seemed of too good a make and quality for her class; and there was no +decoration about her anywhere, save at the ears, where two drops of gold +hung on little links an inch and a half long. + +Jean Jacques Barbille's eyes took it all in with that observation of +which he was so proud and confident, and rested finally on the drops of +gold at her ears. Instinctively he fingered the heavy gold watch-chain +he had bought in Paris to replace the silver chain with a little crucifix +dangling, which his father and even his great-grandfather had worn before +him. He had kept the watch, however--the great fat-bellied thing which +had never run down in a hundred years. It was his mascot. To lose that +watch would be like losing his share in the promises of the Church. So +his fingers ran along the new gold-fourteen-carat-chain, to the watch at +the end of it; and he took it out a little ostentatiously, since he saw +that the eyes of the girl were on him. Involuntarily he wished to +impress her. + +He might have saved himself the trouble. She was impressed. It was +quite another matter however, whether he would have been pleased to know +that the impression was due to his resemblance to a Spanish conspirator, +whose object was to destroy the Monarchy and the Church, as had been the +object of the middle-aged conspirator--the girl's father--who had the +good fortune to escape from justice. It is probable that if Jean Jacques +had known these facts, his story would never have been written, and he +would have died in course of time with twenty children and a seat in the +legislature; for, in spite of his ardent devotion to philosophy and its +accompanying rationalism, he was a devout monarchist and a child of the +Church. + +Sad enough it was that, as he shifted his glance from the watch, which +ticked loud enough to wake a farmhand in the middle of the day, he found +those Spanish eyes which had been so lost in studying him. In the glow +and glisten of the evening sun setting on the shores of Bordeaux, and +flashing reflected golden light to the girl's face, he saw that they were +shining with tears, and though looking at him, appeared not to see him. +In that moment the scrutiny of the little man's mind was volatilized, and +the Spanische, as she was ultimately called, began her career in the life +of the money-master of St. Saviour's. + +It began by his immediately resenting the fact that she should be +travelling in the forecastle. His mind imagined misfortune and a lost +home through political troubles, for he quickly came to know that the +girl and her father were Spanish; and to him, Spain was a place of +martyrs and criminals. Criminals these could not be--one had but to +look at the girl's face; while the face of her worthless father might +have been that of a friend of Philip IV. in the Escorial, so quiet and +oppressed it seemed. Nobility was written on the placid, apathetic +countenance, except when it was not under observation, and then the look +of Cain took its place. Jean Jacques, however, was not likely to see +that look; since Sebastian Dolores--that was his name--had observed from +the first how the master-miller was impressed by his daughter, and he was +set to turn it to account. + +Not that the father entered into an understanding with the girl. He knew +her too well for that. He had a wholesome respect, not to say fear, of +her; for when all else had failed, it was she who had arranged his escape +from Spain, and who almost saved Carvillho Gonzales from being shot. She +could have saved Gonzales, might have saved him, would have saved him, +had she not been obliged to save her father. In the circumstances she +could not save both. + +Before the week was out Jean Jacques was possessed of as fine a tale of +political persecution as mind could conceive, and, told as it was by +Sebastian Dolores, his daughter did not seek to alter it, for she had +her own purposes, and they were mixed. These refugees needed a friend, +for they would land in Canada with only a few dollars, and Carmen Dolores +loved her father well enough not to wish to see him again in such +distress as he had endured in Cadiz. Also, Jean Jacques, the young, +verdant, impressionable French Catholic, was like her Carvillho Gonzales, +and she had loved her Carvillho in her own way very passionately, and-- +this much to her credit--quite chastely. So that she had no compunction +in drawing the young money-master to her side, and keeping him there by +such arts as such a woman possesses. These are remarkable after their +kind. They are combined of a frankness as to the emotions, and such +outer concessions to physical sensations, as make a painful combination +against a mere man's caution; even when that caution has a Norman origin. + +More than once Jean Jacques was moved to tears, as the Ananias of Cadiz +told his stories of persecution. + +So that one day, in sudden generosity, he paid the captain the necessary +sum to transfer the refugees from the forecastle to his own select +portion of the steamer, where he was so conspicuous a figure among a +handful of lower-level merchant folk and others of little mark who were +going to Quebec. To these latter Jean Jacques was a gift of heaven, for +he knew so much, and seemed to know so much more, and could give them the +information they desired. His importance lured him to pose as a +seigneur, though he had no claim to the title. He did not call himself +Seigneur in so many words, but when others referred to him as the +Seigneur, and it came to his ears, he did not correct it; and when he was +addressed as such he did not reprove. + +Thus, when he brought the two refugees from the forecastle and assured +his fellow-passengers that they were Spanish folk of good family exiled +by persecution, his generosity was acclaimed, even while all saw he was +enamoured of Carmen. Once among the first-class passengers, father and +daughter maintained reserve, and though there were a few who saw that +they were not very far removed above peasants, still the dress of the +girl, which was good--she had been a maid in a great nobleman's family +--was evidence in favour of the father's story. Sebastian Dolores +explained his own workman's dress as having been necessary for his +escape. + +Only one person gave Jean Jacques any warning. This was the captain +of the Antoine. He was a Basque, he knew the Spanish people well--the +types, the character, the idiosyncrasies; and he was sure that Sebastian +Dolores and his daughter belonged to the lower clerical or higher working +class, and he greatly inclined towards the former. In that he was right, +because Dolores, and his father before him, had been employed in the +office of a great commercial firm in Cadiz, and had repaid much +consideration by stirring up strife and disloyalty in the establishment. +But before the anarchist subtracted himself from his occupation, he had +appropriated certain sums of money, and these had helped to carry him on, +when he attached himself to the revolutionaries. It was on his +daughter's savings that he was now travelling, with the only thing he +had saved from the downfall, which was his head. It was of sufficient +personal value to make him quite cheerful as the Antoine plunged and +shivered on her way to the country where he could have no steady work +as a revolutionist. + +With reserve and caution the Basque captain felt it his duty to tell Jean +Jacques of his suspicions, warning him that the Spaniards were the +choicest liars in the world, and were not ashamed of it; but had the same +pride in it as had their greatest rivals, the Arabs and the Egyptians. + +His discreet confidences, however, were of no avail; he was not discreet +enough. If he had challenged the bona fides of Sebastian Dolores only, +he might have been convincing, but he used the word "they" constantly, +and that roused the chivalry of Jean Jacques. That the comely, careful +Carmen should be party to an imposture was intolerable. Everything about +her gave it the lie. Her body was so perfect and complete, so finely +contrived and balanced, so cunningly curved with every line filled in; +her eye was so full of lustre and half-melancholy too; her voice had such +a melodious monotone; her mouth was so ripe and yet so distant in its +luxury, that imposture was out of the question. + +Ah, but Jean Jacques was a champion worth while! He did nothing by +halves. He was of the breed of men who grow more intense, more +convinced, more thorough, as they talk. One adjective begets another, +one warm allusion gives birth to a warmer, one flashing impulse evokes a +brighter confidence, till the atmosphere is flaming with conviction. If +Jean Jacques started with faint doubt regarding anything, and allowed +himself betimes the flush of a declaration of belief, there could be but +one end. He gathered fire as he moved, impulse expanded into momentum, +and momentum became an Ariel fleeing before the dark. He would start by +offering a finger to be pricked, and would end by presenting his own head +on a charger. He was of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with +self-creation, who flower and bloom without pollen. + +His rejection of the captain's confidence even had a dignity. He took +out his watch which represented so many laborious hours of other +Barbilles, and with a decision in which the strong pulse of chivalry was +beating hard, he said: + +"I can never speak well till I have ate. That is my hobby. Well, so it +is. And I like good company. So that is why I sit beside Senor and +Senorita Dolores at table--the one on the right, the other on the left, +myself between, like this, like that. It is dinner-time now here, and +my friends--my dear friends of Cadiz--they wait me. Have you heard the +Senorita sing the song of Spain, m'sieu'? What it must be with the +guitar, I know not; but with voice alone it is ravishing. I have learned +it also. The Senorita has taught me. It is a song of Aragon. It is +sung in high places. It belongs to the nobility. Ah, then, you have not +heard it--but it is not too late! The Senorita, the unhappy ma'm'selle, +driven from her ancestral home by persecution, she will sing it to you as +she has sung it to me. It is your due. You are the master of the ship. +But, yes, she shall of her kindness and of her grace sing it to you. You +do not know how it runs? Well, it is like this--listen and tell me if it +does not speak of things that belong to the old regime, the ancient +noblesse--listen, m'sieu' le captaanne, how it runs: + + "Have you not heard of mad Murcie? + Granada gay and And'lousie? + There's where you'll see the joyous rout, + When patios pour their beauties out; + Come, children, come, the night gains fast, + And Time's a jade too fair to last. + My flower of Spain, my Juanetta, + Away, away to gay Jota! + Come forth, my sweet, away, my queen, + Though daybreak scorns, the night's between. + The Fete's afoot--ah! ah! ah! ah! + De la Jota Ar'gonesa. + Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! + De la Jota Ar'gonesa." + +Before he had finished, the captain was more than ready to go, for he had +no patience with such credulity, simplicity and sentimentalism. He was +Basque, and to be Basque is to lack sentiment and feel none, to play ever +for the safe thing, to get without giving, and to mind your own business. +It had only been an excessive sense of duty which had made the captain +move in this, for he liked Jean Jacques as everyone aboard his Antoine +did; and he was convinced that the Spaniards would play the "Seigneur" to +the brink of disaster at least, though it would have been hard to detect +any element of intrigue or coquetry in Carmen Dolores. + +That was due partly to the fact that she was still in grief for her +Gonzales, whose heart had been perforated by almost as many bullets as +the arrows of Cupid had perforated it in his short, gay life of adventure +and anarchy; also partly because there was no coquetry needed to interest +Jean Jacques. If he was interested it was not necessary to interest +anyone else, nor was it expedient to do so, for the biggest fish in the +net on the Antoine was the money-master of St. Saviour's. + +Carmen had made up her mind from the first to marry Jean Jacques, and she +deported herself accordingly--with modesty, circumspection and skill. It +would be the easiest way out of all their difficulties. Since her heart, +such as it was, fluttered, a mournful ghost, over the Place d'Armes, +where her Gonzales was shot, it might better go to Jean Jacques than +anyone else; for he was a man of parts, of money, and of looks, and she +loved these all; and to her credit she loved his looks better than all +the rest. She had no real cupidity, and she was not greatly enamoured of +brains. She had some real philosophy of life learned in a hard school; +and it was infinitely better founded than the smattering of conventional +philosophy got by Jean Jacques from his compendium picked up on the quay +at Quebec. + +Yet Jean Jacques' cruiser of life was not wholly unarmed. From his +Norman forebears he had, beneath all, a shrewdness and an elementary +alertness not submerged by his vain, kind nature. He was quite a good +business man, and had proved himself so before his father died--very +quick to see a chance, and even quicker to see where the distant, +sharp corners in the road were; though not so quick to see the pitfalls, +for his head was ever in the air. And here on the Antoine, there crossed +his mind often the vision of Carmen Dolores and himself in the parish of +St. Saviour's, with the daily life of the Beau Cheval revolving about +him. Flashes of danger warned him now and then, just at the beginning of +the journey, as it were; just before he had found it necessary to become +her champion against the captain and his calumnies; but they were of the +instant only. But champion as he became, and worshipping as his manner +seemed, it all might easily have been put down to a warm, chivalrous, and +spontaneous nature, which had not been bitted or bridled, and he might +have landed at Quebec without committing himself, were it not for the +fact that he was not to land at Quebec. + +That was the fact which controlled his destiny. He had spent many, many +hours with the Dona Dolores, talking, talking, as he loved to talk, and +only saving himself from the betise of boring her by the fact that his +enthusiasm had in it so fresh a quality, and because he was so like +her Gonzales that she could always endure him. Besides, quick of +intelligence as she was, she was by nature more material than she looked, +and there was certainly something physically attractive in him--some +curious magnetism. She had a well of sensuousness which might one day +become sensuality; she had a richness of feeling and a contour in harmony +with it, which might expand into voluptuousness, if given too much sun, +or if untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life. There +was an earthquake zone in her being which might shake down the whole +structure of her existence. She was unsafe, not because she was +deceiving Jean Jacques now as to her origin and as to her feelings for +him; she was unsafe because of the natural strain of the light of love +in her, joined to a passion for comfort and warmth and to a natural self- +indulgence. She was determined to make Jean Jacques offer himself before +they landed at Quebec. + +But they did not land at Quebec. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"THE REST OF THE STORY TO-MORROW" + +The journey wore on to the coast of Canada. Gaspe was not far off when, +still held back by the constitutional tendency of the Norman not to close +a bargain till compelled to do so, Jean Jacques sat with Carmen far +forward on the deck, where the groaning Antoine broke the waters into +sullen foam. There they silently watched the sunset, golden, purple and +splendid--and ominous, as the captain knew. + +"Look, the end of life--like that!" said Jean Jacques oratorically with +a wave of the hand towards the prismatic radiance. + +"All the way round, the whole circle--no, it would be too much," Carmen +replied sadly. "Better to go at noon--or soon after. Then the only +memory of life would be of the gallop. No crawling into the night for +me, if I can help it. Mother of Heaven, no! Let me go at the top of the +flight." + +"It is all the same to me," responded Jean Jacques, "I want to know it +all--to gallop, to trot, to walk, to crawl. Me, I'm a philosopher. I +wait." + +"But I thought you were a Catholic," she replied, with a kindly, lurking +smile, which might easily have hardened into scoffing. + +"First and last," he answered firmly. + +"A Catholic and a philosopher--together in one?" She shrugged a shoulder +to incite him to argument, for he was interesting when excited; when +spurting out little geysers of other people's cheap wisdom and +philosophy, poured through the kind distortion of his own intelligence. + +He gave a toss of his head. "Ah, that is my hobby--I reconcile, I unite, +I adapt! It is all the nature of the mind, the far-look, the all-round +sight of the man. I have it all. I see." + +He gazed eloquently into the sunset, he swept the horizon with his hand. +"I have the all-round look. I say the Man of Calvary, He is before all, +the sun; but I say Socrates, Plato, Jean Jacques--that is my name, and it +is not for nothing, that--Jean Jacques Rousseau, Descartes, Locke, they +are stars that go round the sun. It is the same light, but not the same +sound. I reconcile. In me all comes together like the spokes to the hub +of a wheel. Me--I am a Christian, I am philosophe, also. In St. +Saviour's, my home in Quebec, if the crops are good, what do men say? +'C'est le bon Dieu--it is the good God,' that is what they say. If the +crops are bad, what do they say? 'It is the good God'--that is what they +say. It is the good God that makes crops good or bad, and it is the good +God that makes men say, 'C'est le bon Dieu.' The good God makes the +philosophy. It is all one." + +She appeared to grow agitated, and her voice shook as she spoke. "Tsh, +it is only a fool that says the good God does it, when the thing that is +done breaks you or that which you love all to pieces. No, no, no, it is +not religion, it is not philosophy that makes one raise the head when the +heart is bowed down, when everything is snatched away that was all in +all. That the good God does it is a lie. Santa Maria, what a lie!" + +"Why 'Santa Maria,' then, if it is a lie?" he asked triumphantly. He +did not observe how her breast was heaving, how her hands were clenched; +for she was really busy with thoughts of her dead Carvillho Gonzales; but +for the moment he could only see the point of an argument. + +She made a gesture of despair. "So--that's it. Habit in us is so +strong. It comes through the veins of our mothers to us. We say that +God is a lie one minute, and then the next minute we say, 'God guard +you!' Always--always calling to something, for something outside +ourselves. That is why I said Santa Maria, why I ask her to pray for the +soul of my friend, to pray to the God that breaks me and mine, and sends +us over the seas, beggars without a home." + +Now she had him back out of the vanities of his philosophy. He was up, +inflamed, looking at her with an excitement on which she depended for her +future. She knew the caution of his nature, she realized how he would +take one step forward and another step back, and maybe get nowhere in the +end, and she wanted him--for a home, for her father's sake, for what he +could do for them both. She had no compunctions. She thought herself +too good for him, in a way, for in her day men of place and mark had +taken notice of her; and if it had not been for her Gonzales she would no +doubt have listened to one of them sometime or another. She knew she had +ability, even though she was indolent, and she thought she could do as +much for him as any other girl. If she gave him a handsome wife and +handsome children, and made men envious of him, and filled him with good +things, for she could cook more than tortillas-she felt he would have no +right to complain. She meant him to marry her--and Quebec was very near! + +"A beggar in a strange land, without a home, without a friend--oh, my +broken life!" she whispered wistfully to the sunset. + +It was not all acting, for the past reached out and swept over her, +throwing waves of its troubles upon the future. She was that saddest +of human beings, a victim of dual forces which so fought for mastery with +each other that, while the struggle went on, the soul had no firm +foothold anywhere. That, indeed, was why her Carvillho Gonzales, who +also had been dual in nature, said to himself so often, "I am a devil," +and nearly as often, "I have the heart of an angel." + +"Tell me all about your life, my friend," Jean Jacques said eagerly. Now +his eyes no longer hurried here and there, but fastened on hers and +stayed thereabouts--ah, her face surely was like pictures he had seen in +the Louvre that day when he had ambled through the aisles of great men's +glories with the feeling that he could not see too much for nothing in an +hour. + +"My life? Ah, m'sieu', has not my father told you of it?" she asked. + +He waved a hand in explanation, he cocked his head quizzically. "Scraps +--like the buttons on a coat here and there--that's all," he answered. +"Born in Andalusia, lived in Cadiz, plenty of money, a beautiful home," +--Carmen's eyes drooped, and her face flushed slightly--"no brothers or +sisters--visits to Madrid on political business--you at school--then the +going of your mother, and you at home at the head of the house. So much +on the young shoulders, the kitchen, the parlour, the market, the shop, +society--and so on. That is the way it was, so he said, except in the +last sad times, when your father, for the sake of Don Carlos and his +rights, near lost his life--ah, I can understand that: to stand by the +thing you have sworn to! France is a republic, but I would give my life +to put a Napoleon or a Bourbon on the throne. It is my hobby to stand by +the old ship, not sign on to a new captain every port." + +She raised her head and looked at him calmly now. The flush had gone +from her face, and a light of determination was in her eyes. To that was +added suddenly a certain tinge of recklessness and abandon in carriage +and manner, as one flings the body loose from the restraints of clothes, +and it expands in a free, careless, defiant joy. + +Jean Jacques' recital of her father's tale had confused her for a moment, +it was so true yet so untrue, so full of lies and yet so solid in fact. +"The head of the house--visits to Madrid on political business--the +parlour, the market, society--all that!" It suggested the picture of the +life of a child of a great house; it made her a lady, and not a superior +servant as she had been; it adorned her with a credit which was not hers; +and for a moment she was ashamed. Yet from the first she had lent +herself to the general imposture that they had fled from Spain for +political reasons, having lost all and suffered greatly; and it was true +while yet it was a lie. She had suffered, both her father and herself +had suffered; she had been in danger, in agony, in sorrow, in despair-- +it was only untrue that they were of good birth and blood, and had had +position and comfort and much money. Well, what harm did that do +anybody? What harm did it do this little brown seigneur from Quebec? +Perhaps he too had made himself out to be more than he was. Perhaps he +was no seigneur at all, she thought. When one is in distant seas and in +danger of his life, one will hoist any flag, sail to any port, pay homage +to any king. So would she. Anyhow, she was as good as this provincial, +with his ancient silver watch, his plump little hands, and his book of +philosophy. + +What did it matter, so all came right in the end! She would justify +herself, if she had the chance. She was sick of conspiracy, and danger, +and chicanery--and blood. She wanted her chance. She had been badly +shaken in the last days in Spain, and she shrank from more worry and +misery. She wanted to have a home and not to wander. And here was a +chance--how good a chance she was not sure; but it was a chance. She +would not hesitate to make it hers. After all, self-preservation was the +thing which mattered. She wanted a bright fire, a good table, a horse, +a cow, and all such simple things. She wanted a roof over her and a warm +bed at night. She wanted a warm bed at night--but a warm bed at night +alone. It was the price she would have to pay for her imposture, that if +she had all these things, she could not be alone in the sleep-time. She +had not thought of this in the days when she looked forward to a home +with her Gonzales. To be near him was everything; but that was all dead +and done for; and now--it was at this point that, shrinking, she suddenly +threw off all restraining thoughts. With abandon of the mind came a +recklessness of body, which gave her, all at once, a voluptuousness more +in keeping with the typical maid of Andalusia. It got into the eyes and +senses of Jean Jacques, in a way which had nothing to do with the +philosophy of Descartes, or Kant, or Aristotle, or Hegel. + +"It was beautiful in much--my childhood," she said in a low voice, +dropping her eyes before his ardent gaze, "as my father said. My mother +was lovely to see, but not bigger than I was at twelve--so petite, and +yet so perfect in form--like a lark or a canary. Yes, and she could +sing--anything. Not like me with a voice which has the note of a drum or +an organ--" + +"Of a flute, bright Senorita," interposed Jean Jacques. + +"But high, and with the trills in the skies, and all like a laugh with a +tear in it. When she went to the river to wash--" + +She was going to say "wash the clothes," but she stopped in time and said +instead, "wash her spaniel and her pony"--her face was flushed again with +shame, for to lie about one's mother is a sickening thing, and her mother +never had a spaniel or a pony--" the women on the shore wringing their +clothes, used to beg her to sing. To the hum of the river she would make +the music which they loved--" + +"La Manola and such?" interjected Jean Jacques eagerly. "That's a fine +song as you sing it." + +"Not La Manola, but others of a different sort--The Love of Isabella, The +Flight of Bobadil, Saragosse, My Little Banderillero, and so on, and all +so sweet that the women used to cry. Always, always she was singing till +the time when my father became a rebel. Then she used to cry too; and +she would sing no more; and when my father was put against a wall to be +shot, and fell in the dust when the rifles rang out, she came at the +moment, and seeing him lying there, she threw up her hands, and fell down +beside him dead--" + +"The poor little senora, dead too--" + +"Not dead too--that was the pity of it. You see my father was not dead. +The officer"--she did not say sergeant--"who commanded the firing squad, +he was what is called a compadre of my father--" + +"Yes, I understand--a made-brother, sealed with an oath, which binds +closer than a blood-brother. It is that, is it not?" + +"So--like that. Well, the compadre had put blank cartridges in their +rifles, and my father pretended to fall dead; and the soldiers were +marched away; and my father, with my mother, was carried to his home, +still pretending to be dead. It had been all arranged except the awful +thing, my mother's death. Who could foresee that? She ought to have +been told; but who could guess that she would hear of it all, and come +at the moment like that? So, that was the way she went, and I was left +alone with my father." She had told the truth in all, except in +conveying that her mother was not of the lower orders, and that she went +to the river to wash her spaniel and her pony instead of her clothes. + +"Your father--did they not arrest him again? Did they not know?" + +She shrugged her shoulders. That is not the way in Spain. He was shot, +as the orders were, with his back to the wall by a squad of soldiers with +regulation bullets. If he chose to come to life again, that was his own +affair. The Government would take no notice of him after he was dead. +He could bury himself, or he could come alive--it was all the same to +them. So he came alive again." + +"That is a story which would make a man's name if he wrote it down," +said Jean Jacques eloquently. "And the poor little senora, but my heart +bleeds for her! To go like that in such pain, and not to know--If she +had been my wife I think I would have gone after her to tell her it was +all right, and to be with her--" + +He paused confused, for that seemed like a reflection on her father's +chivalry, and for a man who had risked his life for his banished king-- +what would he have thought if he had been told that Sebastian Dolores was +an anarchist who loathed kings!--it was an insult to suggest that he did +not know the right thing to do, or, knowing, had not done it. + +She saw the weakness of his case at once. "There was his duty to the +living," she said indignantly. + +"Ah, forgive me--what a fool I am!" Jean Jacques said repentantly at +once. "There was his little girl, his beloved child, his Carmen Dolores, +so beautiful, with the voice like a flute, and--" + +He drew nearer to her, his hand was outstretched to take hers; his eyes +were full of the passion of the moment; pity was drowning all caution, +all the Norman shrewdness in him, when the Antoine suddenly stopped +almost dead with a sudden jolt and shock, then plunged sideways, jerked, +and trembled. + +"We've struck a sunk iceberg--the rest of the story to-morrow, Senorita," +he cried, as they both sprang to their feet. + +"The rest of the story to-morrow," she repeated, angry at the stroke of +fate which had so interrupted the course of her fortune. She said it +with a voice also charged with fear; for she was by nature a landfarer, +not a sea-farer, though on the rivers of Spain she had lived almost as +much as on land, and she was a good swimmer. + +"The rest to-morrow," she repeated, controlling herself. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +"TO-MORROW" + +The rest came to-morrow. When the Antoine struck the sunken iceberg she +was not more than one hundred and twenty miles from the coast of Gaspe. +She had not struck it full on, or she would have crumpled up, but had +struck and glanced, mounting the berg, and sliding away with a small +gaping wound in her side, broken internally where she had been weakest. +Her condition was one of extreme danger, and the captain was by no means +sure that he could make the land. If a storm or a heavy sea came on, +they were doomed. + +As it was, with all hands at the pumps the water gained on her, and she +moaned and creaked and ached her way into the night with no surety that +she would show a funnel to the light of another day. Passengers and crew +alike worked, and the few boats were got ready to lower away when the +worst should come to the worst. Below, with the crew, the little +moneymaster of St. Saviour's worked with an energy which had behind it +some generations of hardy qualities; and all the time he refused to be +downcast. There was something in his nature or in his philosophy after +all. He had not much of a voice, but it was lusty and full of good +feeling; and when cursing began, when a sailor even dared to curse his +baptism--the crime of crimes to a Catholic mind--Jean Jacques began to +sing a cheery song with which the habitants make vocal their labours or +their playtimes: + + "A Saint-Malo, beau port de mer, + Trois gros navir's sont arrives, + Trois gros navir's sont arrives + Charges d'avoin', charges de ble. + Charges d'avoin', charges de ble: + Trois dam's s'en vont les marchander." + +And so on through many verses, with a heartiness that was a good antidote +to melancholy, even though it was no specific for a shipwreck. It played +its part, however; and when Jean Jacques finished it, he plunged into +that other outburst of the habitant's gay spirits, 'Bal chez Boule': + + "Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule, + The vespers o'er, we'll away to that; + With our hearts so light, and our feet so gay, + We'll dance to the tune of 'The Cardinal's Hat' + The better the deed, the better the day + Bal chez Boule, bal chez Boule!" + +And while Jean Jacques worked "like a little French pony," as they say in +Canada of every man with the courage to do hard things in him, he did not +stop to think that the scanty life-belts had all been taken, and that he +was a very poor swimmer indeed: for, as a child, he had been subject to +cramp, and so had made the Beau Cheval River less his friend than would +have been useful now. + +He realized it, however, soon after daybreak, when, within a few hundred +yards of the shores of Gaspe, to which the good Basque captain had been +slowly driving the Antoine all night, there came the cry, "All +hands on deck!" and "Lower the boats!" for the Antoine's time had come, +and within a hand-reach of shore almost she found the end of her rickety +life. Not more than three-fourths of the passengers and crew were got +into the boats. Jean Jacques was not one of these; but he saw Carmen +Dolores and her father safely bestowed, though in different boats. To +the girl's appeal to him to come he gave a nod of assent, and said he +would get in at the last moment; but this he did not do, pushing into the +boat instead a crying lad of fifteen, who said he was afraid to die. + +So it was that Jean Jacques took to the water side by side with the +Basque captain, when the Antoine groaned and shook, and then grew still, +and presently, with some dignity, dipped her nose into the shallow sea +and went down. + +"The rest of the story to-morrow," Jean Jacques had said when the vessel +struck the iceberg the night before; and so it was. + +The boat in which Carmen had been placed was swamped not far from shore, +but she managed to lay hold of a piece of drifting wreckage, and began to +fight steadily and easily landward. Presently she was aware, however, of +a man struggling hard some little distance away to the left of her, and +from the tousled hair shaking in the water she was sure that it was Jean +Jacques. + +So it proved to be; and thus it was that, at his last gasp almost, when +he felt he could keep up no longer, the wooden seat to which Carmen clung +came to his hand, and a word of cheer from her drew his head up with what +was almost a laugh. + +"To think of this!" he said presently when he was safe, with her +swimming beside him without support, for the wooden seat would not +sustain the weight of two. "To think that it is you who saves me!" he +again declared eloquently, as they made the shore in comparative ease, +for she was a fine swimmer. + +"It is the rest of the story," he said with great cheerfulness and aplomb +as they stood on the shore in the morning sun, shoeless, coatless, but +safe: and she understood. + +There was nothing else for him to do. The usual process of romance had +been reversed. He had not saved her life, she had saved his. The least +that he could do was to give her shelter at the Manor Cartier yonder at +St. Saviour's, her and, if need be, her father. Human gratitude must +have play. It was so strong in this case that it alone could have +overcome the Norman caution of Jean Jacques, and all his worldly wisdom +(so much in his own eyes). Added thereto was the thing which had been +greatly stirred in him at the instant the Antoine struck; and now he kept +picturing Carmen in the big living-room and the big bedroom of the house +by the mill, where was the comfortable four-poster which had come from +the mansion of the last Baron of Beaugard down by St. Laurent. + +Three days after the shipwreck of the Antoine, and as soon as sufficient +finery could be got in Quebec, it was accomplished, the fate of Jean +Jacques. How proud he was to open his cheque-book before the young +Spanish maid, and write in cramped, characteristic hand a cheque for a +hundred dollars or so at a time! A moiety of this money was given to +Sebastian Dolores, who could scarcely believe his good fortune. A +situation was got for him by the help of a good abbe at Quebec, who was +touched by the tale of the wreck of the Antoine, and by the no less +wonderful tale of the refugees of Spain, who naturally belonged to the +true faith which "feared God and honoured the King." Sebastian Dolores +was grateful for the post offered him, though he would rather have gone +to St. Saviour's with his daughter, for he had lost the gift of work, and +he desired peace after war. In other words, he had that fatal trait of +those who strive to make the world better by talk and violence, the vice +of indolence. + +But when Jean Jacques and his handsome bride started for St. Saviour's, +the new father-in-law did not despair of following soon. He would +greatly have enjoyed the festivities which, after all, did follow the +home-coming of Jean Jacques Barbille and his Spanische; for while they +lacked enthusiasm because Carmen was a foreigner, the romance of the +story gave the whole proceedings a spirit and interest which spread into +adjoining parishes: so that people came to mass from forty miles away to +see the pair who had been saved from the sea. + +And when the Quebec newspapers found their way into the parish, with a +thrilling account of the last hours of the Antoine; and of Jean Jacques' +chivalrous act in refusing to enter a boat to save himself, though he was +such a bad swimmer and was in danger of cramp; and how he sang Bal chez +Boule while the men worked at the pumps; they permitted the apres noces +of M'sieu' and Madame Jean Jacques Barbille to be as brilliant as could +be, with the help of lively improvisation. Even speech-making occurred +again in an address of welcome some days later. This was followed by a +feast of Spanish cakes and meats made by the hands of Carmen Dolores, +"the lady saved from the sea"--as they called her; not knowing that she +had saved herself, and saved Jean Jacques as well. It was not quite to +Jean Jacques' credit that he did not set this error right, and tell the +world the whole exact truth. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Air of certainty and universal comprehension +Always calling to something, for something outside ourselves +Came of a race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers +Grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter +Grow more intense, more convinced, more thorough, as they talk +He admired, yet he wished to be admired +Inclined to resent his own insignificance +Lyrical in his enthusiasms +No man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced +Of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with self-creation +Spurting out little geysers of other people's cheap wisdom +Untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life + + + + + + +THE MONEY MASTER + +By Gilbert Parker + + + +EPOCH THE SECOND + +IV. THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A STORY +V. THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY +VI. JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY +VII. JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP +VIII. THE GATE IN THE WALL +IX. "MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE" +X. "QUIEN SABE"--WHO KNOWS! +XI. THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE +XII. THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THIRTEEN YEARS AFTER AND THE CLERK OF THE COURT TELLS A STORY + +It was hard to say which was the more important person in the parish, the +New Cure or M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille. When the Old Cure was alive +Jean Jacques was a lesser light, and he accepted his degree of +illumination with content. But when Pere Langon was gathered to his +fathers, and thousands had turned away from the graveyard, where he who +had baptised them, confirmed them, blessed them, comforted them, and +firmly led them was laid to rest, they did not turn at once to his +successor with confidence and affection. The new cure, M. Savry, was +young; the Old Cure had lived to be eighty-five, bearing wherever he went +a lamp of wisdom at which the people lighted their small souls. The New +Cure could command their obedience, but he could not command their love +and confidence until he had earned them. + +So it was that, for a time, Jean Jacques took the place of the Old Cure +in the human side of the life of the district, though in a vastly lesser +degree. Up to the death of M. Langon, Jean Jacques had done very well +in life, as things go in out-of-the-way places of the world. His mill, +which ground good flour, brought him increasing pence; his saw-mill more +than paid its way; his farms made a small profit, in spite of a cousin +who worked one on halves, but who had a spendthrift wife; the ash-factory +which his own initiative had started made no money, but the loss was only +small; and he had even made profit out of his lime-kilns, although +Sebastian Dolores, Carmen's father, had at one time mismanaged them--but +of that anon. Jean Jacques himself managed the business of money-lending +and horse-dealing; and he also was agent for fire insurance and a dealer +in lightning rods. + +In the thirteen years since he married he had been able to keep a good +many irons in the fire, and also keep them more or less hot. Many people +in his and neighbouring parishes were indebted to him, and it was worth +their while to stand well with him. If he insisted on debts being paid, +he was never exacting or cruel. If he lent money, he never demanded more +than eight per cent.; and he never pressed his debtors unduly. His +cheerfulness seldom deserted him, and he was notably kind to the poor. +Not seldom in the winter time a poor man, here and there in the parish, +would find dumped down outside his door in the early morning a half-cord +of wood or a bag of flour. + +It could not be said that Jean Jacques did not enjoy his own generosity. +His vanity, however, did not come from an increasing admiration of his +own personal appearance, a weakness which often belongs to middle age; +but from the study of his so-called philosophy, which in time became an +obsession with him. In vain the occasional college professors, who spent +summer months at St. Saviour's, sought to interest him in science and +history, for his philosophy had large areas of boredom; but science +marched over too jagged a road for his tender intellectual feet; the +wild places where it led dismayed him. History also meant numberless +dates and facts. Perhaps he could have managed the dates, for he was +quick at figures, but the facts were like bees in their hive,--he could +scarcely tell one from another by looking at them. + +So it was that Jean Jacques kept turning his eyes, as he thought, to the +everlasting meaning of things, to "the laws of Life and the decrees of +Destiny." He was one of those who had found, as he thought, what he +could do, and was sensible enough to do it. Let the poor fellows, who +gave themselves to science, trouble their twisted minds with trigonometry +and the formula of some grotesque chemical combination; let the dull +people rub their noses in the ink of Greek and Latin, which was no use +for everyday consumption; let the heads of historians ache with the +warring facts of the lives of nations; it all made for sleep. But +philosophy--ah, there was a field where a man could always use knowledge +got from books or sorted out of his own experiences! + +It happened, therefore, that Jean Jacques, who not too vaguely realized +that there was reputation to be got from being thought a philosopher, +always carried about with him his little compendium from the quay at +Quebec, which he had brought ashore inside his redflannel shirt, with the +antique silver watch, when the Antoine went down. + +Thus also it was that when a lawyer in court at Vilray, four miles from +St. Saviour's, asked him one day, when he stepped into the witness-box, +what he was, meaning what was his occupation, his reply was, "Moi-je suis +M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe--(Me--I am M'sieu' Jean Jacques, +philosopher)." + +A little later outside the court-house, the Judge who had tried the case +--M. Carcasson--said to the Clerk of the Court: + +"A curious, interesting little man, that Monsieur Jean Jacques. What's +his history?" + +"A character, a character, monsieur le juge," was the reply of M. Amand +Fille. "His family has been here since Frontenac's time. He is a figure +in the district, with a hand in everything. He does enough foolish +things to ruin any man, yet swims along--swims along. He has many kinds +of business--mills, stores, farms, lime-kilns, and all that, and keeps +them all going; and as if he hadn't enough to do, and wasn't risking +enough, he's now organizing a cheese-factory on the co-operative +principle, as in Upper Canada among the English." + +"He has a touch of originality, that's sure," was the reply of the Judge. + +The Clerk of the Court nodded and sighed. "Monseigneur Giron of Laval, +the greatest scholar in Quebec, he said to me once that M'sieu' Jean +Jacques missed being a genius by an inch. But, monsieur le juge, not to +have that inch is worse than to be an ignoramus." + +Judge Carcasson nodded. "Ah, surely! Your Jean Jacques lacks a balance- +wheel. He has brains, but not enough. He has vision, but it is not +steady; he has argument, but it breaks down just where it should be most +cohesive. He interested me. I took note of every turn of his mind as he +gave evidence. He will go on for a time, pulling his strings, doing this +and doing that, and then, all at once, when he has got a train of +complications, his brain will not be big enough to see the way out. Tell +me, has he a balance-wheel in his home--a sensible wife, perhaps?" + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully and seemed to hesitate. +Then he said, "Comme ci, comme ca--but no, I will speak the truth about +it. She is a Spaniard--the Spanische she is called by the neighbours. +I will tell you all about that, and you will wonder that he has carried +on as well as he has, with his vanity and his philosophy." + +"He'll have need of his philosophy before he's done, or I don't know +human nature; he'll get a bad fall one of these days," responded the +Judge. "'Moi-je suis M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe'--that is what he +said. Bumptious little man, and yet--and yet there's something in him. +There's a sense of things which everyone doesn't have--a glimmer of life +beyond his own orbit, a catching at the biggest elements of being, +a hovering on the confines of deep understanding, as it were. Somehow +I feel almost sorry for him, though he annoyed me while he was in the +witness-box, in spite of myself. He was as the English say, so 'damn +sure.'" + +"So damn sure always," agreed the Clerk of the Court, with a sense of +pleasure that his great man, this wonderful aged little judge, should +have shown himself so human as to use such a phrase. + +"But, no doubt, the sureness has been a good servant in his business," +returned the Judge. "Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit +often. But tell me about his wife--the Spanische. Tell me the how and +why, and everything. I'd like to trace our little money-man wise to his +source." + +Again M. Fille was sensibly agitated. "She is handsome, and she has +great, good gifts when she likes to use them," he answered. "She can do +as much in an hour as most women can do in two; but then she will not +keep at it. Her life is but fits and starts. Yet she has a good head +for business, yes, very good. She can see through things. Still, there +it is--she will not hold fast from day to day." + +"Yes, yes, but where did she come from? What was the field where she +grew?" + +"To be sure, monsieur. It was like this," responded the other. + +Thereupon M. Fille proceeded to tell the history, musical with legend, +of Jean Jacques' Grand Tour, of the wreck of the Antoine, of the marriage +of the "seigneur," the home-coming, and the life that followed, so far as +rumour, observation, and a mind with a gift for narrative, which was not +to be incomplete for lack of imagination, could make it. It was only +when he offered his own reflections on Carmen Dolores, now Carmen +Barbille, and on women generally, that Judge Carcasson pulled him up. + +"So, so, I see. She has temperament and so on, but she's unsteady, +and regarded by her neighbours not quite as one that belongs. Bah, +the conceit of every race! They are all the same. The English are the +worst--as though the good God was English. But the child--so beautiful, +you say, and yet more like the father than the mother. He is not +handsome, that Jean Jacques, but I can understand that the little one +should be like him and yet beautiful too. I should like to see the +child." + +Suddenly the Clerk of the Court stopped and touched the arm of his +distinguished friend and patron. "That is very easy, monsieur," +he said eagerly, "for there she is in the red wagon yonder, waiting for +her father. She adores him, and that makes trouble sometimes. Then the +mother gets fits, and makes things hard at the Manor Cartier. It is not +all a bed of roses for our Jean Jacques. But there it is. He is very +busy all the time. Something doing always, never still, except when you +will find him by the road-side, or in a tavern with all the people round +him, talking, jesting, and he himself going into a trance with his book +of philosophy. It is very strange that everlasting going, going, going, +and yet that love of his book. I sometimes think it is all pretence, and +that he is all vanity--or almost so. Heaven forgive me for my want of +charity!" + +The little round judge cocked his head astutely. "But you say he is kind +to the poor, that he does not treat men hardly who are in debt to him, +and that he will take his coat off his back to give to a tramp--is it +so?" + +"As so, as so, monsieur." + +"Then he is not all vanity, and because of that he will feel the blow +when it comes--alas, so much he will feel it!" + +"What blow, monsieur le juge?--but ah, look, monsieur!" He pointed +eagerly. "There she is, going to the red wagon--Madame Jean Jacques. +Is she not a figure of a woman? See the walk of her--is it not +distinguished? She is half a hand-breadth taller than Jean Jacques. And +her face, most sure it is a face to see. If Jean Jacques was not so busy +with his farms and his mills and his kilns and his usury, he would see +what a woman he has got. It is his good fortune that she has such sense +in business. When Jean Jacques listens to her, he goes right. She +herself did not want her father to manage the lime-kilns--the old +Sebastian Dolores. She was for him staying at Mirimachi, where he kept +the books of the lumber firm. But no, Jean Jacques said that he could +make her happy by having her father near her, and he would not believe +she meant what she said. He does not understand her; that is the +trouble. He knows as much of women or men as I know of--" + +"Of the law--hein?" laughed the great man. + +"Monsieur--ah, that is your little joke! I laugh, yes, but I laugh," +responded the Clerk of the Court a little uncertainly. "Now once when +she told him that the lime-kilns--" + +The Judge, who had retraced his steps down the street of the town--it was +little more than a large village, but because it had a court-house and a +marketplace it was called a town--that he might have a good look at +Madame Jean Jacques and her child before he passed them, suddenly said: + +"How is it you know so much about it all, Maitre Fille--as to what she +says and of the inner secrets of the household? Ah, ha, my little +Lothario, I have caught you--a bachelor too, with time on his hands, +and the right side of seventy as well! The evidence you have given of a +close knowledge of the household of our Jean Jacques does not have its +basis in hearsay, but in acute personal observation. Tut-tut! Fie-fie! +my little gay Clerk of the Court. Fie! Fie!" + +M. Fille was greatly disconcerted. He had never been a Lothario. +In forty years he had never had an episode with one of "the other sex," +but it was not because he was impervious to the softer emotions. An +intolerable shyness had ever possessed him when in the presence of women, +and even small girl children had frightened him, till he had made friends +with little Zoe Barbille, the daughter of Jean Jacques. Yet even with +Zoe, who was so simple and companionable and the very soul of childish +confidence, he used to blush and falter till she made him talk. Then he +became composed, and his tongue was like a running stream, and on that +stream any craft could sail. On it he became at ease with madame the +Spanische, and he even went so far as to look her full in the eyes on +more than one occasion. + +"Answer me--ah, you cannot answer!" teasingly added the Judge, who loved +his Clerk of the Court, and had great amusement out of his discomfiture. +"You are convicted. At an age when a man should be settling down, you +are gallivanting with the wife of a philosopher." + +"Monsieur--monsieur le juge!" protested M. Fille with slowly heightening +colour. "I am innocent, yes, altogether. There is nothing, believe me. +It is the child, the little Zoe--but a maid of charm and kindness. She +brings me cakes and the toffy made by her own hands; and if I go to the +Manor Cartier, as I often do, it is to be polite and neighbourly. If +Madame says things to me, and if I see what I see, and hear what I hear, +it is no crime; it is no misdemeanour; it is within the law--the perfect +law." + +Suddenly the Judge linked his arm within that of the other, for he also +was little, and he was fat and round and ruddy, and even smaller than M. +Fille, who was thin, angular and pale. + +"Ah, my little Confucius," he said gently, "have you seen and heard me so +seldom that you do not know me yet, or what I really think? Of course it +is within the law--the perfect law--to visit at m'sieu' the philosopher's +house and talk at length also to m'sieu' the philosopher's wife; while to +make the position regular by friendship with the philosopher's child is a +wisdom which I can only ascribe to"--his voice was charged with humour +and malicious badinage "to an extended acquaintance with the devices of +human nature, as seen in those episodes of the courts with which you have +been long familiar." + +"Oh, monsieur, dear monsieur!" protested the Clerk of the Court, "you +always make me your butt." + +"My friend," said the Judge, squeezing his arm, "if I could have you no +other way, I would make you my butler!" + +Then they both laughed at the inexpensive joke, and the Clerk of the +Court was in high spirits, for on either side of the street were people +with whom he lived every day, and they could see the doyen of the Bench, +the great Judge Carcasson, who had refused to be knighted, arm in arm +with him. Aye, and better than all, and more than all, here was Zoe +Barbille drawing her mother's attention to him almost in the embrace of +the magnificent jurist. + +The Judge, with his small, round, quizzical eyes which missed nothing, +saw too; and his attention was strangely arrested by the faces of both +the mother and the child. His first glance at the woman's face made him +flash an inward light on the memory of Jean Jacques' face in the witness- +box, and a look of reflective irony came into his own. The face of +Carmen Dolores, wife of the philosophic miller and money-master, did not +belong to the world where she was placed--not because she was so unlike +the habitant women, or even the wives of the big farmers, or the sister +of the Cure, or the ladies of the military and commercial exiles who +lived in that portion of the province; but because of an alien something +in her look--a lonely, distant sense of isolation, a something which +might hide a companionship and sympathy of a rare kind, or might be but +the mask of a furtive, soulless nature. In the child's face was nothing +of this. It was open as the day, bright with the cheerfulness of her +father's countenance, alive with a humour which that countenance did not +possess. The contour was like that of Jean Jacques, but with a fineness +and delicacy to its fulness absent from his own; and her eyes were a deep +and lustrous brown, under a forehead which had a boldness of gentle +dignity possessed by neither father nor mother. Her hair was thick, +brown and very full, like that of her father, and in all respects, save +one, she had an advantage over both her parents. Her mouth had a +sweetness which might not unfairly be called weakness, though that was +balanced by a chin of commendable strength. + +But the Judge's eyes found at once this vulnerable point in her character +as he had found that of her mother. Delightful the child was, and alert +and companionable, with no remarkable gifts, but with a rare charm and +sympathy. Her face was the mirror of her mind, and it had no ulterior +thought. Her mother's face, the Judge had noted, was the foreground of a +landscape which had lonely shadows. It was a face of some distinction +and suited to surroundings more notable, though the rural life Carmen had +led since the Antoine went down and her fortunes came up, had coarsened +her beauty a very little. + +"There's something stirring in the coverts," said the Judge to himself as +he was introduced to the mother and child. By a hasty gesture Zoe gave a +command to M. Fille to help her down. With a hand on his shoulder she +dropped to the ground. Her object was at once apparent. She made a +pretty old-fashioned curtsey to the Judge, then held out her hand, as +though to reassert her democratic equality. + +As the Judge looked at Madame Barbille, he was involuntarily, but none +the less industriously, noting her characteristics; and the sum of his +reflections, after a few moments' talk, was that dangers he had seen +ahead of Jean Jacques, would not be averted by his wife, indeed might +easily have their origin in her. + +"I wonder it has gone on as long as it has," he said to himself; though +it seemed unreasonable that his few moments with her, and the story told +him by the Clerk of the Court, should enable him to come to any definite +conclusion. But at eighty-odd Judge Carcasson was a Solon and a Solomon +in one. He had seen life from all angles, and he was not prepared to +give any virtue or the possession of any virtue too much rope; while +nothing in life surprised him. + +"How would you like to be a judge?" he asked of Zoe, suddenly taking her +hand in his. A kinship had been at once established between them, so +little has age, position, and intellect to do with the natural +gravitations of human nature. + +She did not answer direct, and that pleased him. "If I were a judge I +should have no jails," she said. "What would you do with the bad +people?" he asked. + +"I would put them alone on a desert island, or out at sea in a little +boat, or out on the prairies without a horse, so that they'd have to work +for their lives." + +"Oh, I see! If M. Fille here set fire to a house, you would drop him on +the prairie far away from everything and everybody and let him 'root hog +or die'?" + +"Don't you think it would kill him or cure him?" she asked whimsically. + +The Judge laughed, his eyes twinkling. "That's what they did when the +world was young, dear ma'm'selle. There was no time to build jails. +Alone on the prairie--a separate prairie for every criminal--that would +take a lot of space; but the idea is all right. It mightn't provide the +proper degree of punishment, however. But that is being too particular. +Alone on the prairie for punishment--well, I should like to see it +tried." + +He remembered that saying of his long after, while yet he was alive, +and a tale came to him from the prairies which made his eyes turn +more intently towards a land that is far off, where the miserable +miscalculations and mistakes of this world are readjusted. Now he was +only conscious of a primitive imagination looking out of a young girl's +face, and making a bridge between her understanding and his own. + +"What else would you do if you were a judge?" he asked presently. + +"I would make my father be a miller," she replied. "But he is a miller, +I hear." + +"But he is so many other things--so many. If he was only a miller we +should have more of him. He is at home only a little. If I get up early +enough in the morning, or if I am let stay up at night late enough, I see +him; but that is not enough--is it, mother?" she added with a sudden +sense that she had gone too far, that she ought not to say this perhaps. + +The woman's face had darkened for an instant, and irritation showed in +her eyes, but by an effort of the will she controlled herself. + +"Your father knows best what he can do and can't do," she said evenly. + +"But you would not let a man judge for himself, would you, ma'm'selle?" +asked the old inquisitor. "You would judge for the man what was best for +him to do?" + +"I would judge for my father," she replied. "He is too good a man to +judge for himself." + +"Well, there's a lot of sense in that, ma'm'selle philosophe," answered +Judge Carcasson. "You would make the good idle, and make the bad work. +The good you would put in a mill to watch the stones grind, and the bad +you would put on a prairie alone to make the grist for the grinding. +Ma'm'selle, we must be friends--is it not so?" + +"Haven't we always been friends?" the young girl asked with the look of +a visionary suddenly springing up in her eyes. + +Here was temperament indeed. She pleased Judge Carcasson greatly. "But +yes, always, and always, and always," he replied. Inwardly he said to +himself, "I did not see that at first. It is her father in her. + +"Zoe!" said her mother reprovingly. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE CLERK OF THE COURT ENDS HIS STORY + +A moment afterwards the Judge, as he walked down the street still arm in +arm with the Clerk of the Court, said: "That child must have good luck, +or she will not have her share of happiness. She has depths that are not +deep enough." Presently he added, "Tell me, my Clerk, the man--Jean +Jacques--he is so much away--has there never been any talk about--about." + +"About--monsieur le juge?" asked M. Fille rather stiffly. "For instance +--about what?" + +"For instance, about a man--not Jean Jacques." + +The lips of the Clerk of the Court tightened. "Never at any time--till +now, monsieur le juge." + +"Ah--till now!" + +The Clerk of the Court blushed. What he was about to say was difficult, +but he alone of all the world guessed at the tragedy which was hovering +over Jean Jacques' home. By chance he had seen something on an afternoon +of three days before, and he had fled from it as a child would fly from a +demon. He was a purist at law, but he was a purist in life also, and not +because the flush of youth had gone and his feet were on the path which +leads into the autumn of a man's days. The thing he had seen had been +terribly on his mind, and he had felt that his own judgment was not +sufficient for the situation, that he ought to tell someone. + +The Cure was the only person who had come to his mind when he became +troubled to the point of actual mental agony. But the new curb, +M. Savry, was not like the Old Cure, and, besides, was it not stepping +between the woman and her confessional? Yet he felt that something ought +to be done. It never occurred to him to speak to Jean Jacques. That +would have seemed so brutal to the woman. It came to him to speak to +Carmen, but he knew that he dared not do so. He could not say to a +woman that which must shame her before him, she who had kept her head +so arrogantly high--not so much to him, however, as to the rest of the +world. He had not the courage; and yet he had fear lest some awful thing +would at any moment now befall the Manor Cartier. If it did, he would +feel himself to blame had he done nothing to stay the peril. So far he +was the only person who could do so, for he was the only person who knew! + +The Judge could feel his friend's arm tremble with emotion, and he said: +"Come, now, my Plato, what is it? A man has come to disturb the peace of +Jean Jacques, our philosophe, eh?" + +"That is it, monsieur--a man of a kind." + +"Oh, of course, my bambino, of course, a man 'of a kind,' or there would +be no peace disturbed. You want to tell me, I see. Proceed then; there +is no reason why you should not. I am secret. I have seen much. I have +no prejudices. As you will, however; but I can see it would relieve your +mind to tell me. In truth I felt there was something when I saw you look +at her first, when you spoke to her, when she talked with me. She is a +fine figure of a woman, and Jean Jacques, as you say, is much away from +home. In fact he neglects her--is it not so?" + +"He means it not, but it is so. His life is full of--" + +"Yes, yes, of stores and ash-factories and debtors and lightning-rods and +lime-kilns, and mortgaged farms, and the price of wheat--but certainly, +I understand it all, my Fille. She is too much alone, and if she has +travelled by the compass all these thirteen years without losing the +track, it is something to the credit of human nature." + +"Ah, monsieur, a vow before the good God--!" The Judge interrupted +sharply. "Tut, tut--these vows! Do you not know that a vow may be a +thing that ruins past redemption? A vow is sacred. Well, a poor mortal +in one moment of weakness breaks it. Then there is a sense of awful +shame of being lost, of never being able to put right the breaking of the +vow, though the rest can be put right by sorrow and repentance! I would +have no vows. They haunt like ghosts when they are broken, they torture +like fire then. Don't talk to me of vows. It is not vows that keep the +world right, but the prayer of a man's soul from day to day." + +The Judge's words sounded almost blasphemous to M. Fille. A vow not +keep the world right! Then why the vows of the Church at baptism, +at confirmation, at marriage? Why the vows of the priests, of the nuns, +of those who had given themselves to eternal service? Monsieur had +spoken terrible things. And yet he had said at the last: "It is not vows +that keep the world right, but the prayer of a man's soul from day to +day." That was not heretical, or atheistic, or blasphemous. It sounded +logical and true and good. + +He was about to say that, to some people, vows were the only way of +keeping them to their duty--and especially women--but the Judge added +gently: "I would not for the world hurt your sensibilities, my little +Clerk, and we are not nearly so far apart as you think at the minute. +Thank God, I keep the faith that is behind all faith--the speech of a +man's soul with God. . . . But there, if you can, let us hear what +man it is who disturbs the home of the philosopher. It is not my Fille, +that's sure." + +He could not resist teasing, this judge who had a mind of the most rare +uprightness; and he was not always sorry when his teasing hurt; for, to +his mind, men should be lashed into strength, when they drooped over the +tasks of life; and what so sharp a lash as ridicule or satire! + +"Proceed, my friend," he urged brusquely, not waiting for the gasp of +pained surprise of the little Clerk to end. He was glad to see the +figure beside him presently straighten itself, as though to be braced for +a task of difficulty. Indignation and resentment were good things to +stiffen a man's back. + +"It was three days ago," said M. Fille. "I saw it with my own eyes. +I had come to the Manor Cartier by the road, down the hill--Mont Violet-- +behind the house. I could see into the windows of the house. There was +no reason why I should not see--there never has been a reason," he added, +as though to justify himself. + +"Of course, of course, my friend. One's eyes are open, and one sees what +one sees, without looking for it. Proceed." + +"As I looked down I saw Madame with a man's arms round her, and his lips +to hers. It was not Jean Jacques." + +"Of course, of course. Proceed. What did you do?" + +"I stopped. I fell back--" + +"Of course. Behind a tree?" + +"Behind some elderberry bushes." + +"Of course. Elderberry bushes--that's better than a tree. I am very +fond of elderberry wine when it is new. Proceed." + +The Clerk of the Court shrank. What did it matter whether or no the +Judge liked elderberry wine, when the world was falling down for Jean +Jacques and his Zoe--and his wife. But with a sigh he continued: "There +is nothing more. I stayed there for awhile, and then crept up the hill +again, and came back to my home and locked myself in." + +"What had you done that you should lock yourself in?" + +"Ah, monsieur, how can I explain such things? Perhaps I was ashamed that +I had seen things I should not have seen. I do not blush that I wept for +the child, who is--but you saw her, monsieur le juge." + +"Yes, yes, the little Zoe, and the little philosopher. Proceed." + +"What more is there to tell!" + +"A trifle perhaps, as you will think," remarked the Judge ironically, but +as one who, finding a crime, must needs find the criminal too. "I must +ask you to inform the Court who was the too polite friend of Madame." + +"Monsieur, pardon me. I forgot. It is essential, of course. You must +know that there is a flume, a great wooden channel--" + +"Yes, yes. I comprehend. Once I had a case of a flume. It was fifteen +feet deep and it let in the water of the river to the mill-wheels. A +flume regulates, concentrates, and controls the water power. I +comprehend perfectly. Well?" + +"So. This flume for Jean Jacques' mill was also fifteen feet deep or +more. It was out of repair, and Jean Jacques called in a master- +carpenter from Laplatte, Masson by name--George Masson--to put the flume +right." + +"How long ago was that?" + +"A month ago. But Masson was not here all the time. It was his workmen +who did the repairs, but he came over to see--to superintend. At first +he came twice in the week. Then he came every day." + +"Ah, then he came every day! How do you know that?" + +"It was my custom to walk to the mill every day--to watch the work on the +flume. It was only four miles away across the fields and through the +woods, making a walk of much charm--especially in the autumn, when the +colours of the foliage are so fine, and the air has a touch of +pensiveness, so that one is induced to reflection." + +There was the slightest tinge of impatience in the Judge's response. +"Yes, yes, I understand. You walked to study life and to reflect and to +enjoy your intimacy with nature, but also to see our friend Zoe and her +home. And I do not wonder. She has a charm which makes me sad-- +for her." + +"So I have felt, so I have felt for her, monsieur. When she is gayest, +and when, as it might seem, I am quite happy, talking to her, or +picnicking, or idling on the river, or helping her with her lessons, +I have sadness, I know not why." + +The Judge pressed his friend's arm firmly. His voice grew more +insistent. "Now, Maitre Fille, I think I understand the story, but there +are lacunee which you must fill. You say the thing happened three days +ago--now, when will the work be finished?" + +"The work will be finished to-morrow, monsieur. Only one workman is +left, and he will be quit of his task to-night." + +"So the thing--the comedy or tragedy will come to an end to-morrow?" +remarked the Judge seriously. "How did you find out that the workmen +go tomorrow, maitre?" + +"Jean Jacques--he told me yesterday." + +"Then it all ends to-morrow," responded the Judge. + +The puzzled subordinate stood almost still, and looked at the Judge in +wonder. Why should it all end to-morrow simply because the work was +finished at the flume? At last he spoke. + +"It is only twelve miles to Laplatte where George Masson lives, and he +has, besides, another contract near here, but three miles from the Manor +Cartier. Also besides, how can we know what she will do--Jean Jacques' +wife. How can we tell but that she will perhaps go and leave the beloved +Zoe alone!" + +"And leave our little philosopher--miller also alone?" remarked the +Judge quizzically, yet with solemnity. M. Fille was agitated; he made +a protesting gesture. "Jean Jacques can find comfort, but the child--ah, +no, it is too terrible! Someone should speak. I tried to do it--to +Madame Carmen, to Jean Jacques; but it was no use. How could I betray +her to him, how could I tell her that I knew her shame!" + +The Judge turned brusquely and caught his friend by the shoulders, +fastening him with the eyes which had made many a witness forget to lie. + +"If you were an avocat in practice I would ruin your reputation, Fille," +he said. "A fool would tell Jean Jacques, or speak to the woman, and +spoil all; for women go mad when they are in danger, and they do the +impossible things. But did it not occur to you that the one person to +have in a quiet room with the doors shut, with the light of the sun in +his face, with the book of the law open on your desk and the damages to +be got by an injured husband, in a Catholic province with a Catholic +Judge, written down on a piece of paper, to hand over at the right +moment--did it not strike you that that person was your George Masson?" + +M. Fille's head dropped before the disdainful eyes of M. Carcasson. He +who prided himself in keeping the court right on points of procedure, who +was looked upon almost with the respect given the position of the Judge +himself, that he should fail in thinking of the obvious thing was +humiliating, and alas! so disconcerting. + +"I am a fool, an imbecile," he responded, in great dejection. + +"This much must be said, my imbecile, that every man some time or other +makes just such a fool of his intelligence," was the soft reply. + +A thin hand made a gesture of dissent. "Not you, monsieur. Never!" + +"If it is any comfort to you, know then, my Solon, that I have done so +publicly in my time, while you have only done it privately. But let us +see. That Masson must be struck of a heap. What sort of a man is he to +look at? Apart from his morals, what class of creature is he?" + +"He is a man of strength, of force in his way, monsieur. He made himself +from an apprentice without a cent, and he has now thirty men at work." + +"Then he does not drink or gamble?" + +"Neither, monsieur." + +"Has he a family?" + +"No, monsieur." + +"How old is he?" + +"Forty or thereabouts, monsieur." + +The Judge cogitated for a moment, then said: "Ah, that's bad--unmarried +and forty, and no vices except this. It gives him few escape-valves. Is +he good-looking? What is his appearance?" + +"Nor short, nor tall, and square shoulders. His face like the yellow +brown of a peach, hair that curls close to his head, blue eyes that see +everything, and a big hand that knows what it is doing." + +The Judge nodded. "Ah, you have watched him, maitre. . . . When? +Since then?" + +"No, no, monsieur, not since. If I had watched him since, I should +perhaps have thought of the right thing to do. But I did not. I used to +study him while the work was going on, when he first came, but I have +known him some time from a distance. If a man makes himself what he is, +you look at him, of course." + +"Truly. His temper--his disposition, what is it?" M. Fille was very +much alive now. He replied briskly. "Like the snap of a whip. He flies +into anger and flies out. He has a laugh that makes men say, 'How he +enjoys himself !' and his mind is very quick and sure." + +The Judge nodded with satisfaction. "Well done! Well done! I have got +him in my eye. He will not be so easy to handle; but, if he has brains, +he will see that you have the right end of the stick; and he will kiss +and ride away. It will not be easy, but the game is in your hands, my +Fille. In a quiet room, with the book of the law open, and figures of +damages given by a Catholic court and Judge--I think that will do it; and +then the course of true philosophy will not long be interrupted in the +house of Jean Jacques Barbille." + +"Monsieur--monsieur le juge, you mean that I shall do this, shall see +George Masson and warn him--me?" + +"Who else? You are a friend of the family. You are a public officer, to +whom the good name of your parish is dear. As all are aware, no doubt, +you are the trusted ancient comrade of the daughter of the woman--I speak +legally--Carmen Barbille nee Dolores, a name of charm to the ear. Who +but you then to do it?" + +"There is yourself, monsieur." + +"Dismiss me from your mind. I go to Quebec to-night, as you know, and +there is not time; but even if there were, I should not be the best +person to do this. I am known to few; you are known to all. I have no +locus standi. You have. No, no, it would not be for me." + +Suddenly, in his desperation, the Clerk of the Court sought release for +himself from this solemn and frightening duty. + +"Monsieur," he said eagerly, "there is another. I had forgotten. It is +Madame Carmen's father, Sebastian Dolores." + +"Ah, a father! Yes, I had forgotten to ask about him; so we are one in +our imbecility, my little Aristotle. This Sebastian Dolores, where is +he?" + +"In the next parish, Beauharnais, keeping books for a lumber-firm. Ah, +monsieur, that is the way to deal with the matter--through Sebastian +Dolores, her father!" + +"What sort is he?" + +The other shook his head and did not answer. "Ah, not of the best? +Drinks?" + +M. Fille nodded. + +"Has a weak character?" + +Again M. Fille nodded. + +"Has no good reputation hereabouts?" + +The nod was repeated. "He has never been steady He goes here and there, +but always he comes back to get Jean Jacques' help. He and his daughter +are not close friends, and yet he likes to be near her. She can endure +him at least. He can command her interest. He is a stranger in a +strange land, and he drifts back to where she is always. But that is +all." + +"Then he is out of the question, and he would be always out of the +question except as a last resort; for sooner or later he would tell his +daughter, and challenge our George Masson too; and that is what you do +not wish, eh?" + +"Precisely so," remarked M. Fille, dropping back again into gloom. "To +be quite honest, monsieur, even though it gives me a task which I abhor, +I do not think that M. Dolores could do what is needed without mistakes +which could not be mended. At least I can--" He stopped. + +The Judge interposed at once, well pleased with the way things were going +for this "case." "Assuredly. You can as can no other, my Solon. The +secret of success in such things is a good heart, a right mind, a clear +intelligence and some astuteness, and you have it all. It is your task +and yours only." + +The little man's self-respect seemed restored. He preened himself +somewhat and bowed to the Judge. "I take your commands, monsieur, to +obey them as heaven gives me power so to do. Shall it be tomorrow?" + +The Judge reflected a moment, then said: "Tonight would be better, but--" + +"I can do it better to-morrow morning," interposed M. Fille, "for George +Masson has a meeting here at Vilray with the avocat Prideaux at ten +o'clock to sign a contract, and I can ask him to step into my office on a +little affair of business. He will not guess, and I shall be armed"--the +Judge frowned--"with the book of the law on such misdemeanours, and the +figures of the damages,"--the Judge smiled--"and I think perhaps I can +frighten him as he has never been frightened before." + +A courage and confidence had now taken possession of the Clerk in strange +contrast to his timidity and childlike manner of a few minutes before. +He was now as he appeared in court, clothed with an austere authority +which gave him a vicarious strength and dignity. The Judge had done his +work well, and he was of those folk in the world who are not content to +do even the smallest thing ill. + +Arm in arm they passed into the garden which fronted the vine-covered +house, where Maitre Fille lived alone with his sister, a tiny edition of +himself, who whispered and smiled her way through life. + +She smiled and whispered now in welcome to the Judge; and as she did so, +the three saw Jean Jacques, laughing, and cracking his whip, drive past +with his daughter beside him, chirruping to the horses; while, moody and +abstracted, his wife sat silent on the backseat of the red wagon. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JEAN JACQUES HAD HAD A GREAT DAY + +Jean Jacques was in great good humour as he drove away to the Manor +Cartier. The day, which was not yet aged, had been satisfactory from +every point of view. He had impressed the Court, he had got a chance to +pose in the witness-box; he had been able to repeat in evidence the +numerous businesses in which he was engaged; had referred to his +acquaintance with the Lieutenant-Governor and a Cardinal; to his Grand +Tour (this had been hard to do in the cross-examination to which he was +subjected, but he had done it); and had been able to say at the very +start in reply as to what was his occupation--"Moi je suis M'sieu' Jean +Jacques, philosophe." + +Also he had, during the day, collected a debt long since wiped off his +books; he had traded a poor horse for a good cow; he had bought all the +wheat of a Vilray farmer below market-price, because the poor fellow +needed ready money; he had issued an insurance policy; his wife and +daughter had conversed in the public streets with the great judge who was +the doyen of the provincial Bench; and his daughter had been kissed by +the same judge in the presence of at least a dozen people. He was, in +fact, very proud of his Carmen and his Carmencita, as he called the two +who sat in the red wagon sharing his glory--so proud that he did not +extol them to others; and he was quite sure they were both very proud of +him. The world saw what his prizes of life were, and there was no need +to praise or brag. Dignity and pride were both sustained by silence and +a wave of the hand, which in fact said to the world, "Look you, my +masters, they belong to Jean Jacques. Take heed." + +There his domestic scheme practically ended. He was so busy that he took +his joys by snatches, in moments of suspension of actual life, as it +were. His real life was in the eddy of his many interests, in the field +of his superficial culture, in the eyes of the world. The worst of him +was on the surface. He showed what other men hid, that was all. Their +vanity was concealed, he wore it in his cap. They put on a manner as +they put on their clothes, and wore it out in the world, or took it off +in their own homes-behind the door of life; but he was the same vain, +frank, cocksure fellow in his home as in the street. There was no +difference at all. He was vain, but he had no conceit; and therefore he +did not deceive, and was not tyrannous or dictatorial; in truth, if you +but estimated him at his own value, he was the least insistent man alive. +Many a debtor knew this; and, by asking Jean Jacques' advice, making an +appeal to his logic, as it were--and it was always worth listening to, +even when wrong or sadly obvious, because of the glow with which he +declared things this or that--found his situation immediately eased. +Many a hard-up countryman, casting about for a five-dollar bill, could +get it of Jean Jacques by telling him what agreeable thing some important +person had said about him; or by writing to a great newspaper in Montreal +a letter, saying that the next candidate for the provincial legislature +should be M. Jean Jacques Barbille, of St. Saviour's. This never failed +to draw a substantial "bill" from the wad which Jean Jacques always +carried in his pocket-loose, not tied up in a leather roll, as so many +lesser men freighted the burdens of their wealth. + +He had changed since the day he left Bordeaux on the Antoine; since he +had first caught the flash of interest in Carmen Dolores' eyes--an +interest roused from his likeness to a conspirator who had been shot for +his country's good. He was no stouter in body, for he was of the kind +that wear away the flesh by much doing and thinking; but there were +occasional streaks of grey in his bushy hair, and his eye roamed less +than it did once. In the days when he first brought Carmen home, his eye +was like a bead of brown light on a swivel. It flickered and flamed; it +saw here, saw there; it twinkled, and it pierced into life's mysteries; +and all the while it was a good eye. Its whites never showed, as it +were. As an animal, his eye showed a nature free from vice. In some +respects he was easy to live with, for he never found fault with what +was given him to eat, or the way the house was managed; and he never +interfered with the "kitchen people," or refused a dollar or ten dollars +to Carmen for finery. In fact, he was in a sense too lavish, for he used +at one time to bring her home presents of silks and clothes and toilet +things and stockings and hats, which were not in accord with her taste, +and only vexed her. Indeed, she resented wearing them, and could hardly +bring herself to thank him for them. At last, however, she induced him +to let her buy what she wanted with the presents of money which he might +give her. + +On the whole Carmen fared pretty well, for he would sometimes give her a +handful of bills from his pocket, bidding her take ten dollars, and she +would coolly take twenty, while he shrugged his shoulders and declared +she would be his ruin. He had never repented of marrying her, in spite +of the fact that she did not always keep house as his mother and +grandmother had kept it; that she was gravely remiss in going to mass; +and that she quarrelled with more than one of her neighbours, who had an +idea that Spain was an inferior country because it was south of France, +just as the habitants regarded the United States as a low and inferior +country because it was south of Quebec. You went north towards heaven +and south towards hell, in their view; but when they went so far as to +patronize or slander Carmen, she drove her verbal stilettos home without +a button; so that on one occasion there would have been a law-suit for +libel if the Old Cure had not intervened. To Jean Jacques' credit, +be it said, he took his wife's part on this occasion, though in his +heart he knew that she was in the wrong. + +He certainly was not always in the right himself. If he had been told +that he neglected his wife he would have been justly indignant. Also, it +never occurred to him that a woman did not always want to talk philosophy +or discuss the price of wheat or the cost of flour-barrels; and that for +a man to be stupidly and foolishly fond was dearer to a woman than +anything else. How should he know--yet he ought to have done so, if he +really was a philosopher--that a woman would want the cleverest man in +the world to be a boy and play the fool sometimes; that she would rather, +if she was a healthy woman, go to a circus than to a revelation of the +mysteries of the mind from an altar of culture, if her own beloved man +was with her. + +Carmen had been left too much alone, as M. Fille had said to Judge +Carcasson. Her spirits had moments of great dullness, when she was ready +to fling herself into the river--or the arms of the schoolmaster or the +farrier. When she first came to St. Saviour's, the necessity of adapting +herself to the new conditions, of keeping faith with herself, which she +had planned on the Antoine, and making a good wife to the man who was to +solve all her problems for her, prevailed. She did not at first miss so +much the life of excitement, of danger, of intrigue, of romance, of +colour and variety, which she had left behind in Spain. When her child +was born, she became passionately fond of it; her maternal spirit +smothered it. It gave the needed excitement in the routine of life at +St. Saviour's. + +Yet the interest was not permanent. There came a time when she resented +the fact that Jean Jacques made more of the child than he did of herself. +That was a bad day for all concerned, for dissimulation presently became +necessary, and the home of Jean Jacques was a home of mystery which no +philosophy could interpret. There had never been but the one child. She +was not less handsome than when Jean Jacques married her and brought her +home, though the bloom of maiden youthfulness was no longer there; and +she certainly was a cut far above the habitant women or even the others +of a higher social class, in a circle which had an area equal to a +principality in Europe. + +The old cure, M. Langon, had had much influence over her, for few could +resist the amazing personal influence which his rare pure soul secured +over the worst. It was a sad day to her when he went to his long home; +and inwardly she felt a greater loss than she had ever felt, save that +once when her Carvillho Gonzales went the way of the traitor. Memories +of her past life far behind in Madrid did not grow fainter; indeed, they +grew more distinct as the years went on. They seemed to vivify, as her +discontent and restlessness grew. + +Once, when there had come to St. Saviour's a middle-aged baron from Paris +who had heard the fishing was good at St. Saviour's, and talked to her of +Madrid and Barcelona, of Cordova and Toledo, as one who had seen and +known and (he declared) loved them; who painted for her in splashing +impressionist pictures the life that still eddied in the plazas and +dreamed in the patios, she had been almost carried off her feet with +longing; and she nearly gave that longing an expression which would have +brought a tragedy, while still her Zoe was only eight years old. But +M. Langon, the wise priest whose eyes saw and whose heart understood, +had intervened in time; and she never knew that the sudden disappearance +of the Baron, who still owed fifty dollars to Jean Jacques, was due to +the practical wisdom of a great soul which had worked out its own destiny +in a little back garden of the world. + +When this good priest was alive she felt she had a friend who was as +large of heart as he was just, and who would not scorn the fool according +to his folly, or chastise the erring after his deserts. In his greatness +of soul Pere Langon had shut his eyes to things that pained him more +than they shocked him, for he had seen life in its most various and +demoralized forms, and indeed had had his own temptations when he lived +in Belgium and France, before he had finally decided to become a priest. +He had protected Carmen with a quiet persistency since her first day in +the parish, and had had a saving influence over her. Pere Langon +reproved those who criticized her and even slandered her, for it was +evident to all that she would rather have men talk to her than women; +and any summer visitor who came to fish, gave her an attention never +given even to the youngest and brightest in the district; and the eyes +of the habitant lass can be very bright at twenty. Yet whatever Carmen's +coquetry and her sport with fire had been, her own emotions had never +been really involved till now. + +The new cure, M. Savry, would have said they were involved now because +she never came to confession, and indeed, since the Old Cure died, she +had seldom gone to mass. Yet when, with accumulated reproof on his +tongue, M. Savry did come to the Manor Cartier, he felt the inherent +supremacy of beauty, not the less commanding because it had not the +refinement of the duchess or the margravine. + +Once M. Savry ventured to do what the Old Cure would never have done--he +spoke to Jean Jacques concerning Carmen's neglect of mass and confession, +and he received a rebuff which was almost au seigneur; for in Jean +Jacques' eyes he was now the figure in St. Saviour's; and this was an +occasion when he could assert his position as premier of the secular +world outside the walls of the parish church. He did it in good style +for a man who had had no particular training in the social arts. + +This is how he did it and what he said: + +"There have been times when I myself have thought it would be a good +thing to have a rest from the duties of a Catholic, m'sieu' le cure," he +remarked to M. Savry, when the latter had ended his criticism. He said +it with an air of conflict, and with full intent to make his supremacy +complete. + +"No Catholic should speak like that," returned the shocked priest. + +"No priest should speak to me as you have done," rejoined Jean Jacques. +"What do you know of the reasons for the abstention of madame? The soul +must enjoy rest as well as the body, and madame has a--mind which can +judge for itself. I have a body that is always going, and it gets too +little rest, and that keeps my soul in a flutter too. It must be getting +to mass and getting to confession, and saying aves and doing penance, +it is such a busy little soul of mine; but we are not all alike, and +madame's body goes in a more stately way. I am like a comet, she is +like the sun steady, steady, round and round, with plenty of sleep and +the comfortable darkness. Sometimes madame goes hard; so does the sun +in summer-shines, shines, shines like a furnace. Madame's body goes like +that--at the dairy, in the garden, with the loom, among the fowls, +growing her strawberries, keeping the women at the beating of the flax; +and then again it is all still and idle like the sun on a cloudy day; +and it rests. So it is with the human soul--I am a philosopher--I think +the soul goes hard the same as the body, churning, churning away in the +heat of the sun; and then it gets quiet and goes to sleep in the cloudy +day, when the body is sick of its bouncing, and it has a rest--the soul +has a rest, which is good for it, m'sieu'. I have worked it all out so. +Besides, the soul of madame is her own. I have not made any claim upon +it, and I will not expect you to do more, m'sieu' le cure." + +"It is my duty to speak," protested the good priest. "Her soul is God's, +and I am God's vicar--" + +Jean Jacques waved a hand. "T'sh, you are not the Pope. You are not +even an abbe. You were only a deacon a few years ago. You did not know +how to hold a baby for the christening when you came to St. Saviour's +first. For the mass, you have some right to speak; it is your duty +perhaps; but the confession, that is another thing; that is the will of +every soul to do or not to do. What do you know of a woman's soul-well, +perhaps, you know what they have told you; but madame's soul--" + +"Madame has never been to confession to me," interjected M. Savry +indignantly. Jean Jacques chuckled. He had his New Cure now for sure. + +"Confession is for those who have sinned. Is it that you say one must go +to confession, and in order to go to confession it is needful to sin?" + +M. Savry shivered with pious indignation. He had a sudden desire to rend +this philosophic Catholic--to put him under 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 not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist. + +"If mother doesn't think it's sensible, why do it, father?" asked Zoe +anxiously, looking up into her father's face. + +She had seen the look in her mother's eyes, and also she had no love for +her grandfather. Her instinct had at one time wavered regarding him; but +she had seen an incident with a vanished female cook, and though she had +not understood, a prejudice had been created in her mind. She was always +contrasting him with M. Fille, who, to her mind, was what a grandfather +ought to be. + +"I won't have him beholden to you," said Carmen, almost passionately. + +"He is of my family," said Jean Jacques firmly and chivalrously. "There +is no question of being beholden." + +"Let well enough alone," was the gloomy reply. With a sigh, Jean Jacques +turned back to the study of the road before him, to gossip with Zoe, and +to keep on planning subconsciously the new things he must do. + +Carmen sighed too, or rather she gave a gasp of agitation and annoyance. +Her father? She had lost whatever illusion once existed regarding him. +For years he had clung to her--to her pocket. He was given to drinking +in past years, and he still had his sprees. Like the rest of the world, +she had not in earlier years seen the furtiveness in his handsome face; +but at last, as his natural viciousness became stereotyped, and bad +habits matured and emphasized, she saw beneath his mask of low-class +comeliness. When at last she had found it necessary to dismiss the best +cook she ever had, because of him, they saw little of each other. This +was coincident with his failure at the ash-factory, where he mismanaged +and even robbed Jean Jacques right and left; and she had firmly insisted +on Jean Jacques evicting him, on the ground that it was not Sebastian +Dolores' bent to manage a business. + +This little episode, as they drove home from Vilray, had an unreasonable +effect upon her. + +It was like the touch of a finger which launches a boat balancing in the +ways onto the deep. It tossed her on a sea of agitation. She was swept +away on a flood of morbid reflection. + +Her husband and her daughter, laughing and talking in the front seat of +the red wagon, seemed quite oblivious of her, and if ever there was a +time when their influence was needed it was now. George Masson was +coming over late this afternoon to inspect the work he had been doing; +and she was trembling with an agitation which, however, did not show upon +the surface. She had not seen him for two days--since the day after the +Clerk of the Court had discovered her in the arms of a man who was not +her husband; but he was coming this evening, and he was coming to-morrow +for the last time; for the repair work on the flume of the dam would all +be finished then. + +But would the work he had been doing all be finished then? As she +thought of that incident of three days ago and of its repetition on the +following day, she remembered what he had said to her as she snatched +herself almost violently from his arms, in a sudden access of remorse. +He had said that it had to be, that there was no escape now; and at his +words she had felt every pulse in her body throbbing, every vein +expanding with a hot life which thrilled and tortured her. Life had been +so meagre and so dull, and the man who had worshipped her on the Antoine +now worshipped himself only, and also Zoe, the child, maybe; or so she +thought; while the man who had once possessed her whole mind and whole +heart, and never her body, back there in Spain, he, Carvillho Gonzales, +would have loved her to the end, in scenes where life had colour and +passion and danger and delightful movement. + +She was one of those happy mortals who believe that the dead and gone +lover was perfect, and that in losing him she was losing all that life +had in store; but the bare, hard truth was that her Gonzales could have +been true neither to her nor to any woman in the world for longer than +one lingering year, perhaps one lunar month. It did not console her-- +she did not think of it-that the little man on the seat of the red wagon, +chirruping with their daughter, had been, would always be, true to her. +Of what good was fidelity if he that was faithful desired no longer as +he once did? + +A keen observer would have seen in the glowing, unrestful look, in the +hot cheek, in the interlacing fingers, that a contest was going on in the +woman's soul, as she drove homeward with all that was her own in the +world. The laughter of her husband and child grated painfully on her +ears. Why should they be mirthful while her life was being swept by a +storm of doubt, temptation, and dark passion? Why was it? + +Yet she smiled at Jean Jacques when he lifted her down from the red wagon +at the door of the Manor Cartier, even though he lifted his daughter down +first. + +Did she smile at Jean Jacques because, as they came toward the Manor, +she saw George Masson in the distance by the flume, and in that moment +decided to keep her promise and meet him at a secluded point on the +river-bank at sunset after supper? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +JEAN JACQUES AWAKES FROM SLEEP + +The pensiveness of a summer evening on the Beau Cheval was like a veil +hung over all the world. While yet the sun was shining, there was the +tremor of life in the sadness; but when the last glint of amethyst and +gold died away behind Mont Violet, and the melancholy swish of the river +against the osiered banks rose out of the windless dusk, all the region +around Manor Cartier, with its cypresses, its firs, its beeches, and its +elms, became gently triste. Even the weather-vane on the Manor--the gold +Cock of Beaugard, as it was called--did not move; and the stamping of a +horse in the stable was like the thunderous knock of a traveller from +Beyond. The white mill and the grey manor stood out with ghostly +vividness in the light of the rising moon. Yet there were times +innumerable when they looked like cool retreats for those who wanted +rest; when, in the summer solstice, they offered the pleasant peace of +the happy fireside. How often had Jean Jacques stood off from it all of +a summer night and said to himself: "Look at that, my Jean Jacques. It +is all yours, Manor and mills and farms and factory--all." + +"Growing, growing, fattening, while I drone in my feather bed," he had +as often said, with the delighted observation of the philosopher. "And +me but a young man yet--but a mere boy," he would add. "I have piled it +up--I have piled it up, and it keeps on growing, first one thing and then +another." + +Could such a man be unhappy? Finding within himself his satisfaction, +his fountain of appeasement, why should not his days be days of +pleasantness and peace? So it appeared to him during that summer, just +passed, when he had surveyed the World and his world within the World, +and it seemed to his innocent mind that he himself had made it all. +There he was, not far beyond forty, and eligible to become a member +of Parliament, or even a count of the Holy Roman Empire! He had thought +of both these honours, but there was so much to occupy him--he never had +a moment to himself, except at night; and then there was planning and +accounting to do, his foremen to see, or some knotty thing to +disentangle. But when the big clock in the Manor struck ten, and he took +out his great antique silver watch, to see if the two marched to the +second, he would go to the door, look out into the night, say, "All's +well, thank the good God," and would go to bed, very often forgetting to +kiss Carmen, and even forgetting his darling little Zoe. + +After all, a mind has to be very big and to have very many tentacles to +hold so many things all at once, and also to remember to do the right +thing at the right moment every time. He would even forget to ask Carmen +to play on the guitar, which in the first days of their married life was +the recreation of every evening. Seldom with the later years had he +asked her to sing, because he was so busy; and somehow his ear had not +that keenness of sound once belonging to it. There was a time when he +himself was wont to sing, when he taught his little Zoe the tunes of the +Chansons Canadiennes; but even that had dropped away, except at rare +intervals, when he would sing Le Petit Roger Bontemps, with Petite Fleur +de Bois, and a dozen others; but most he would sing--indeed there was +never a sing-song in the Manor Cartier but he would burst forth with A la +Claire Fontaine and its haunting refrain: + + "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, + Jamais je ne t'oublierai." + +But this very summer, when he had sung it on the birthday of the little +Zoe, his voice had seemed out of tune. At first he had thought that +Carmen was playing his accompaniment badly on the guitar, but she had +sharply protested against that, and had appealed to M. Fille, who was +present at the pretty festivity. He had told the truth, as a Clerk of +the Court should. He said that Jean Jacques' voice was not as he had so +often heard it; but he would also frankly admit that he did not think +madame played the song as he had heard her play it aforetime, and that +covered indeed twelve years or more--in fact, since the birth of the +renowned Zoe. + +M. Fille had wondered much that night of June at the listless manner and +listless playing of Carmen Barbille. For a woman of such spirit and fire +it would seem as though she must be in ill-health to play like that. Yet +when he looked at her he saw only the comeliness of a woman whom the life +of the haut habitant had not destroyed or, indeed, dimmed. Her skin was +smooth, she had no wrinkles, and her neck was a pillar of softly moulded +white flesh, around which a man might well string unset jewels, if he had +them; for the tint and purity of her skin would be a better setting than +platinum or fine gold. But the Clerk of the Court was really +unsophisticated, or he would have seen that Carmen played the guitar +badly because she was not interested in Jean Jacques' singing. He would +have known that she had come to that stage in her married life when the +tenure is pitifully insecure. He would have seen that the crisis was +near. If he had had any real observation he would have noticed that +Carmen's eyes at once kindled, and that the guitar became a different +thing, when M. Colombin, the young schoolmaster, one of the guests, +caught up the refrain of A la Claire Fontaine, and in a soft tenor voice +sang it with Jean Jacques to the end, and then sang it again with Zoe. +Then Carmen's dark eyes deepened with the gathering light in them, her +body seemed to vibrate and thrill with emotion; and when M. Colombin and +Zoe ceased, with her eyes fixed on the distance, and as though +unconscious of them all, she began to sing a song of Cadiz which she had +not sung since boarding the Antoine at Bordeaux. Her mind had, suddenly +flown back out of her dark discontent to the days when all life was +before her, and, with her Gonzales, she had moved in an atmosphere of +romance, adventure and passion. + +In a second she was transformed from the wife of the brown money-master +to the girl she was when she came to St. Saviour's from the plaza, where +her Carvillho Gonzales was shot, with love behind her and memory blazoned +in the red of martyrdom. She sang now as she had not sung for some +years. Her guitar seemed to leap into life, her face shone with the hot +passion of memory, her voice rang with the pain of a disappointed life: + + "Granada, Granada, thy gardens are gay, + And bright are thy stars, the high stars above; + But as flowers that fade and are gray, + But as dusk at the end of the day, + Are ye to the light in the eyes of my love + In the eyes, in the soul, of my love. + + "Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see + My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me? + + "Beloved, beloved, have pity, and make + Not the sun shut its eyes, its hot, envious eyes, + And the world in the darkness of night + Be debtor to thee for its light. + Turn thy face, turn thy face from the skies + To the love, to the pain in my eyes. + + "Granada, Granada, oh, when shall I see + My love in thy gardens, there waiting for me!" + +From that night forward she had been restless and petulant and like one +watching and waiting. It seemed to her that she must fly from the life +which was choking her. It was all so petty and so small. People went +about sneaking into other people's homes like detectives; they turned +yellow and grew scrofulous from too much salt pork, green tea, native +tobacco, and the heat of feather beds. The making of a rag carpet was an +event, the birth of a baby every year till the woman was forty-five was a +commonplace; but the exit of a youth to a seminary to become a priest, or +the entrance to the novitiate of a young girl, were matters as important +as a battle to Napoleon the Great. + +How had she gone through it all so long, she asked herself? The presence +of Jean Jacques had become almost unbearable when, the day done, he +retired to the feather bed which she loathed, though he would have looked +upon discarding it like the abdication of his social position. A feather +bed was a sign of social position; it was as much the dais to his honour +as is the woolsack to the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords. + +She was waiting for something. There was a restless, vagrant spirit +alive in her now. She had been so long inactive, tied by the leg, +with wings clipped; now her mind roamed into pleasant places of the +imagination where life had freedom, where she could renew the impulses +of youth. A true philosopher-a man of the world-would have known for +what she was waiting with that vague, disordered expectancy and yearning; +but there was no man of the world to watch and guide her this fateful +summer, when things began to go irretrievably wrong. + +Then George Masson came. He was a man of the world in his way; he saw +and knew better than the philosopher of the Manor Cartier. He grasped +the situation with the mind of an artist in his own sphere, and with the +knowledge got by experience. Thus there had been the thing which the +Clerk of the Court saw from Mont Violet behind the Manor; and so it was +that as Jean Jacques helped Carmen down from the red wagon on their +return from Vilray, she gave him a smile which was meant to deceive; for +though given to him it was really given to another man in her mind's eye. +At sunset she gave it again to George Masson on the river-bank, only +warmer and brighter still, with eyes that were burning, with hands that +trembled, and with an agitated bosom more delicately ample than it was on +the day the Antoine was wrecked. + +Neither of these two adventurers into a wild world of feeling noticed +that a man was sitting on a little knoll under a tree, not far away from +their meeting-place, busy with pencil and paper. + +It was Jean Jacques, who had also come to the river-bank to work out a +business problem which must be settled on the morrow. He had stolen out +immediately after supper from neighbours who wished to see him, and had +come here by a roundabout way, because he wished to be alone. + +George Masson and Carmen were together for a few moments only, but Jean +Jacques heard his wife say, "Yes, to-morrow--for sure," and then he saw +her kiss the master-carpenter--kiss him twice, thrice. After which they +vanished, she in one direction, and the invader and marauder in another. + +If either of these two had seen the face of the man with a pencil +and paper under the spreading beechtree, they would not have been so +impatient for tomorrow, and Carmen would not have said "for sure." + +Jean Jacques was awake at last, man as well as philosopher. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE GATE IN THE WALL + +Jean Jacques was not without originality of a kind, and not without +initiative; but there were also the elements of the very old Adam in him, +and the strain of the obvious. If he had been a real genius, rather than +a mere lively variation of the commonplace--a chicken that could never +burst its shell, a bird which could not quite break into song--he might +have made his biographer guess hard and futilely, as to what he would do +after having seen his wife's arms around the neck of another man than +himself--a man little more than a manual labourer, while he, Jean Jacques +Barbille, had come of the people of the Old Regime. As it was, this +magnate of St. Saviour's, who yesterday posed so sympathetically and +effectively in the Court at Vilray as a figure of note, did the quite +obvious thing: he determined to kill the master-carpenter from Laplatte. + +There was no genius in that. When, from under the spreading beech-tree, +Jean Jacques saw his wife footing it back to her house with a light, +wayward step; when he watched the master-carpenter vault over a stone +fence five feet high with a smile of triumph mingled with doubt on his +face, he was too stunned at first to move or speak. If a sledge-hammer +strikes you on the skull, though your skull is of such a hardness that it +does not break, still the shock numbs activity for awhile, at any rate. +The sledge-hammer had descended on Jean Jacques' head, and also had +struck him between the eyes; and it is in the credit balance of his +ledger of life, that he refrained from useless outcry at the moment. +Such a stroke kills some men, either at once, or by lengthened torture; +others it sends mad, so that they make a clamour which draws the +attention of the astonished and not sympathetic world; but it only +paralysed Jean Jacques. For a time he sat fascinated by the ferocity +of the event, his eyes following the hurrying wife and the jaunty, +swaggering master-carpenter with a strange, animal-like dismay and +apprehension. They remained fixed with a kind of blank horror and +distraction on the landscape for some time after both had disappeared. + +At last, however, he seemed to recover his senses, and to come back from +the place where he had been struck by the hammer of treachery. He seemed +to realize again that he was still a part of the common world, not a +human being swung through the universe on his heart-strings by a Gorgon. + +The paper and pencil in his hand brought him back from the far Gehenna +where he had been, to the world again--how stony and stormy a world it +was, with the air gone as heavy as lead, with his feet so loaded down +with chains that he could not stir! He had had great joy of this his +world; he had found it a place where every day were problems to be solved +by an astute mind, problems which gave way before the master-thinker. +There was of course unhappiness in his world. There was death, there was +accident occasionally--had his own people not gone down under the scythe +of time? But in going they had left behind in real estate and other +things good compensation for their loss. There was occasional suffering +and poverty and trouble in his little kingdom; but a cord of wood here, a +barrel of flour there, a side of beef elsewhere, a little debt remitted, +a bag of dried apples, or an Indian blanket--these he gave, and had great +pleasure in giving; and so the world was not a place where men should +hang their heads, but a place where the busy man got more than the worth +of his money. + +It had never occurred to him that he was ever translating the world into +terms of himself, that he went on his way saying in effect, "I am coming. +I am Jean Jacques Barbille. You have heard of me. You know me. Wave a +hand to me, duck your head to me, crack the whip or nod when I pass. I +am M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosopher." + +And all the while he had only been vaguely, not really, conscious of his +wife and child. He did not know that he had only made of his wife an +incident in his life, in spite of the fact that he thought he loved her; +that he had been proud of her splendid personality; and that, with +passionate chivalry, he had resented any criticism of her. + +He thought still, as he did on the Antoine, that Carmen's figure had the +lines of the Venus of Milo, that her head would have been a model either +for a Madonna, or for Joan of Arc, or the famous Isabella of Aragon. +Having visited the Louvre and the Luxembourg all in one day, he felt he +was entitled to make such comparisons, and that in making them he was on +sure ground. He had loved to kiss Carmen in the neck, it was so full and +soft and round; and when she went about the garden with her dress +shortened, and he saw her ankles, even after he had been married thirteen +years, and she was thirty-four, he still admired, he still thought that +the world was a good place when it produced such a woman. And even when +she had lashed him with her tongue, as she did sometimes, he still +laughed--after the smart was over--because he liked spirit. He would +never have a horse that had not some blood, and he had never driven a +sluggard in his life more than once. But wife and child and world, and +all that therein was, existed largely because they were necessary to Jean +Jacques. + +That is the way it had been; and it was as though the firmament had been +rolled up before his eyes, exposing the everlasting mysteries, when he +saw his wife in the arms of the master-carpenter. It was like some +frightening dream. + +The paper and pencil waked him to reality. He looked towards his house, +he looked the way George Masson had gone, and he knew that what he had +seen was real life and not a dream. The paper fell from his hand. He +did not pick it up. Its fall represented the tumbling walls of life, was +the earthquake which shook his world into chaos. He ground the sheet +into the gravel with his heel. There would be no cheese-factory built at +St. Saviour's for many a year to come. The man of initiative, the man of +the hundred irons would not have the hundred and one, or keep the hundred +hot any more; because he would be so busy with the iron which had entered +into his soul. + +When the paper had been made one with the earth, a problem buried for +ever, Jean Jacques pulled himself up to his full height, as though facing +a great thing which he must do. + +"Well, of course!" he said firmly. + +That was what his honour, Judge Carcasson, had said a few hours before, +when the little Clerk of the Court had remarked an obvious thing about +the case of Jean Jacques. + +And Jean Jacques said only the obvious thing when he made up his mind to +do the obvious thing--to kill George Masson, the master-carpenter. + +This was evidence that he was no genius. Anybody could think of killing +a man who had injured him, as the master-carpenter had done Jean Jacques. +It is the solution of the problem of the Patagonian. It is old as +Rameses. + +Yet in his own way Jean Jacques did what he felt he had to do. The thing +he was going to do was hopelessly obvious, but the doing of it was Jean +Jacques' own; and it was not obvious; and that perhaps was genius after +all. There are certain inevitable things to do, and for all men to do; +and they have been doing them from the beginning of time; but the way it +is done--is not that genius? There is no new story in the world; all the +things that happen have happened for untold centuries; but the man who +tells the story in a new way, that is genius, so the great men say. If, +then, Jean Jacques did the thing he had to do with a turn of his own, he +would justify to some degree the opinion he had formed of himself. + +As he walked back to his desecrated home he set himself to think. How +should it be done? There was the rifle with which he had killed deer in +the woods beyond the Saguenay and bear beyond the Chicoutimi. That was +simple--and it was obvious; and it could be done at once. He could soon +overtake the man who had spoiled the world for him. + +Yet he was a Norman, and the Norman thinks before he acts. He is the +soul of caution; he wants to get the best he can out of his bargain. He +will throw nothing away that is to his advantage. There should be other +ways than the gun with which to take a man's life--ways which might give +a Norman a chance to sacrifice only one life; to secure punishment where +it was due, but also escape from punishment for doing the obvious thing. + +Poison? That was too stupid even to think of once. A pitch-fork and a +dung-heap? That had its merits; but again there was the risk of more +than one life. + +All the way to his house, Jean Jacques, with something of the rage of +passion and the glaze of horror gone from his eyes, and his face not now +so ghastly, still brooded over how, after he had had his say, he was to +put George Masson out of the world. But it did not come at once. All +makers of life-stories find their difficulty at times. Tirelessly they +grope along a wall, day in, day out, and then suddenly a great gate +swings open, as though to the touch of a spring, and the whole way is +clear to the goal. + +Jean Jacques went on thinking in a strange, new, intense abstraction. +His restless eyes were steadier than they had ever been; his wife noticed +that as he entered the house after the Revelation. She noticed also his +paleness and his abstraction. For an instant she was frightened; but no, +Jean Jacques could not know anything. Yet--yet he had come from the +direction of the river! + +"What is it, Jean Jacques?" she asked. "Aren't you well?" + +He put his hand to his head, but did not look her in the eyes. His +gesture helped him to avoid that. "I have a head--la, such a head! +I have been thinking, thinking-it is my hobby. I have been planning +the cheese-factory, and all at once it comes on-the ache in my head. +I will go to bed. Yes, I will go at once." Suddenly he turned at the +door leading to the bedroom. "The little Zoe--is she well?" + +"Of course. Why should she not be well? She has gone to the top of the +hill. Of course, she's well, Jean Jacques." + +"Good-good!" he remarked. Somehow it seemed strange to him that Zoe +should be well. Was there not a terrible sickness in his house, and had +not that woman, his wife, her mother, brought the infection? Was he +himself not stricken by it? + +Carmen was calm enough again. "Go to bed, Jean Jacques," she said, "and +I'll bring you a sleeping posset. I know those headaches. You had one +when the ash-factory was burned." + +He nodded without looking at her, and closed the door behind him. + +When she came to the bedroom a half-hour later, his face was turned to +the wall. She spoke, but he did not answer. She thought he was asleep. +He was not asleep. He was only thinking how to do the thing which was +not obvious, which was also safe for himself. That should be his +triumph, if he could but achieve it. + +When she came to bed he did not stir, and he did not answer her when she +spoke. + +"The poor Jean Jacques!" he heard her say, and if there had not been +on him the same courage that possessed him the night when the Antoine +was wrecked, he would have sobbed. + +He did not stir. He kept thinking; and all the time her words, "The poor +Jean Jacques!" kept weaving themselves through his vague designs. Why +had she said that--she who had deceived, betrayed him? Had he then seen +what he had seen? + +She did not sleep for a long time, and when she did it was uneasily. But +the bed was an immense one, and she was not near him. There was no sleep +for him--not even for an hour. Once, in exhaustion, he almost rolled +over into the poppies of unconsciousness; but he came back with a start +and a groan to sentient life again, and kept feeling, feeling along the +wall of purpose for a masterly way to kill. + +At dawn it came, suddenly spreading out before him like a picture. He +saw himself standing at the head of the flume out there by the Mill +Cartier with his hand on the lever. Below him in the empty flume was the +master-carpenter giving a last inspection to the repairs. Beyond the +master-carpenter--far beyond--was the great mill-wheel! Behind himself, +Jean Jacques, was the river held back by the dam; and if the lever was +opened,--the river would sweep through the raised gates down the flume to +the millwheel--with the man. And then the wheel would turn and turn, and +the man would be in the wheel. + +It was not obvious; it was original; and it looked safe for Jean Jacques. +How easily could such an "accident" occur! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"MOI-JE SUIS PHILOSOPHE" + +The air was like a mellow wine, and the light on the landscape was full +of wistfulness. It was a thing so exquisite that a man of sentiment like +Jean Jacques in his younger days would have wept to see. And the feeling +was as palpable as the seeing; as in the early spring the new life which +is being born in the year, produces a febrile kind of sorrow in the mind. +But the glow of Indian summer, that compromise, that after-thought of +real summer, which brings her back for another good-bye ere she vanishes +for ever--its sadness is of a different kind. Its longing has a sharper +edge; there stir in it the pangs of discontent; and the mind and body +yearn for solace. It is a dangerous time, even more dangerous than +spring for those who have passed the days of youth. + +It had proved dangerous to Carmen Barbille. The melancholy of the +gorgeously tinted trees, the flights of the birds to the south, the smell +of the fallow field, the wind with the touch of the coming rains--these +had given to a growing discontent with her monotonous life the desire +born of self-pity. In spite of all she could do she was turning to the +life she had left behind in Cadiz long ago. + +It seemed to her that Jean Jacques had ceased to care for the charms +which once he had so proudly proclaimed. There was in her the strain of +the religion of Epicurus. She desired always that her visible corporeal +self should be admired and desired, that men should say, "What a splendid +creature!" It was in her veins, an undefined philosophy of life; and she +had ever measured the love of Jean Jacques by his caresses. She had no +other vital standard. This she could measure, she could grasp it and +say, "Here I have a hold; it is so much harvested." But if some one had +written her a poem a thousand verses long, she would have said, "Yes, all +very fine, but let me see what it means; let me feel that it is so." + +She had an inherent love of luxury and pleasure, which was far more +active in her now than when she married Jean Jacques. For a Spanish +woman she had matured late; and that was because, in her youth, she had +been active and athletic, unlike most Spanish girls; and the microbes of +a sensuous life, or what might have become a sensual life, had not good +chance to breed. + +It all came, however, in the dullness of the winter days and nights, in +the time of deep snows, when they could go abroad but very little. Then +her body and her mind seemed to long for the indolent sun-spaces of +Spain. The artificial heat of the big stoves in the rooms with the low +ceilings only irritated her, and she felt herself growing more ample from +lassitude of the flesh. This particular autumn it seemed to her that she +could not get through another winter without something going wrong, +without a crisis of some sort. She felt the need of excitement, of +change. She had the desire for pleasures undefined. + +Then George Masson came, and the undefined took form almost at once. +It was no case of the hunter pursuing his prey with all the craft and +subtlety of his trade. She had answered his look with spontaneity, due +to the fact that she had been surprised into the candour of her feelings +by the appearance of one who had the boldness of a brigand, the health of +a Hercules, and the intelligence of a primitive Jesuit. He had not +hesitated; he had yielded himself to the sumptuous attraction, and the +fire in his eyes was only the window of the furnace within him. He had +gone headlong to the conquest, and by sheer force of temperament and +weight of passion he had swept her off her feet. + +He had now come to the last day of his duty at the Mill Cartier, when all +he had to do was to inspect the work done, give assurance and guarantee +that it was all right, and receive his cheque from Jean Jacques. He had +come 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 of Beaugard--like the +Baron of Beaugard that killed the man who abused his wife." + +It was so. Great-great-grand-nephew of the Baron of Beaugard as he was, +Jean Jacques looked like the portrait of him which hung in the Manor +Cartier. "Wait--but wait one minute!" exclaimed George Masson; and now, +all at once, he had grown cool and determined, and his brain was at work +again with an activity and a clearness it had never known. He had gained +one minute of time, he might be able to gain more. In any case, no one +could save him except himself. There was Jean Jacques with his hand on +the lever--one turn and the thing was done for ever. If a rescuer was +even within one foot of Jean Jacques, the deed could still be done. It +was so much easier opening than shutting the gates of the flume! + +"Why should I wait, devil and rogue?" The words came from Jean Jacques' +lips with a snarl. "I am going to kill you. It will do you no good to +whine--cochon!" + +To call a man a pig is the worst insult which could be offered by one man +to another in the parish of St. Saviour's. To be called a pig as you are +going to die, is an offensive business indeed. + +"I know you are going to kill me--that you can kill me, and I can do +nothing," was the master-carpenter's reply. "There it is--a turn of the +lever, and I am done. Bien sur, I know how easy! I do not want to die, +but I will not squeal even if I am a pig. One can only die once. And +once is enough . . . No, don't--not yet ! Give me a minute till I +tell you something; then you can open the gates. You will have a long +time to live--yes, yes, you are the kind that live long. Well, a minute +or two is not much to ask. If you want to murder, you will open the +gates at once; but if it is punishment, if you are an executioner, you +will give me time to pray." + +Jean Jacques did not soften. His voice was harsh and grim. "Well, get +on with your praying, but don't talk. You are going to die," he added, +his hands gripping the lever tighter. + +The master-carpenter had had the true inspiration in his hour of danger. +He had touched his appeal with logic, he had offered an argument. Jean +Jacques was a logician, a philosopher! That point made about the +difference between a murder and an execution was a good one. Beside it +was an acknowledgment, by inference, from his victim, that he was getting +what he deserved. + +"Pray quick and have it over, pig of an adulterer!" added Jean Jacques. + +The master-carpenter raised a protesting hand. "There you are +mistaken; but it is no matter. At the end of to-day I would have been +an adulterer, if you hadn't found out. I don't complain of the word. +But see, as a philosopher"--Jean Jacques jerked a haughty assent--"as a +philosopher you will want to know how and why it is. Carmen will never +tell you--a woman never tells the truth about such things, because she +does not know how. She does not know the truth ever, exactly, about +anything. It is because she is a woman. But I would like to tell you +the exact truth; and I can, because I am a man. For what she did you +are as much to blame as she . . . no, no--not yet!" + +Jean Jacques' hand had spasmodically tightened on the lever as though he +would wrench the gates open, and a snarl came from his lips. + +"Figure de Christ, but it is true, as true as death! Listen, M'sieu' +Jean Jacques. You are going to kill me, but listen so that you will know +how to speak to her afterwards, understanding what I said as I died." + +"Get on--quick!" growled Jean Jacques with white wrinkled lips and the +sun in his agonized eyes. George Masson continued his pleading. "You +were always a man of mind"--Jean Jacques' fierce agitation visibly +subsided, and a surly sort of vanity crept into his face--"and you +married a girl who cared more for what you did than what you thought-- +that is sure, for I know women. I am not married, and I have had much +to do with many of them. I will tell you the truth. I left the West +because of a woman--of two women. I had a good business, but I could +not keep out of trouble with women. They made it too easy for me." + +"Peacock-pig!" exclaimed Jean Jacques with an ugly sneer. + +"Let a man when he is dying tell all the truth, to ease his mind," said +the master-carpenter with a machiavellian pretence and cunning. "It was +vanity, it was, as you say; it was the peacock in me made me be the +friend of many women and not the husband of one. I came down here to +Quebec from the Far West to get away from consequences. It was +expensive. I had to sacrifice. Well, here I am in trouble again--my +last trouble, and with the wife of a man that I respect and admire, not +enough to keep my hands off his wife, but still that I admire. It is my +weakness that I could not be, as a man, honourable to Jean Jacques +Barbille. And so I pay the price; so I have to go without time to make +my will. Bless heaven above, I have no wife--" + +"If you had a wife you would not be dying now. You would not then meddle +with the home of Jean Jacques Barbille," sneered Jean Jacques. The note +was savage yet. + +"Ah, for sure, for sure! It is so. And if I lived I would marry at +once." + +Desperate as his condition was, the master-carpenter could almost have +laughed at the idea of marriage preventing him from following the bent of +his nature. He was the born lover. If he had been as high as the Czar, +or as low as the ditcher, he would have been the same; but it would be +madness to admit that to Jean Jacques now. + +"But, as you say, let me get on. My time has come--" + +Jean Jacques jerked his head angrily. "Enough of this. You keep on +saying 'Wait a little,' but your time has come. Now take it so, and +don't repeat." + +"A man must get used to the idea of dying, or he will die hard," replied +the master-carpenter, for he saw that Jean Jacques' hands were not so +tightly clenched on the lever now; and time was everything. He had +already been near five minutes, and every minute was a step to a chance +of escape--somehow. + +"I said you were to blame," he continued. "Listen, Jean Jacques +Barbille. You, a man of mind, married a girl who cared more for a touch +of your hand than a bucketful of your knowledge, which every man in the +province knows is great. At first you were almost always thinking of her +and what a fine woman she was, and because everyone admired her, you +played the peacock, too. I am not the only peacock. You are a good man +--no one ever said anything against your character. But always, always, +you think most of yourself. It is everywhere you go as if you say, 'Look +out. I am coming. I am Jean Jacques Barbille. + +"'Make way for Jean Jacques. I am from the Manor Cartier. You have heard +of me.' . . . That is the way you say things in your mind. But all +the time the people say, 'That is Jean Jacques Barbille, but you should +see his wife. She is a wonder. She is at home at the Manor with the +cows and the geese. Jean Jacques travels alone through the parish to +Quebec, to Three Rivers, to Tadousac, to the great exhibition at +Montreal, but madame, she stays at home. M'sieu' Jean Jacques is nothing +beside her'--that is what the people say. They admire you for your +brains, but they would have fallen down before your wife, if you had +given her half a chance." + +"Ah, that's bosh--what do you know!" exclaimed Jean Jacques fiercely, +but he was fascinated too by the argument of the man whose life he was +going to take. + +"I know the truth, my money-man. Do you think she'd have looked at me if +you'd been to her what she thought I might be? No, bien sur! Did you +take her where she could see the world? No. Did you bring her presents? +No. Did you say, 'Come along, we will make a little journey to see the +world?' No. Do you think that a woman can sit and darn your socks, and +tidy your room, and bake you pancakes in the morning while you roast your +toes, and be satisfied with just that, and not long for something +outside?" + +Jean Jacques was silent. He did not move. He was being hypnotized by a +mind of subtle strength, by the logic of which he was so great a lover. + +The master-carpenter pressed his logic home. "No, she must sit in your +shadow always. She must wait till you come. And when you come, it was +'Here am I, your Jean Jacques. Fall down and worship me. I am your +husband.' Did you ever say, 'Heavens, there you are, the woman of all +the world, the rising and the setting sun, the star that shines, the +garden where all the flowers of love grow'? Did you ever do that? But +no, there was only one person in the world--there was only you, Jean +Jacques. You were the only pig in the sty." + +It was a bold stroke, but if Jean Jacques could stand that, he could +stand anything. There was a savage start on the part of Jean Jacques, +and the lever almost moved. + +"Stop one second!" cried the master-carpenter, sharply now, for in spite +of the sudden savagery on Jean Jacques' part, he felt he had an +advantage, and now he would play his biggest card. + +"You can kill me. It is there in your hand. No one can stop you. But +will that give you anything? What is my life? If you take it away, will +you be happier? It is happiness you want. Your wife--she will love you, +if you give her a chance. If you kill me, I will have my revenge in +death, for it is the end of all things for you. You lose your wife for +ever. You need not do so. She would have gone with me, not because of +me, but because I was a man who she thought would treat her like a +friend, like a comrade; who would love her--sacre, what husband could +help make love to such a woman, unless he was in love with himself +instead of her!" + +Jean Jacques rocked to and fro over the lever in his agitation, yet he +made no motion to move it. He was under a spell. + +Straight home drove the master-carpenter's reasoning now. "Kill me, and +you lose her for ever. Kill me, and she will hate you. You think she +will not find out? Then see: as I die I will shriek out so loud that she +can hear me, and she will understand. She will go mad, and give you over +to the law. And then--and then! Did you ever think what will become of +your child, of your Zoe, if you go to the gallows? That would be your +legacy and your blessing to her--the death of a murderer; and she would +be left alone with the woman that would hate you in death! Voila--do you +not see?" + +Jean Jacques saw. The terrific logic of the thing smote him. His wife +hating him, himself on the scaffold, his little Zoe disgraced and +dishonoured all her life; and himself out of it all, unable to help her, +and bringing irremediable trouble on her! As a chemical clears a muddy +liquid, leaving it pure and atomless, so there seemed to pass over Jean +Jacques' face a thought like a revelation. + +He took his hand from the lever. For a moment he stood like one awakened +out of a sleep. He put his hands to his eyes, then shook his head as +though to free it of some hateful burden. An instant later he stooped, +lifted up the ladder beside him, and let it down to the floor of the +flume. + +"There, go--for ever," he said. + +Then he turned away with bowed head. He staggered as he stepped down +from the bridge of the flume, where the lever was. He swayed from side +to side. Then he raised his head and looked towards his house. His +child lived there--his Zoe. + +"Moi je suis philosophe !" he said brokenly. + +After a moment or two, as he stumbled on, he said it again--"Me, I am a +philosopher!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"QUIEN SABE"--WHO KNOWS! + +This much must be said for George Masson, that after the terrible +incident at the flume he would have gone straight to the Manor Cartier +to warn Carmen, if it had been possible, though perhaps she already knew. +But there was Jean Jacques on his way back to the Manor, and nothing +remained but to proceed to Laplatte, and give the woman up for ever. He +had no wish to pull up stakes again and begin life afresh, though he was +only forty, and he had plenty of initiative left. But if he had to go, +he would want to go alone, as he had done before. Yes, he would have +liked to tell Carmen that Jean Jacques knew everything; but it was +impossible. She would have to face the full shock from Jean Jacques' +own battery. But then again perhaps she knew already. He hoped she did. + +At the very moment that Masson was thinking this, while he went to the +main road where he had left his horse and buggy tied up, Carmen came to +know. + +Carmen had not seen her husband that morning until now. She had waked +late, and when she was dressed and went into the dining-room to look for +him, with an apprehension which was the reflection of the bad dreams of +the night, she found that he had had his breakfast earlier than usual and +had gone to the mill. She also learned that he had eaten very little, +and that he had sent a man into Vilray for something or other. Try as +she would to stifle her anxiety, it obtruded itself, and she could eat no +breakfast. She kept her eyes on the door and the window, watching for +Jean Jacques. + +Yet she reproved herself for her stupid concern, for Jean Jacques would +have spoken last night, if he had discovered anything. He was not the +man to hold his tongue when he had a chance of talking. He would be sure +to make the most of any opportunity for display of intellectual emotion, +and he would have burst his buttons if he had known. That was the way +she put it in a vernacular which was not Andalusian. Such men love a +grievance, because it gives them an opportunity to talk--with a good case +and to some point, not into the air at imaginary things, as she had so +often seen Jean Jacques do. She knew her Jean Jacques. That is, she +thought she knew her Jean Jacques after living with him for over thirteen +years; but hers was a very common mistake. It is not time which gives +revelation, or which turns a character inside out, and exposes a new and +amazing, maybe revolting side to it. She had never really seen Jean +Jacques, and he had never really seen himself, as he was, but only as +circumstances made him seem to be. What he had showed of his nature all +these forty odd years was only the ferment of a more or less shallow +life, in spite of its many interests: but here now at last was life, with +the crust broken over a deep well of experience and tragedy. She knew as +little what he would do in such a case as he himself knew beforehand. As +the incident of the flume just now showed, he knew little indeed, for he +had done exactly the opposite of what he meant to do. It was possible +that Carmen would also do exactly the opposite of what she meant to do +in her own crisis. + +Her test was to come. Would she, after all, go off with the master- +carpenter, leaving behind her the pretty, clever, volatile Zoe. . . . +Zoe--ah, where was Zoe? Carmen became anxious about Zoe, she knew not +why. Was it the revival of the maternal instinct? + +She was told that Zoe had gone off on her pony to take a basket of good +things to a poor old woman down the river three miles away. She would be +gone all morning. By so much, fate was favouring her; for the child's +presence would but heighten the emotion of her exit from that place where +her youth had been wasted. Already the few things she had meant to take +away were secreted in a safe place some distance from the house, beside +the path she meant to take when she left Jean Jacques for ever. George +Masson wanted her, they were to meet to-day, and she was going--going +somewhere out of this intolerable dullness and discontent. + +When she pushed her coffee-cup aside and rose from the table without +eating, she went straight to her looking-glass and surveyed herself with +a searching eye. Certainly she was young enough (she said to herself) to +draw the eyes of those who cared for youth and beauty. There was not a +grey hair in the dark brown of her head, there was not a wrinkle--yes, +there were two at the corners of her mouth, which told the story of her +restlessness, of her hunger for the excitement of which she had been +deprived all these years. To go back to Cadiz?--oh, anywhere, anywhere, +so that her blood could beat faster; so that she could feel the stir of +life which had made her spirit flourish even in the dangers of the far- +off day when Gonzales was by her side. + +She looked at her guitar. She was sorry she could not take that away +with her. But Jean Jacques would, no doubt, send it after her with his +curse. She would love to play it once again with the old thrill; with +the thrill she had felt on the night of Zoe's birthday a little while +ago, when she was back again with her lover and the birds in the gardens +of Granada. She would sing to someone who cared to hear her, and to +someone who would make her care to sing, which was far more important. +She would sing to the master-carpenter. Though he had not asked her to +go with him--only to meet in a secret place in the hills--she meant to do +so, just as she once meant to marry Jean Jacques, and had done so. It +was true she would probably not have married Jean Jacques, if it had not +been for the wreck of the Antoine; but the wreck had occurred, and she +had married him, and that was done and over so far as she was concerned. +She had determined to go away with the master-carpenter, and though he +might feel the same hesitation as that which Jean Jacques had shown--she +had read her Norman aright aboard the Antoine--yet, still, George Masson +should take her away. A catastrophe had thrown Jean Jacques into her +arms; it would not be a catastrophe which would throw the master- +carpenter into her arms. It would be that they wanted each other. + +The mirror gave her a look of dominance--was it her regular features and +her classic head? Does beauty in itself express authority, just because +it has the transcendent thing in it? Does the perfect form convey +something of the same thing that physical force--an army in arms, a +battleship--conveys? In any case it was there, that inherent +masterfulness, though not in its highest form. She was not an +aristocrat, she was no daughter of kings, no duchess of Castile, no +dona of Segovia; and her beauty belonged to more primary manifestations; +but it was above the lower forms, even if it did not reach to the +highest. "A handsome even splendid woman of her class" would have been +the judgment of the connoisseur. + +As she looked in the glass at her clear skin, at the wonderful throat +showing so soft and palpable and tower-like under the black velvet ribbon +brightened by a paste ornament; as she saw the smooth breadth of brow, +the fulness of the lips, the limpid lustre of the large eyes, the well- +curved ear, so small and so like ivory, it came home to her, as it had +never done before, that she was wasted in this obscure parish of St. +Saviour's. + +There was not a more restless soul or body in all the hemisphere than the +soul and body of Carmen Barbille, as she went from this to that on the +morning when Jean Jacques had refrained from killing the soul-disturber, +the master-carpenter, who had with such skill destroyed the walls and +foundations of his home. Carmen was pointlessly busy as she watched for +the return of Jean Jacques. + +At last she saw him coming from the flume of the mill! She saw that he +stumbled as he walked, and that, every now and then, he lifted his head +with an effort and threw it back, and threw his shoulders back also, as +though to assert his physical manhood. He wore no hat, his hands were +making involuntary gestures of helplessness. But presently he seemed to +assert authority over his fumbling body and to come erect. His hands +clenched at his sides, his head came up stiffly and stayed, and with +quickened footsteps he marched rigidly forward towards the Manor. + +Then she guessed at the truth, and as soon as she saw his face she was +sure beyond peradventure that he knew. + +His figure darkened the doorway. Her first thought was to turn and flee, +not because she was frightened of what he would do, but because she did +not wish to hear what he would say. She shrank from the uprolling of the +curtain of the last thirteen years, from the grim exposure of the +nakedness of their life together. Her indolent nature in repose wanted +the dust of existence swept into a corner out of sight; yet when she was +roused, and there were no corners into which the dust could be swept, +she could be as bold as any better woman. + +She hesitated till it was too late to go, and then as he entered the +house from the staring sunlight and the peace of the morning, she +straightened herself, and a sulky, stubborn look came into her eyes. +He might try to kill her, but she had seen death in many forms far away +in Spain, and she would not be afraid till there was cause. Imagination +would not take away her courage. She picked up a half-knitted stocking +which lay upon the table, and standing there, while he came into the +middle of the room, she began to ply the needles. + +He stood still. Her face was bent over her knitting. She did not look +at him. + +"Well, why don't you look at me?" he asked in a voice husky with +passion. + +She raised her head and looked straight into his dark, distracted eyes. + +"Good morning," she said calmly. + +A kind of snarling laugh came to his lips. "I said good morning to my +wife yesterday, but I will not say it to-day. What is the use of saying +good morning, when the morning is not good!" + +"That's logical, anyhow," she said, her needles going faster now. She +was getting control of them--and of herself. + +"Why isn't the morning good? Speak. Why isn't it good, Carmen?" + +"Quien sabe--who knows!" she replied with exasperating coolness. + +"I know--I know all; and it is enough for a lifetime," he challenged. + +"What do you know--what is the 'all'?" Her voice had lost timbre. It +was suddenly weak, but from suspense and excitement rather than from +fear. + +"I saw you last night with him, by the river. I saw what you did. I +heard you say, 'Yes, to-morrow, for sure.' I saw what you did." + +Her eyes were busy with the knitting now. She did not know what to say. +Then, he had known all since the night before! He knew it when he +pretended that his head ached--knew it as he lay by her side all night. +He knew it, and said nothing! But what had he done--what had he done? +She waited for she knew not what. George Masson was to come and inspect +the flume early that morning. Had he come? She had not seen him. But +the river was flowing through the flume: she could hear the mill-wheel +turning--she could hear the mill-wheel turning! + +As she did not speak, with a curious husky shrillness to his voice he +said: "There he was down in the flume, there was I at the lever above, +there was the mill-wheel unlocked. There it was. I gripped the lever, +and--" + +Her great eyes stared with horror. The knitting-needles stopped; +a pallor swept across her face. She felt as she did when she heard the +court-martial sentence Carvillho Gonzales to death. + +The mill-wheel sounded louder and louder in her ears. + +"You let in the river!" she cried. "You drove him into the wheel--you +killed him!" + +"What else was there to do?" he demanded. "It had to be done, and it +was the safest way. It would be an accident. Such a thing might easily +happen." + +"You have murdered him!" she gasped with a wild look. + +"To call it murder!" he sneered. "Surely my wife would not call it +murder." + +"Fiend--not to have the courage to fight him!" she flung back at him. +"To crawl like a snake and let loose a river on a man! In any other +country, he'd have been given a chance." + +This was his act in a new light. He had had only one idea in his mind +when he planned the act, and that was punishment. What rights had a man +who had stolen what was nearer and dearer than a man's own flesh, and for +which he would have given his own flesh fifty times? Was it that Carmen +would now have him believe he ought to have fought the man, who had +spoiled his life and ruined a woman's whole existence. + +"What chance had I when he robbed me in the dark of what is worth fifty +times my own life to me?" he asked savagely. + +"Murderer--murderer!" she cried hoarsely. "You shall pay for this." + +"You will tell--you will give me up?" + +Her eyes were on the mill and the river . . . "Where--where is he? +Has he gone down the river? Did you kill him and let him go--like that!" + +She made a flinging gesture, as one would toss a stone. + +He stared at her. He had never seen her face like that--so strained and +haggard. George Masson was right when he said that she would give him +up; that his life would be in danger, and that his child's life would be +spoiled. + +"Murderer!" she repeated. "And when you go to the gallows, your child's +life--you did not think of that, eh? To have your revenge on the man who +was no more to blame than I, thinking only of yourself, you killed him; +but you did not think of your child." + +Ah, yes, surely George Masson was right! That was what he had said about +his child, Zoe. What a good thing it was he had not killed the ravager +of his home! + +But suddenly his logic came to his aid. In terrible misery as he was, he +was almost pleased that he could reason. "And you would give me over to +the law? You would send me to the gallows--and spoil your child's life?" +he retorted. + +She threw the knitting down and flung her hands up. "I have no husband. +I have no child. Take your life. Take it. I will go and find his +body," she said, and she moved swiftly towards the door. "He has gone +down the river--I will find him!" + +"He has gone up the river," he exclaimed. "Up the river, I say!" + +She stopped short and looked at him blankly. Then his meaning became +clear to her. + +"You did not kill him?" she asked scarce above a whisper. + +"I let him go," he replied. + +"You did not fight him--why?" There was scorn in her tone. + +"And if I had killed him that way?" he asked with terrible logic, as he +thought. + +"There was little chance of that," she replied scornfully, and steadied +herself against a chair; for, now that the suspense was over, she felt as +though she had been passed between stones which ground the strength out +of her. + +A flush of fierce resentment crossed over his face. "It is not +everything to be big," he rejoined. "The greatest men in the world have +been small like me, but they have brought the giant things to their +feet." + +She waved a hand disdainfully. "What are you going to do now?" she +asked. + +He drew himself up. He seemed to rearrange the motions of his mind +with a little of the old vanity, which was at once grotesque and piteous. +"I am going to forgive you and to try to put things right," he said. +"I have had my faults. You were not to blame altogether. I have left +you too much alone. I did not understand everything all through. I had +never studied women. If I had I should have done the right thing always. +I must begin to study women." The drawn look was going a little from his +face, the ghastly pain was fading from his eyes; his heart was speaking +for her, while his vain intellect hunted the solution of his problem. + +She could scarcely believe her ears. No Spaniard would ever have acted +as this man was doing. She had come from a land of No Forgiveness. +Carvillho Gonzales would have killed her, if she had been untrue to him; +and she would have expected it and understood it. + +But Jean Jacques was going to forgive her--going to study women, and so +understand her and understand women, as he understood philosophy! This +was too fantastic for human reason. She stared at him, unable to say a +word, and the distracted look in her face did not lessen. Forgiveness +did not solve her problem. + +"I am going to take you to Montreal--and then out to Winnipeg, when I've +got the cheese-factory going," he said with a wise look in his face, and +with tenderness even coming into his eyes. "I know what mistakes I've +made"--had not George Masson the despoiler told him of them?--"and I know +what a scoundrel that fellow is, and what tricks of the tongue he has. +Also he is as sleek to look at as a bull, and so he got a hold on you. +I grasp things now. Soon we will start away together again as we did at +Gaspe." + +He came close to her. "Carmen!" he said, and made as though he would +embrace her. + +"Wait--wait a little. Give me time to think," she said with dry lips, +her heart beating hard. Then she added with a flattery which she knew +would tell, "I cannot think quick as you do. I am slow. I must have +time. I want to work it all out. Wait till to-night," she urged. +"Then we can--" + +"Good, we will make it all up to-night," he said, and he patted her +shoulder as one would that of a child. It had the slight flavour of the +superior and the paternal. + +She almost shrank from his touch. If he had kissed her she would have +felt that she must push him away; and yet she also knew how good a man he +was. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE CLERK OF THE COURT KEEPS A PROMISE + +"Well, what is it, M'sieu' Fille? What do you want with me? I've got a +lot to do before sundown, and it isn't far off. Out with it." + +George Masson was in no good humour; from the look on the face of the +little Clerk of the Court he had no idea that he would disclose any good +news. It was probably some stupid business about "money not being paid +into the Court," which had been left over from cases tried and lost; +and he had had a number of cases that summer. His head was not so clear +to-day as usual, but he had had little difficulties with M'sieu' Fille +before, and he was sure that there was something wrong now. + +"Do you want to make me a present?" he added with humorous impatience, +for though he was not in a good temper, he liked the Clerk of the Court, +who was such a figure at Vilray. + +The opening for his purpose did not escape M. Fille. He had been at a +loss to begin, but here was a natural opportunity for him. + +"Well, good advice is not always a present, but I should like mine to be +taken as such, monsieur," he said a little oracularly. + +"Oh, advice--to give me advice--that's why you've brought me in here, +when I've so much to do I can't breathe! Time is money with me, old +'un." + +"Mine is advice which may be money in your pocket, monsieur," remarked +the Clerk of the Court with meaning. "Money saved is money earned." +"How do you mean to save me money--by getting the Judge to give decisions +in my favour? That would be money in my pocket for sure. The Court has +been running against my interests this year. When I think I was never so +right in my life--bang goes the judgment of the Court against me, and +into my pocket goes my hand. I don't only need to save money, I need to +make it; so if you can help me in that way I'm your man, M'sieu' la +Fillette?" + +The little man bristled at the misuse of his name, and he flushed +slightly also; but there was always something engaging in the pleasure- +loving master-carpenter. He had such an eloquent and warm temperament, +the atmosphere of his personality was so genial, that his impertinence +was insulated. Certainly the master-carpenter was not unpopular, and +people could not easily resist the grip of his physical influence, while +mentally he was far indeed from being deficient. He looked as little +like a villain as a man could, and yet--and yet--a nature like that of +George Masson (even the little Clerk could see that) was not capable of +being true beyond the minute in which he took his oath of fidelity. +While the fit of willingness was on him he would be true; yet in reality +there was no truth at all--only self-indulgence unmarked by duty or +honour. + +"Give me a judgment for defamation of character. Give me a thousand +dollars or so for that, m'sieu', and you'll do a good turn to a deserving +fellow-citizen and admirer--one little thousand, that's all, m'sieu'. +Then I'll dance at your wedding and weep at your tomb--so there!" + +How easy he made the way for the little Clerk of the Court! "Defamation +of character"--could there possibly be a better opening for what he had +promised Judge Carcasson he would say! + +"Ah, Monsieur Masson," very officially and decorously replied M. Fille, +"but is it defamation of character? If the thing is true, then what is +the judgment? It goes against you--so there!" There was irony in the +last words. + +"If what thing is true?" sharply asked the mastercarpenter, catching at +the fringe of the idea in M. Fille's mind. "What thing?" + +"Ah, but it is true, for I saw it! Yes, alas! I saw it with my own +eyes. By accident of course; but there it was--absolute, uncompromising, +deadly and complete." + +It was a happy moment for the little Clerk of the Court when he could, in +such an impromptu way, coin a phrase, or a set of adjectives, which would +bear inspection of purists of the language. He loved to talk, though he +did not talk a great deal, but he made innumerable conversations in his +mind, and that gave him facility when he did speak. He had made +conversations with George Masson in his mind since yesterday, when he +gave his promise to Judge Carcasson; but none of them was like the real +conversation now taking place. It was all the impression of the moment, +while the phrases in his mind had been wonderfully logical things which, +from an intellectual standpoint, would have delighted the man whose cause +he was now engaged in defending. + +"You saw what, M'sieu' la Fillette? Out with it, and don't use such big +adjectives. I'm only a carpenter. 'Absolute, uncompromising, deadly, +complete'--that's a mouthful of grammar, my lords! Come, my sprig of +jurisprudence, tell us what you saw." There was an apparent nervousness +in Masson's manner now. Indeed he showed more agitation than when, a few +hours before, Jean Jacques had stood with his hand on the lever of the +gates of the flume, and the life of the master-carpenter at his feet, to +be kicked into eternity. + +"Four days ago at five o'clock in the afternoon"--in a voice formal and +exact, the little Clerk of the Court seemed to be reading from a paper, +since he kept his eyes fixed on the blotter before him, as he did in +Court--"I was coming down the hill behind the Manor Cartier, when my +attention--by accident--was drawn to a scene below me in the Manor. I +stopped short, of course, and--" + +"Diable! You stopped short 'of course' before what you saw! Spit it +out--what did you see?" George Masson had had a trying day, and there +was danger of losing control of himself. There was a whiteness growing +round the eyes, and eating up the warmth of the cheek; his admirably +smooth brow was contracted into heavy wrinkles, and a foot shifted +uneasily on the floor with a scraping sole. This drew the attention of +M. Fille, who raised his head reprovingly--he could not get rid of the +feeling that he was in court, and that a case was being tried; and the +severity of a Judge is naught compared with the severity of a Clerk of +the Court, particularly if he is small and unmarried, and has no one to +beat him into manageable humanity. + +M. Fille's voice was almost querulous. + +"If you will but be patient, monsieur! I saw a man with a woman in his +arms, and I fear that I must mention the name of the man. It is not +necessary to give the name of the woman, but I have it written here"-- +he tapped the paper--"and there is no mistake in the identity. The man's +name is George Masson, master-carpenter, of the town of Laplatte in the +province of Quebec." + +George Masson was as one hit between the eyes. He made a motion as +though to ward off a blow. "Name of Peter, old cock!" he exclaimed +abruptly. "You saw enough certainly, if you saw that, and you needn't +mention the lady's name, as you say. The evidence is not merely +circumstantial. You saw it with your own eyes, and you are an official +of the Court, and have the ear of the Judge, and you look like a saint to +a jury. Well for sure, I can't prove defamation of character, as you +say. But what then--what do you want?" + +"What I want I hope you may be able to grant without demur, monsieur. +I want you to give your pledge on the Book"--he laid his hand on a +Testament lying on the table--"that you will hold no further +communication with the lady." + +"Where do you come inhere? What's your standing in the business?" +Masson jerked out his words now. The Clerk of the Court made a reproving +gesture. "Knowing what I did, what I had seen, it was clear that I must +approach one or other of the parties concerned. Out of regard for the +lady I could not approach her husband, and so betray her; out of regard +for the husband I could not approach himself and destroy his peace; out +of regard for all concerned I could not approach the lady's father, for +then--" + +Masson interrupted with an oath. + +"That old reprobate of Cadiz--well no, bagosh! + +"And so you whisked me into your office with the talk of urgent business +and--" + +"Is not the business urgent, monsieur?" + +"Not at all," was the sharp reply of the culprit. + +"Monsieur, you shock me. Do you consider that your conduct is not +criminal? I have here"--he placed his hand on a book--"the Statutes of +Victoria, and it lays down with wholesome severity the law concerning the +theft of the affection of a wife, with the accompanying penalty, going as +high as twenty thousand dollars." + +George Masson gasped. Here was a new turn of affairs. But he set his +teeth. + +"Twenty thousand dollars--think of that!" he sneered angrily. + +"That is what I said, monsieur. I said I could save you money, and money +saved is money earned. I am your benefactor, if you will but permit me +to be so, monsieur. I would save you from the law, and from the damages +which the law gives. Can you not guess what would be given in a court of +the Catholic province of Quebec, against the violation of a good man's +home? Do you not see that the business is urgent?" + +"Not at all," curtly replied the master-carpenter. M. Fille bridled up, +and his spare figure seemed to gain courage and dignity. + +"If you think I will hold my peace unless you give your sacred pledge, +you are mistaken, monsieur. I am no meddler, but I have had much +kindness at the hands of Monsieur and Madame Barbille, and I will do what +I can to protect them and their daughter--that good and sweet daughter, +from the machinations, corruptions and malfeasance--" + +"Three damn good words for the Court, bagosh!" exclaimed Masson with a +jeer. + +"No, with a man devoid of honour, I shall not hesitate, for the Manor +Cartier has been the home of domestic peace, and madame, who came to us a +stranger, deserves well of the people of that ancient abode of chivalry- +the chivalry of France." + +"When we are wound up, what a humming we can make!" laughed George +Masson sourly. "Have you quite finished, m'sieu'?" + +"The matter is urgent, you will admit, monsieur?" again demanded M. +Fille with austerity. + +"Not at all." + +The master-carpenter was defiant and insolent, yet there was a devilish +kind of humour in his tone as in his attitude. + +"You will not heed the warning I give?" The little Clerk pointed to the +open page of the Victorian statutes before him. + +"Not at all." + +"Then I shall, with profound regret--" + +Suddenly George Masson thrust his face forward near that of M. Fille, who +did not draw back. + +"You will inform the Court that the prisoner refuses to incriminate +himself, eh?" he interjected. + +"No, monsieur, I will inform Monsieur Barbille of what I saw. I will do +this without delay. It is the one thing left me to do." + +In quite a grand kind of way he stood up and bowed, as though to dismiss +his visitor. + +As George Masson did not move, the other went to the door and opened it. +"It is the only thing left to do," he repeated, as he made a gentle +gesture of dismissal. + +"Not at all, my legal bombardier. Not at all, I say. All you know Jean +Jacques knows, and a good deal more--what he has seen with his own eyes, +and understood with his own mind, without legal help. So, you see, +you've kept me here talking when there's no need and while my business +waits. It is urgent, M'sieu' la Fillette--your business is stale. It +belongs to last session of the Court." He laughed at his joke. "M'sieu' +Jean Jacques and I understand each other." He laughed grimly now. "We +know each other like a book, and the Clerk of the Court couldn't get in +an adjective that would make the sense of it all clearer." + +Slowly M. Fille shut the door, and very slowly he came back. Almost +blindly, as it might seem, and with a moan, he dropped into his chair. +His eyes fixed themselves on George Masson. + +"Ah--that!" he said helplessly. "That! The little Zoe--dear God, the +little Zoe, and the poor madame!" His voice was aching with pain and +repugnance. + +"If you were not such an icicle naturally, I'd be thinking your interest +in the child was paternal," said the master-carpenter roughly, for the +virtuous horror of the other's face annoyed him. He had had a vexing +day. + +The Clerk of the Court was on his feet in a second. "Monsieur, you +dare!" he exclaimed. "You dare to multiply your crimes in that shameless +way. Begone! There are those who can make you respect decency. I am +not without my friends, and we all stand by each other in our love of +home--of sacred home, monsieur." + +There was something right in the master-carpenter at the bottom, with all +his villainy. It was not alone that he knew there were fifty men in the +Parish of St. Saviour's who would man-handle him for such a suggestion, +and for what he had done at the Manor Cartier, if they were roused; but +he also had a sudden remorse for insulting the man who, after all, had +tried to do him a service. His amende was instant. + +"I take it back with humble apology--all I can hold in both hands, +m'sieu'," he said at once. "I would not insult you so, much less Madame +Barbille. If she'd been like what I've hinted at, I wouldn't have gone +her way, for the promiscuous is not for me. I'll tell you the whole +truth of what happened to-day this morning. Last night I met her at the +river, and--"Then briefly he told all that had happened to the moment +when Jean Jacques had left him at the flume with the words, "Moi, je suis +philosophe!" And at the last he said: + +"I give you my word--my oath on this"--he laid his hand on the Testament +on the table--"that beyond what you saw, and what Jean Jacques saw, there +has been nothing." He held up a hand as though taking an oath. + +"Name of God, is it not enough what there has been?" whispered the +little Clerk. + +"Oh, as you think, and as you say! It is quite enough for me after to- +day. I'm a teetotaller, but I'm not so fond of water as to want to take +my eternal bath in it." He shuddered slightly. "Bien sur, I've had my +fill of the Manor Cartier for one day, my Clerk of the Court." + +"Bien sur, it was enough to set you thinking, monsieur," was the dry +comment of M. Fille, who was now recovering his composure. + +At that moment there came a knock at the door, and another followed +quickly; then there entered without waiting for a reply--Carmen Barbille. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE MASTER-CARPENTER HAS A PROBLEM + +The Clerk of the Court came to his feet with a startled "Merci!" and the +master-carpenter fell back with a smothered exclamation. Both men stared +confusedly at the woman as she shut the door slowly and, as it might +seem, carefully, before she faced them. + +"Here I am, George," she said, her face alive with vital adventure. + +His face was instantly swept by a storm of feeling for her, his nature +responded to the sound of her voice and the passion of her face. + +"Carmen--ah !" he said, and took a step forward, then stopped. The +hoarse feeling in his voice made her eyes flash gratitude and triumph, +and she waited for him to take her in his arms; but she suddenly +remembered M. Fille. She turned to him. + +"I am sorry to intrude, m'sieu'," she said. "I beg your pardon. They +told me at the office of avocat Prideaux that M'sieu' Masson was here. +So I came; but be sure I would not interrupt you if there was not cause." + +M. Fille came forward and took her hand respectfully. "Madame, it is the +first time you have honoured me here. I am very glad to receive you. +Monsieur and Mademoiselle Zoe, they are with you? They will also come in +perhaps?" + +M. Fille was courteous and kind, yet he felt that a duty was devolving on +him, imposed by his superior officer, Judge Carcasson, and by his own +conscience, and with courage he faced the field of trouble which his +simple question opened up. George Masson had but now said there had been +nothing more than he himself had seen from the hill behind the Manor; and +he had further said, in effect, that all was ended between Carmen +Barbille and himself; yet here they were together, when they ought to be +a hundred miles apart for many a day. Besides, there was the look in the +woman's face, and that intense look also in the face of the master- +carpenter! The Clerk of the Court, from sheer habit of his profession, +watched human faces as other people watch the weather, or the rise or +fall in the price of wheat and potatoes. He was an archaic little +official, and apparently quite unsophisticated; yet there was hidden +behind his ascetic face a quiet astuteness which would have been a +valuable asset to a worldly-minded and ambitious man. Besides, affection +sharpens the wits. Through it the hovering, protecting sense becomes +instinctive, and prescience takes on uncanny certainty. He had a real +and deep affection for Jean Jacques and his Carmen, and a deeper one +still for the child Zoe; and the danger to the home at the Manor Cartier +now became again as sharp as the knife of the guillotine. His eyes ran +from the woman to the man, and back again, and then with great courage he +repeated his question: + +"Monsieur and mademoiselle, they are well--they are with you, I hope, +madame?" + +She looked at him in the eyes without flinching, and on the instant she +was aware that he knew all, and that there had been talk with George +Masson. She knew the little man to be as good as ever can be, but she +resented the fact that he knew. It was clear George Masson had told him +--else how could he know; unless, perhaps, all the world knew! + +"You know well enough that I have come alone, my friend," she answered. +"It is no place for Zoe; and it is no place for my husband and him +together "she made a motion of the head towards the mastercarpenter. +"Santa Maria, you know it very well indeed!" + +The Clerk of the Court bowed, but made no reply. What was there to say +to a remark like that! It was clear that the problem must be worked out +alone between these two people, though he was not quite sure what the +problem was. The man had said the thing was over; but the woman had +come, and the look of both showed that it was not all over. + +What would the man do? What was it the woman wished to do? The master- +carpenter had said that Jean Jacques had spared him, and meant to forgive +his wife. No doubt he had done so, for Jean Jacques was a man of +sentiment and chivalry, and there was no proof that there had been +anything more than a few mad caresses between the two misdemeanants; yet +here was the woman with the man for whom she had imperilled her future +and that of her husband and child! + +As though Carmen understood what was going on in his mind, she said: +"Since you know everything, you can understand that I want a few words +with M'sieu' George here alone." + +"Madame, I beg of you," the Clerk of the Court answered instantly, his +voice trembling a little--"I beg that you will not be alone with him. As +I believe, your husband is willing to let bygones be bygones, and to +begin to-morrow as though there was no to-day. In such case you should +not see Monsieur Masson here alone. It is bad enough to see him here in +the office of the Clerk of the Court, but to see him alone--what would +Monsieur Jean Jacques say? Also, outside there in the street, if our +neighbours should come to know of the trouble, what would they say? I +wish not to be tiresome, but as a friend, a true friend of your whole +family, madame--yes, in spite of all, your whole family--I hope you will +realize that I must remain here. I owe it to a past made happy by +kindness which is to me like life itself. Monsieur Masson, is it not +so?" he added, turning to the master-carpenter. More flushed and +agitated than when he had faced Jean Jacques in the flume, the master- +carpenter said: "If she wants a few words-of farewell--alone with me, she +must have it, M'sieu' Fille. The other room--eh? Outside there"--he +jerked a finger towards the street--"they won't know that you are not +with us; and as for Jean Jacques, isn't it possible for a Clerk of the +Court to stretch the truth a little? Isn't the Clerk of the Court a man +as well as a mummy? I'd do as much for you, little lawyer, any time. A +word to say farewell, you understand!" He looked M. Fille squarely in +the eye. + +"If I had to answer M. Jean Jacques on such a matter--and so much at +stake--" + +Masson interrupted. "Well, if you like we'll bind your eyes and put wads +in your ears, and you can stay, so that you'll have been in the room all +the time, and yet have heard and seen nothing at all. How is that, +m'sieu'? It's all right, isn't it?" + +M. Fille stood petrified for a moment at the audacity of the proposition. +For him, the Clerk of the Court, to be blinded and made ridiculous with +wads in his ears-impossible! + +"Grace of Heaven, I would prefer to lie!" he answered quickly. "I will +go into the next room, but I beg that you be brief, monsieur and madame. +You owe it to yourselves and to the situation to be brief, and, if I may +say so, you owe it to me. I am not a practised Ananias." + +"As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, m'sieu'," returned Masson. + +"I must beg that you will make your farewells of a minute and no more," +replied the Clerk of the Court firmly. He took out his watch. "It is +six o'clock. I will come again at three minutes past six. That is long +enough for any farewell--even on the gallows." + +Not daring to look at the face of the woman, he softly disappeared into +the other room, and shut the door without a sound. + +"Too good for this world," remarked the master-carpenter when the door +closed tight. He said it after the disappearing figure and not to +Carmen. "I don't suppose he ever kissed a real grown-up woman in his +life. It would have shattered his frail little carcass if, if"--he +turned to his companion--"if you had kissed him, Carmen. He's made of +tissue-paper,--not tissue--and apple-jelly. Yes, but a stiff little +backbone, too, or he'd not have faced me down." + +Masson talked as though he were trying to gain time. "He said three +minutes," she returned with a look of death in her face. As George +Masson had talked with the Clerk of the Court, she had come to see, in so +far as agitation would permit, that he was not the same as when he left +her by the river the evening before. + +"There's no time to waste," she continued. "You spoke of farewells-- +twice you spoke, and three times he spoke of farewells between us. +Farewells--farewells--George--!" + +With sudden emotion she held out her arms, and her face flushed with +passion and longing. + +The tempest which shook her shook him also, and he swayed from side to +side like an animal uncertain if the moment had come to try its strength +with its foe; and in truth the man was fighting with himself. His +moments with Jean Jacques at the flume had expanded him in a curious kind +of way. His own arguments while he was fighting for his life had, in a +way, convinced himself. She was a rare creature, and she was alluring-- +more alluring than she had ever been; for a tragic sense had made her +thinner, had refined the boldness of her beauty, had given a wonderful +lustre to her eyes; and suffering has its own attraction to the +degenerate. But he, George Masson, had had a great shock, and he had +come out of the jaws of death by the skin of his teeth. It had been the +nearest thing he had ever known; for though once he had had a pistol +pointed at him, there was the chance that it might miss at half-a-dozen +yards, while there was no chance of the lever of the flume going wrong; +and water and a mill-wheel were as absolute as the rope of the gallows. + +In a sense he had saved himself by his cleverness, but if Jean Jacques +had not been just the man he was, he could not have saved himself. It +did not occur to him that Jean Jacques had acted weakly. He would not +have done what Jean Jacques had done, had Jean Jacques spoiled his home. +He would have sprung the lever; but he was not so mean as to despise Jean +Jacques because he had foregone his revenge. This master-carpenter had +certain gifts, or he could not have caused so much trouble in the world. +There is a kind of subtlety necessary to allure or delude even the +humblest of women, if she is not naturally bad; and Masson had had +experiences with the humblest, and also with those a little higher up. +This much had to be said for him, that he did not think Jean Jacques +contemptible because he had been merciful, or degraded because he had +chosen to forgive his wife. + +The sight of the woman, as she stood with arms outstretched, had made his +pulses pound in his veins, but the heat was suddenly chilled by the wave +of tragedy which had passed over him. When he had climbed out of the +flume, and opened the lever for the river to rush through, he had felt as +though ice--cold liquid flowed in his veins, not blood; and all day he +had been like that. He had moved much as one in a dream, and he had felt +for the first time in his life that he was not ready to bluff creation. +He had always faced things down, as long as it could be done; and when it +could not, he had retreated, with the comment that no man was wise who +took gruel when he needn't. He was now face to face with his greatest +problem. One thing was clear--they must either part for ever, or go +together, and part no more. There could be no half measures. She was +a remarkable woman in her way, with a will of her own, and a kind of +madness in her; and there could be no backing and filling. They only +had three minutes to talk together alone, and two of them were up. + +Her arms were held out to him, but he stood still, and before the fire of +her eyes his own eyes dropped. "No, not yet!" he exclaimed. "It's been +a day--heaven and hell, what a day it's been! He had me like that!" 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 years old. She will soon be old enough to keep house for him, +and then to marry--ah, before there is time to think she will marry!" + +"It would be better then for you to wait till she marries before-- +before--" + +"Before I go away with you!" She gave a shrill, agonized laugh. "So +that is the end of it all! What did you think of my child when you +forced your way into my life, when you made me think of you--ah, quel +bete--what a coward and beast you are!" + +"No, I am not all coward, though I may be a beast," he answered. +"I didn't think of your child when I began to talk to you as I did. I +was out for all I could get. I was the hunter. And you were the finest +woman that I'd ever met and talked with; you--" + +"Oh, stop lying!" she cried with a face suddenly grown white and cold. + +"It isn't lying. You're the sort of woman to drive men mad. I went mad, +and I didn't think of your child. But this morning in the flume I saved +my life by thinking of her, and I saved your life, too, maybe, by +thinking of her; and I owe her something. I'm going to try to pay back +by letting her keep her mother. I never felt towards a woman as I've +felt towards you; and that's why I want to make things not so bad for you +as they might be." + +In her bitter eagerness she took a step nearer to him. "As things might +be, if you were the man you were yesterday, willing to throw up +everything for me?" + +"Like that--if you put it so," he answered. + +She walked slowly up to him, looking as though she would plunge a knife +into his heart. "I wish Jean Jacques had opened the gates," she said. +"It would have saved the hangman trouble." + +Then suddenly, and with a cry, she raised her hand and struck him full in +the face with her fist. At that instant came a tap at the door of the +other room, and the Clerk of the Court appeared. He saw the blow, and +drew back with an exclamation. + +Carmen turned to him. "Farewell has been said, M'sieu' Fille," she +remarked in a voice sombre with rage and despair, and she went to the +door leading to the street. + +Masson had winced at the blow, but he remained silent. He knew not what +to say or do. + +M. Fille hastily followed Carmen to the door. "You are going home, +dear madame? Permit me to accompany you," he said gently. "I have to +do business with Jean Jacques." + +A hand upon his chest, she pushed him back. "Where I go I'm going +alone," she said. Opening the door she went out, but turning back again +she gave George Masson a look that he never forgot. Then the door +closed. + +"Grace of God, she is not going home!" brokenly murmured the Clerk of +the Court. + +With a groan the master-carpenter started forward towards the door, but +M. Fille stepped between, laid a hand on his arm, and stopped him. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit often +Enjoy his own generosity +Had the slight flavour of the superior and the paternal +He had only made of his wife an incident in his life +He was in fact not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist +He was not always sorry when his teasing hurt +Lacks a balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough +Man who tells the story in a new way, that is genius +Missed being a genius by an inch +Not content to do even the smallest thing ill +You went north towards heaven and south towards hell + + + + + + +THE MONEY MASTER + +By Gilbert Parker + + + +EPOCH THE THIRD + +XIII. THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE +XIV. "I DO NOT WANT TO GO" +XV. BON MARCHE + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE MAN FROM OUTSIDE + + "Oh, who will walk the wood with me, + I fear to walk alone; + So young am I, as you may see; + No dangers have I known. + So young, so small--ah, yes, m'sieu', + I'll walk the wood with you!" + + +In the last note of the song applause came instantaneously, almost +impatiently, as it might seem. With cries of "Encore! Encore!" it +lasted some time, while the happy singer looked around with frank +pleasure on the little group encircling her in the Manor Cartier. + +"Did you like it so much?" she asked in a general way, and not looking +at any particular person. A particular person, however, replied, and she +had addressed the question to him, although not looking at him. He was +the Man from Outside, and he sat near the bright wood-fire; for though it +was almost June the night was cool and he was delicate. + +"Ah, but splendid, but splendid--it got into every corner of every one of +us," the Man from Outside responded, speaking his fluent French with a +slight English accent, which had a pleasant piquancy--at least to the +ears of the pretty singer, Mdlle. Zoe Barbille. He was a man of about +thirty-three, clean-shaven, dark-haired, with an expression of +cleverness; yet with an irresponsible something about him which M. Fille +had reflected upon with concern. For this slim, eager, talkative, half- +invalid visitor to St. Saviour's had of late shown a marked liking for +the presence and person of Zoe Barbille; and Zoe was as dear to M. Fille +as though she were his own daughter. He it was who, in sarcasm, had +spoken of this young stranger as "The Man from Outside." + +Ever since Zoe's mother had vanished--alone--seven years before from the +Manor Cartier, or rather from his office at Vilray, M. Fille had been as +much like a maiden aunt or a very elder brother to the Spanische's +daughter as a man could be. Of M. Fille's influence over his daughter +and her love of his companionship, Jean Jacques had no jealousy whatever. +Very often indeed, when he felt incompetent to do for his child all that +he wished--philosophers are often stupid in human affairs--he thought it +was a blessing Zoe had a friend like M. Fille. Since the terrible day +when he found that his wife had gone from him--not with the master- +carpenter who only made his exit from Laplatte some years afterwards--he +had had no desire to have a woman at the Manor to fill her place, even as +housekeeper. He had never swerved from that. He had had a hard row to +hoe, but he had hoed it with a will not affected by domestic accidents or +inconveniences. The one woman from outside whom he permitted to go and +come at will--and she did not come often, because she and M. Fille agreed +it would be best not to do so--was the sister of the Cure. To be sure +there was Seraphe Corniche, the old cook, but she was buried in her +kitchen, and Jean Jacques treated her like a man. + +When Zoe was confirmed, and had come back from Montreal, having spent two +years in a convent there--the only time she had been away from her father +in seven years--having had her education chiefly from a Catholic +"brother," the situation developed in a new way. Zoe at once became +as conspicuous in the country-side as her father had been over so many +years. She was fresh, volatile, without affectation or pride, and had +a temperament responsive to every phase of life's simple interests. +She took the attention of the young men a little bit as her due, but yet +without conceit. The gallants had come about her like bees, for there +was Jean Jacques' many businesses and his reputation for wealth; and +there was her own charm, concerning which there could be far less doubt +than about Jean Jacques' magnificent solvency. + +Zoe had gone heart-whole and with no especial preference for any young +man, until the particular person came, the Man from Outside. + +His name was Gerard Fynes, and his business was mumming. He was a young +lawyer turned actor, and he had lived in Montreal before he went on the +stage. He was English--that was a misfortune; he was an actor--that was +a greater misfortune, for it suggested vagabondage of morals as well as +of profession; and he was a Protestant, which was the greatest misfortune +of all. But he was only at St. Saviour's for his convalescence after a +so-called attack of congestion of the lungs; and as he still had a slight +cough and looked none too robust, and as, more than all, he was simple +in his ways, enjoying the life of the parish with greater zest than the +residents, he found popularity. Undoubtedly he had a taking way with +him. He was lodging with Louis Charron, a small farmer and kinsman of +Jean Jacques, who sold whisky--"white whisky"--without a license. It was +a Charron family habit to sell liquor illegally, and Louis pursued the +career with all an amateur's enthusiasm. He had a sovereign balm for +"colds," composed of camomile flowers, boneset, liquorice, pennyroyal and +gentian root, which he sold to all comers; and it was not unnatural that +a visitor with weak lungs should lodge with him. + +Louis and his wife had only good things to say about Gerard Fynes; for +the young man lived their life as though he was born to it. He ate the +slap-jacks, the buttermilk-pop, the pork and beans, the Indian corn on +the cob, the pea-soup, and the bread baked in the roadside oven, with a +relish which was not all pretence; for indeed he was as primitive as he +was subtle. He himself could not have told how much of him was true and +how much was make-believe. But he was certainly lovable, and he was not +bad by nature. Since coming to St. Saviour's he had been constant to one +attraction, and he had not risked his chances with Zoe by response to the +shy invitations of dark eyes, young and not so young, which met his own +here and there in the parish. + +Only M. Fille and Jean Jacques himself had feelings of real antagonism to +him. Jean Jacques, though not naturally suspicious, had, however, seen +an understanding look pass between his Zoe and this stranger--this +Protestant English stranger from the outer world, to which Jean Jacques +went less frequently since his fruitless search for his vanished Carmen. +The Clerk of the Court saw that Jean Jacques had observed the intimate +glances of the two young people, and their eyes met in understanding. It +was just before Zoe had sung so charmingly, 'Oh, Who Will Walk the Wood +With Me'. + +At first after Carmen's going Jean Jacques had found it hard to endure +singing in his house. Zoe's trilling was torture to him, though he had +never forbidden her to sing, and she had sung on to her heart's content. +By a subtle instinct, however, and because of the unspoken sorrow in her +own heart, she never sang the songs like 'La Manola'. Never after the +day Carmen went did Zoe speak of her mother to anyone at all. It was +worse than death; it was annihilation, so far as speech was concerned. +The world at large only knew that Carmen Barbille had run away, and that +even Sebastian Dolores her father did not know where she was. The old +man had not heard from her, and he seldom visited at the Manor Cartier or +saw his grand-daughter. His own career of late years had been marked by +long sojourns in Quebec, Montreal and even New York; yet he always came +back to St. Saviour's when he was penniless, and was there started afresh +by Jean Jacques. Some said that Carmen had gone back to Spain, but +others discredited that, for, if she had done so, certainly old Sebastian +Dolores would have gone also. Others continued to insist that she had +gone off with a man; but there was George Masson at Laplatte living +alone, and never going twenty miles away from home, and he was the only +person under suspicion. Others again averred that since her flight +Carmen had become a loose woman in Montreal; but the New Cure came down +on that with a blow which no one was tempted to invite again. + +M. Savry's method of punishing was of a kind to make men shrink. If +Carmen Barbille had become a loose woman in Montreal, how did any member +of his flock know that it was the case? What company had he kept in +Montreal that he could say that? Did he see the woman--or did he hear +about her? And if he heard, what sort of company was he keeping when he +went to Montreal without his wife to hear such things? That was final, +and the slanderer was under a cloud for a time, by reason of the anger of +his own wife. It was about this time that the good priest preached from +the text, "Judge not that ye be not judged," and said that there were +only ten commandments on the tables of stone; but that the ten included +all the commandments which the Church made for every man, and which every +man, knowing his own weakness, must also make for himself. + +His flock understood, though they did refrain, every one, from looking +towards the place where Jean Jacques sat with Ma'm'selle--she was always +called that, as though she was a great lady; or else she was called "the +little Ma'm'selle Zoe," even when she had grown almost as tall as her +mother had been. + +Though no one looked towards the place where Jean Jacques and his +daughter sat when this sermon was preached, and although Zoe seemed not +to apprehend personal reference in the priest's words, when she reached +home, after talking to her father about casual things all the way, she +flew to her room, and, locking the door, flung herself on her bed and +cried till her body felt as though it had been beaten by rods. Then +she suddenly got up and, from a drawer, took out two things--an old +photograph of her mother at the time of her marriage, and Carmen's +guitar, which she had made her own on the day after the flight, and had +kept hidden ever since. She lay on the bed with her cheek pressed to the +guitar, and her eyes hungrily feeding on the face of a woman whose beauty +belonged to spheres other than where she had spent the thirteen years of +her married life. + +Zoe had understood more even at the time of the crisis than they thought +she did, child though she was; and as the years had gone on she had +grasped the meaning of it all more clearly perhaps than anyone at all +except her adored friends Judge Carcasson, at whose home she had visited +in Montreal, and M. Fille. + +The thing last rumoured about her mother in the parish was that she had +become an actress. To this Zoe made no protest in her mind. It was +better than many other possibilities, and she fixed her mind on it, so +saving herself from other agonizing speculations. In a fixed imagination +lay safety. In her soul she knew that, no matter what happened, her +mother would never return to the Manor Cartier. + +The years had not deepened confidence between father and daughter. A +shadow hung between them. They laughed and talked together, were even +boisterous in their fun sometimes, and yet in the eyes of both was the +forbidden thing--the deserted city into which they could not enter. He +could not speak to the child of the shame of her mother; she could not +speak of that in him which had contributed to that mother's shame--the +neglect which existed to some degree in her own life with him. This was +chiefly so because his enterprises had grown to such a number and height, +that he seemed ever to be counting them, ever struggling to the height, +while none of his ventures ever reached that state of success when it +"ran itself", although as years passed men called him rich, and he spent +and loaned money so freely that they called him the Money Master, or the +Money Man Wise, in deference to his philosophy. + +Zoe was not beautiful, but there was a wondrous charm in her deep brown +eyes and in the expression of her pretty, if irregular, features. +Sometimes her face seemed as small as that of a young child, and alive +with eerie fancies; and always behind her laughter was something which +got into her eyes, giving them a haunting melancholy. She had no signs +of hysteria, though now and then there came heart-breaking little +outbursts of emotion which had this proof that they were not hysteria-- +they were never seen by others. They were sacred to her own solitude. +While in Montreal she had tasted for the first time the joys of the +theatre, and had then secretly read numbers of plays, which she bought +from an old bookseller, who was wise enough to choose them for her. She +became possessed of a love for the stage even before Gerard Fynes came +upon the scene. The beginning of it all was the rumour that her mother +was now an actress; yet the root-cause was far down in a temperament +responsive to all artistic things. + +The coming of the Man from Outside acted on the confined elements of her +nature like the shutter of a camera. It let in a world of light upon +unexplored places, it set free elements of being which had not before +been active. She had been instantly drawn to Gerard Fynes. He had the +distance from her own life which provoked interest, and in that distance +was the mother whom perhaps it was her duty to forget, yet for whom she +had a longing which grew greater as the years went on. + +Gerard Fynes could talk well, and his vivid pictures of his short play- +acting career absorbed her; and all the time she was vigilant for some +name, for the description of some actress which would seem to be a clue +to the lost spirit of her life. This clue never came, but before she +gave up hope of it, the man had got nearer to her than any man had ever +done. + +After meeting him she awoke to the fact that there was a difference +between men, that it was not the same thing to be young as to be old; +that the reason why she could kiss the old Judge and the little Clerk of +the Court, and not kiss, say, the young manager of the great lumber firm +who came every year for a fortnight's fishing at St. Saviour's, was one +which had an understandable cause and was not a mere matter of individual +taste. She had been good friends with this young manager, who was only +thirty years of age, and was married, but when he had wanted to kiss her +on saying good-bye one recent summer, she had said, "Oh, no, oh, no, that +would spoil it all!" Yet when he had asked her why, and what she meant, +she could not tell him. She did not know; but by the end of the first +week after Gerard Fynes had been brought to the Manor Cartier by Louis +Charron, she knew. + +She had then been suddenly awakened from mere girlhood. Judge Carcasson +saw the difference in her on a half-hour's visit as he passed westward, +and he had said to M. Fille, "Who is the man, my keeper of the treasure?" +The reply had been of such a sort that the Judge was startled: + +"Tut, tut," he had exclaimed, "an actor--an actor once a lawyer! That's +serious. She's at an age--and with a temperament like hers she'll +believe anything, if once her affections are roused. She has a flair for +the romantic, for the thing that's out of reach--the bird on the highest +branch, the bird in the sky beyond ours, the song that was lost before +time was, the light that never was on sea or land. Why, damn it, damn it +all, my Solon, here's the beginning of a case in Court unless we can lay +the fellow by the heels! How long is he here for?" + +When M. Fille had told him that he would stay for another month for +certain, and no doubt much longer, if there seemed a prospect of winning +the heiress of the Manor Cartier, the Judge gave a groan. + +"We must get him away, somehow," he said. "Where does he stay?" + +"At the house of Louis Charron," was the reply. "Louis Charron--isn't +he the fellow that sells whisky without a license?" + +"It is so, monsieur." + +The Judge moved his head from side to side like a bear in a cage. "It is +that, is it, my Fille? By the thumb of the devil, isn't it time then +that Louis Charron was arrested for breaking the law? Also how do we +know but that the interloping fellow Fynes is an agent for a whisky firm +perhaps? Couldn't he, then, on suspicion, be arrested with--" + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head mournfully. His Judge was surely +becoming childish in his old age. He looked again closely at the great +man, and saw a glimmer of moisture in the grey eyes. It was clear that +Judge Carcasson felt deeply the dangers of the crisis, and that the +futile outburst had merely been the agitated protest of the helpless. + +"The man is what he says he is--an actor; and it would be folly to arrest +him. If our Zoe is really fond of him, it would only make a martyr of +him." + +As he made this reply M. Fille looked furtively at the other--out of the +corner of his eye, as it were. The reply of the Judge was impatient, +almost peevish and rough. "Did you think I was in earnest, my +punchinello? Surely I don't look so young as all that. I am over sixty- +five, and am therefore mentally developed!" + +M. Fille was exactly sixty-five years of age, and the blow was a shrewd +one. He drew himself up with rigid dignity. + +"You must feel sorry sometimes for those who suffered when your mind was +undeveloped, monsieur," he answered. "You were a judge at forty-nine, +and you defended poor prisoners for twenty years before that." + +The Judge was conquered, and he was never the man to pretend he was not +beaten when he was. He admired skill too much for that. He squeezed M. +Fille's arm and said: + +"I've been quick with my tongue myself, but I feel sure now, that it's +through long and close association with my Clerk of the Court." + +"Ah, monsieur, you are so difficult to understand!" was the reply. +"I have known you all these years, and yet--" + +"And yet you did not know how much of the woman there was in me! . . . +But yes, it is that. It is that which I fear with our Zoe. Women break +out--they break out, and then there is the devil to pay. Look at her +mother. She broke out. It was not inevitable. It was the curse of +opportunity, the wrong thing popping up to drive her mad at the wrong +moment. Had the wrong thing come at the right time for her, when she was +quite sane, she would be yonder now with our philosopher. Perhaps she +would not be contented if she were there, but she would be there; and as +time goes on, to be where we were in all things which concern the +affections, that is the great matter." + +"Ah, yes, ah, yes," was the bright-eyed reply of that Clerk, "there is no +doubt of that! My sister and I there, we are fifty years together, never +with the wrong thing at the wrong time, always the thing as it was, +always to be where we were." + +The Judge shook his head. "There is an eternity of difference, Fille, +between the sister and brother and the husband and wife. The sacredness +of isolation is the thing which holds the brother and sister together. +The familiarity of--but never mind what it is that so often forces +husband and wife apart. It is there, and it breaks out in rebellion as +it did with the wife of Jean Jacques Barbille. As she was a strong woman +in her way, it spoiled her life, and his too when it broke out." + +M. Fille's face lighted with memory and feeling. "Ah, a woman of +powerful emotions, monsieur, that is so! I think I never told you, but +at the last, in my office, when she went, she struck George Masson in the +face. It was a blow that--but there it was; I have never liked to think +of it. When I do, I shudder. She was a woman who might have been in +other circumstances--but there!" + +The Judge suddenly stopped in his walk and faced round on his friend. +"Did you ever know, my Solon," he said, "that it was not Jean Jacques who +saved Carmen at the wreck of the Antoine, but it was she who saved him; +and yet she never breathed of it in all the years. One who was saved +from the Antoine told me of it. Jean Jacques was going down. Carmen +gave him her piece of wreckage to hang on to, and swam ashore without +help. He never gave her the credit. There was something big in the +woman, but it did not come out right." + +M. Fille threw up his hands. "Grace de Dieu, is it so that she saved +Jean Jacques? Then he would not be here if it had not been for her?" + +"That is the obvious deduction, Maitre Fille," replied the Judge. + +The Clerk of the Court seemed moved. "He did not treat her ill. +I know that he would take her back to-morrow if he could. He has never +forgotten. I saw him weeping one day--it was where she used to sing to +the flax-beaters by the Beau Cheval. I put my hand on his shoulder, and +said, 'I know, I comprehend; but be a philosopher, Jean Jacques.'" + +"What did he say?" asked the Judge. + +"He drew himself up. 'In my mind, in my soul, I am philosopher always,' +he said, 'but my eyes are the windows of my heart, m'sieu'. They look +out and see the sorrow of one I loved. It is for her sorrow that I weep, +not for my own. I have my child, I have money; the world says to me, +"How goes it, my friend?" I have a home--a home; but where is she, and +what does the world say to her?'" + +The Judge shook his head sadly. "I used to think I knew life, but I come +to the belief in the end that I know nothing. Who could have guessed +that he would have spoken like that!" + +"He forgave her, monsieur." + +The Judge nodded mournfully. "Yes, yes, but I used to think it is such +men who forgive one day and kill the next. You never can tell where they +will explode, philosophy or no philosophy." + +The Judge was right. After all the years that had passed since his wife +had left him, Jean Jacques did explode. It was the night of his birthday +party at which was present the Man from Outside. It was in the hour when +he first saw what the Clerk of the Court had seen some time before--the +understanding between Zoe and Gerard Fynes. It had never occurred to him +that there was any danger. Zoe had been so indifferent to the young men +of St. Saviour's and beyond, had always been so much his friend and the +friend of those much older than himself, like Judge Carcasson and M. +Fille, that he had not yet thought of her electing to go and leave him +alone. + +To leave him alone! To be left alone--it had never become a possibility +to his mind. It did not break upon him with its full force all at once. +He first got the glimmer of it, then the glimmer grew to a glow, and the +glow to a great red light, in which his brain became drunk, and all his +philosophy was burned up like wood-shavings in a fiery furnace. + +"Did you like it so much?" Zoe had asked when her song was finished, and +the Man from Outside had replied, "Ah, but splendid, splendid! It got +into every corner of every one of us." + +"Into the senses--why not into the heart? Songs are meant for the +heart," said Zoe. + +"Yes, yes, certainly," was the young man's reply, "but it depends upon +the song whether it touches the heart more than the senses. Won't you +sing that perfect thing, 'La Claire Fontaine'?" he added, with eyes as +bright as passion and the hectic fires of his lung-trouble could make +them. + +She nodded and was about to sing, for she loved the song, and it had been +ringing in her head all day; but at that point M. Fille rose, and with +his glass raised high--for at that moment Seraphe Corniche and another +carried round native wine and cider to the company--he said: + +"To Monsieur Jean Jacques Barbille, and his fifty years, good health-- +bonne sante! This is his birthday. To a hundred years for Jean +Jacques!" + +Instantly everyone was up with glass raised, and Zoe ran and threw her +arms round her father's neck. "Kiss me before you drink," she said. + +With a touch almost solemn in its tenderness Jean Jacques drew her head +to his shoulder and kissed her hair, then her forehead. "My blessed one +--my angel," he whispered; but there was a look in his eyes which only M. +Fille had seen there before. It was the look which had been in his eyes +at the flax-beaters' place by the river. + +"Sing--father, you must sing," said Zoe, and motioned to the fiddler. +"Sing It's Fifty Years," she cried eagerly. They all repeated her +request, and he could but obey. + +Jean Jacques' voice was rather rough, but he had some fine resonant notes +in it, and presently, with eyes fastened on the distance, and with free +gesture and much expression, he sang the first verse of the haunting +ballad of the man who had reached his fifty years: + + "Wherefore these flowers? + This fete for me? + Ah, no, it is not fifty years, + Since in my eyes the light you see + First shone upon life's joys and tears! + How fast the heedless days have flown + Too late to wail the misspent hours, + To mourn the vanished friends I've known, + To kneel beside love's ruined bowers. + Ah, have I then seen fifty years, + With all their joys and hopes and fears!" + +Through all the verses he ranged, his voice improving with each phrase, +growing more resonant, till at last it rang out with a ragged richness +which went home to the hearts of all. He was possessed. All at once he +was conscious that the beginning of the end of things was come for him; +and that now, at fifty, in no sphere had he absolutely "arrived," neither +in home nor fortune, nor--but yes, there was one sphere of success; there +was his fatherhood. There was his daughter, his wonderful Zoe. He drew +his eyes from the distance, and saw that her ardent look was not towards +him, but towards one whom she had known but a few weeks. + +Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a verse, and broke forward with his +arms outstretched, laughing. He felt that he must laugh, or he would +cry; and that would be a humiliating thing to do. + +"Come, come, my friends, my children, enough of that!" he cried. "We'll +have no more maundering. Fifty years--what are fifty years! Think of +Methuselah! It's summer in the world still, and it's only spring at St. +Saviour's. It's the time of the first flowers. Let's dance--no, no, +never mind the Cure to-night! He will not mind. I'll settle it with +him. We'll dance the gay quadrille." + +He caught the hands of the two youngest girls present, and nodded at the +fiddler, who at once began to tune his violin afresh. One of the joyous +young girls, however, began to plead with him. + +"Ah, no, let us dance, but at the last--not yet, M'sieu' Jean Jacques! +There is Zoe's song, we must have that, and then we must have charades. +Here is M'sieu' Fynes--he can make splendid charades for us. Then the +dance at the last--ah, yes, yes, M'sieu' Jean Jacques! Let it be like +that. We all planned it, and though it is your birthday, it's us are +making the fete." + +"As you will then, as you will, little ones," Jean Jacques acquiesced +with a half-sigh; but he did not look at his daughter. Somehow, +suddenly, a strange constraint possessed him where Zoe was concerned. +"Then let us have Zoe's song; let us have 'La Claire Fontaine'," cried +the black-eyed young madcap who held Jean Jacques' arms. + +But Zoe interrupted. "No, no," she protested, "the singing spell is +broken. We will have the song after the charades--after the charades." + +"Good, good--after the charades!" they all cried, for there would be +charades like none which had ever been played before, with a real actor +to help them, to carry them through as they did on the stage. To them +the stage was compounded of mystery, gaiety and the forbidden. + +So, for the next half-hour they were all at the disposal of the Man from +Outside, who worked as though it was a real stage, and they were real +players, and there were great audiences to see them. It was all quite +wonderful, and it involved certain posings, attitudes, mimicry and +pantomime, for they were really ingenious charades. + +So it happened that Zoe's fingers often came in touch with those of the +stage-manager, that his hands touched her shoulders, that his cheek +brushed against her dark hair once, and that she had sensations never +experienced before. Why was it that she thrilled when she came near to +him, that her whole body throbbed and her heart fluttered when their +shoulders or arms touched? Her childlike nature, with all its warmth and +vibration of life, had never till now felt the stir of sex in its vital +sense. All men had in one way been the same to her; but now she realized +that there was a world-wide difference between her Judge Carcasson, her +little Clerk of the Court, and this young man whose eyes drank hers. She +had often been excited, even wildly agitated, had been like a sprite let +loose in quiet ways; but that was mere spirit. Here was body and senses +too; here was her whole being alive to a music, which had an aching +sweetness and a harmony coaxing every sense into delight. + +"To-morrow evening, by the flume, where the beechtrees are--come--at six. +I want to speak with you. Will you come?" + +Thus whispered the maker of this music of the senses, who directed the +charades, but who was also directing the course of another life than his +own. + +"Yes, if I can," was Zoe's whispered reply, and the words shook as she +said them; for she felt that their meeting in the beech-trees by the +flume would be of consequence beyond imagination. + +Judge Carcasson had always said that Zoe had judgment beyond her years; +M. Fille had remarked often that she had both prudence and shrewdness as +well as a sympathetic spirit; but M. Fille's little whispering sister, +who could never be tempted away from her home to any house, to whom the +market and the church were like pilgrimages to distant wilds, had said to +her brother: + +"Wait, Armand--wait till Zoe is waked, and then prudence and wisdom will +be but accident. If all goes well, you will see prudence and wisdom; but +if it does not, you will see--ah, but just Zoe!" + +The now alert Jean Jacques had seen the whispering of the two, though he +did not know what had been said. It was, however, something secret, and +if it was secret, then it was--yes, it was love; and love between his +daughter and that waif of the world--the world of the stage--in which men +and women were only grown-up children, and bad grown-up children at that +--it was not to be endured. One thing was sure, the man should come to +the Manor Cartier no more. He would see to that to-morrow. There would +be no faltering or paltering on his part. His home had been shaken to +its foundations once, and he was determined that it should not fall about +his ears a second time. An Englishman, an actor, a Protestant, and a +renegade lawyer! It was not to be endured. + +The charade now being played was the best of the evening. One of the +madcap friends of Zoe was to be a singing-girl. She was supposed to +carry a tambourine. When her turn to enter came, with a look of mischief +and a gay dancing step, she ran into the room. In her hands was a +guitar, not a tambourine. When Zoe saw the guitar she gave a cry. + +"Where did you get that?" she asked in a low, shocked, indignant voice. + +"In your room--your bedroom," was the half-frightened answer. "I saw it +on the dresser, and I took it." + +"Come, come, let's get on with the charade," urged the Man from Outside. + +On the instant's pause, in which Zoe looked at her lover almost +involuntarily, and without fully understanding what he said, someone else +started forward with a smothered exclamation--of anger, of horror, of +dismay. It was Jean Jacques. He was suddenly transformed. + +His eyes were darkened by hideous memory, his face alight with passion. +He caught from the girl's hands the guitar--Carmen's forgotten guitar +which he had not seen for seven years--how well he knew it! With both +hands he broke it across his knee. The strings, as they snapped, gave a +shrill, wailing cry, like a voice stopped suddenly by death. Stepping +jerkily to the fireplace he thrust it into the flame. + +"Ah, there!" he said savagely. "There--there!" When he turned round +slowly again, his face--which he had never sought to control before he +had his great Accident seven years ago--was under his command. +A strange, ironic-almost sardonic-smile was on his lips. + +"It's in the play," he said. + +"No, it's not in the charade, Monsieur Barbille," said the Man from +Outside fretfully. + +"That is the way I read it, m'sieu'," retorted Jean Jacques, and he made +a motion to the fiddler. + +"The dance! The dance!" he exclaimed. + +But yet he looked little like a man who wished to dance, save upon a +grave. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"I DO NOT WANT TO GO" + +It is a bad thing to call down a crisis in the night-time. A "scene" at +midnight is a savage enemy of ultimate understanding, and that Devil, +called Estrangement, laughs as he observes the objects of his attention +in conflict when the midnight candle burns. + +He should have been seized with a fit of remorse, however, at the sight +he saw in the Manor Cartier at midnight of the day when Jean Jacques +Barbille had reached his fiftieth year. There is nothing which, for +pathos and for tragedy, can compare with a struggle between the young +and the old. + +The Devil of Estrangement when he sees it, may go away and indulge +himself in sleep; for there will be no sleep for those who, one young and +the other old, break their hearts on each other's anvils, when the lights +are low and it is long till morning. + +When Jean Jacques had broken the forgotten guitar which his daughter had +retrieved from her mother's life at the Manor Cartier (all else he had +had packed and stored away in the flour-mill out of sight) and thrown it +in the fire, there had begun a revolt in the girl's heart, founded on a +sense of injustice, but which itself became injustice also; and that is a +dark thing to come between those who love--even as parent and child. + +After her first exclamation of dismay and pain, Zoe had regained her +composure, and during the rest of the evening she was full of feverish +gaiety. Indeed her spirits and playful hospitality made the evening a +success in spite of the skeleton at the feast. Jean Jacques had also +roused himself, and, when the dance began, he joined in with spirit, +though his face was worn and haggard even when lighted by his smile. But +though the evening came to the conventional height of hilarity, there was +a note running through it which made even the youngest look at each +other, as though to say, "Now, what's going to happen next!" + +Three people at any rate knew that something was going to happen. They +were Zoe, the Man from Outside and M. Fille. Zoe had had more than one +revelation that night, and she felt again as she did one day, seven years +before, when, coming home from over the hills, she had stepped into a +house where Horror brooded as palpably as though it sat beside the fire, +or hung above the family table. She had felt something as soon as she +had entered the door that far-off day, though the house seemed empty. It +was an emptiness which was filled with a torturing presence or torturing +presenes. It had stilled her young heart. What was it? She had learned +the truth soon enough. Out of the sunset had come her father with a face +twisted with misery, and as she ran to him, he had caught her by both +shoulders, looked through her eyes to something far beyond, and hoarsely +said: "She is gone--gone from us! She has run away from home! Curse her +baptism--curse it, curse it!" + +Zoe could never forget these last words she had ever heard her father +speak of Carmen. They were words which would make any Catholic shudder +to hear. It was a pity he had used them, for they made her think at last +that her mother had been treated with injustice. This, in spite of the +fact that in the days, now so far away, when her mother was with them she +had ever been nearer to her father, and that, after first childhood, she +and her mother were not so close as they had been, when she went to sleep +to the humming of a chanson of Cadiz. Her own latent motherhood, +however, kept stealing up out of the dim distances of childhood's +ignorance and, with modesty and allusiveness, whispering knowledge in +her ear. So it was that now she looked back pensively to the years she +had spent within sight and sound of her handsome mother, and out of the +hunger of her own spirit she had come to idealize her memory. It was +good to have a loving father; but he was a man, and he was so busy just +when she wanted--when she wanted she knew not what, but at least to go +and lay her head on a heart that would understand what was her sorrow, +her joy, or her longing. + +And now here at last was come Crisis, which showed its thunderous head in +the gay dance, and shook his war-locks in the fire, where her mother's +guitar had shrieked in its last agony. + +When all the guests had gone, when the bolts had been shot home, and old +Seraphe Corniche had gone to bed, father and daughter came face to face. + +There was a moment's pause, as the two looked at each other, and then Zoe +came up to Jean Jacques to kiss him good-night. It was her way of facing +the issue. Instinctively she knew that he would draw back, and that the +struggle would begin. It might almost seem that she had invited it; for +she had let the Man from Outside hold her hand for far longer than +courtesy required, while her father looked on with fretful eyes--even +with a murmuring which was not a benediction. Indeed, he had evaded +shaking hands with his hated visitor by suddenly offering him a cigar, +and then in the doorway itself handing a lighted match. + +"His eminence, Cardinal Christophe, gave these cigars to me when he +passed through St. Saviour's five years ago," Jean Jacques had remarked +loftily, "and I always smoke one on my birthday. I am a good Catholic, +and his eminence rested here for a whole day." + +He had had a grim pleasure in avoiding the handshake, and in having the +Protestant outsider smoke the Catholic cigar! In his anger it seemed to +him that he had done something worthy almost of the Vatican, indeed of +the great Cardinal Christophe himself. Even in his moments of crisis, in +his hours of real tragedy, in the times when he was shaken to the centre, +Jean Jacques fancied himself more than a little. It was as the master- +carpenter had remarked seven years before, he was always involuntarily +saying, "Here I come--look at me. I am Jean Jacques Barbille!" + +When Zoe reached out a hand to touch his arm, and raised her face as +though to kiss him good-night, Jean Jacques drew back. + +"Not yet, Zoe," he said. "There are some things--What is all this +between you and that man? . . . I have seen. You must not forget +who you are--the daughter of Jean Jacques Barbille, of the Manor Cartier, +whose name is known in the whole province, who was asked to stand for the +legislature. You are Zoe Barbille--Mademoiselle Zoe Barbille. We do not +put on airs. We are kind to our neighbours, but I am descended from the +Baron of Beaugard. I have a place--yes, a place in society; and it is +for you to respect it. You comprehend?" + +Zoe flushed, but there was no hesitation whatever in her reply. "I am +what I have always been, and it is not my fault that I am the daughter of +M. Jean Jacques Barbille! I have never done anything which was not good +enough for the Manor Cartier." She held her head firmly as she said it. + +Now Jean Jacques flushed, and he did hesitate in his reply. He hated +irony in anyone else, though he loved it in himself, when heaven gave him +inspiration thereto. He was in a state of tension, and was ready to +break out, to be a force let loose--that is the way he would have +expressed it; and he was faced by a new spirit in his daughter which +would surely spring the mine, unless he secured peace by strategy. He +had sense enough to feel the danger. + +He did not see, however, any course for diplomacy here, for she had given +him his cue in her last words. As a pure logician he was bound to take +it, though it might lead to drama of a kind painful to them both. + +"It is not good enough for the Manor Cartier that you go falling in love +with a nobody from nowhere," he responded. + +"I am not falling in love," she rejoined. + +"What did you mean, then, by looking at him as you did; by whispering +together; by letting him hold your hand when he left, and him looking at +you as though he'd eat you up--without sugar!" + +"I said I was not falling in love," she persisted, quietly, but with +characteristic boldness. "I am in love." + +"You are in love with him--with that interloper! Heaven of heavens, do +you speak the truth? Answer me, Zoe Barbille." + +She bridled. "Certainly I will answer. Did you think I would let a man +look at me as he did, that I would look at a man as I looked at him, that +I would let him hold my hand as I did, if I did not love him? Have you +ever seen me do it before?" + +Her voice was even and quiet--as though she had made up her mind on a +course, and meant to carry it through to the end. + +"No, I never saw you look at a man like that, and everything is as you +say, but--" his voice suddenly became uneven and higher--pitched and a +little hoarse, "but he is English, he is an actor--only that; and he is a +Protestant." + +"Only that?" she asked, for the tone of his voice was such as one would +use in speaking of a toad or vermin, and she could not bear it. "Is it a +disgrace to be any one of those things?" + +"The Barbilles have been here for two hundred years; they have been +French Catholics since the time of"--he was not quite sure--"since the +time of Louis XI.," he added at a venture, and then paused, overcome by +his own rashness. + +"Yes, that is a long time," she said, "but what difference does it make? +We are just what we are now, and as if there never had been a Baron of +Beaugard. What is there against Gerard except that he is an actor, that +he is English, and that he is a Protestant? Is there anything?" + +"Sacre, is it not enough? An actor, what is that--to pretend to be +someone else and not to be yourself!" + +"It would be better for a great many people to be someone else rather +than themselves--for nothing; and he does it for money." + +"For money! What money has he got? You don't know. None of us know. +Besides, he's a Protestant, and he's English, and that ends it. There +never has been an Englishman or a Protestant in the Barbille family, and +it shan't begin at the Manor Cartier." Jean Jacques' voice was rising in +proportion as he perceived her quiet determination. Here was something +of the woman who had left him seven years ago--left this comfortable home +of his to go to disgrace and exile, and God only knew what else! Here in +this very room--yes, here where they now were, father and daughter, stood +husband and wife that morning when he had his hand on the lever prepared +to destroy the man who had invaded his home; who had cast a blight upon +it, which remained after all the years; after he had done all a man could +do to keep the home and the woman too. The woman had gone; the home +remained with his daughter in it, and now again there was a fight for +home and the woman. Memory reproduced the picture of the mother standing +just where the daughter now stood, Carmen quiet and well in hand, and +himself all shaken with weakness, and with all power gone out of him-- +even the power which rage and a murderous soul give. + +But yet this was different. There was no such shame here as had fallen +on him seven years ago. But there was a shame after its kind; and if it +were not averted, there was the end of the home, of the prestige, the +pride and the hope of "M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe." + +"What shall not begin here at the Manor Cartier?" she asked with burning +cheek. + +"The shame--it shall not begin here." + +"What shame, father?" + +"Of marriage with a Protestant and an actor." + +"You will not let me marry him?" she persisted stubbornly. + +Her words seemed to shake him all to pieces. It was as though he was +going through the older tragedy all over again. It had possessed him +ever since the sight of Carmen's guitar had driven him mad three hours +ago. He swayed to and fro, even as he did when his hand left the lever +and he let the master-carpenter go free. It was indeed a philosopher +under torture, a spirit rocking on its anchor. Just now she had put into +words herself what, even in his fear, he had hoped had no place in her +mind--marriage with the man. He did not know this daughter of his very +well. There was that in her which was far beyond his ken. Thousands of +miles away in Spain it had origin, and the stream of tendency came down +through long generations, by courses unknown to him. + +"Marry him--you want to marry him!" he gasped. "You, my Zoe, want to +marry that tramp of a Protestant!" + +Her eyes blazed in anger. Tramp--the man with the air of a young +Alexander, with a voice like the low notes of the guitar thrown to the +flames! Tramp! + +"If I love him I ought to marry him," she answered with a kind of +calmness, however, though all her body was quivering. Suddenly she came +close to her father, a great sympathy welled up in her eyes, and her +voice shook. + +"I do not want to leave you, father, and I never meant to do so. I never +thought of it as possible; but now it is different. I want to stay with +you; but I want to go with him too." + +Presently as she seemed to weaken before him, he hardened. "You can't +have both," he declared with as much sternness as was possible to him, +and with a Norman wilfulness which was not strength. "You shall not +marry an actor and a Protestant. You shall not marry a man like that-- +never--never--never. If you do, you will never have a penny of mine, +and I will never--" + +"Oh, hush--Mother of Heaven, hush!" she cried. "You shall not put a +curse on me too." + +"What curse?" he burst forth, passion shaking him. "You cursed my +mother's baptism. It would be a curse to be told that you would see me +no more, that I should be no more part of this home. There has been +enough of that curse here. . . . Ah, why--why--" she added with a +sudden rush of indignation, "why did you destroy the only thing I had +of hers? It was all that was left--her guitar. I loved it so." + +All at once, with a cry of pain, she turned and ran to the door--entering +on the staircase which led to her room. In the doorway she turned. + +"I can't help it. I can't help it, father. I love him--but I love you +too," she cried. "I don't want to go--oh, I don't want to go! Why do +you--?" her voice choked; she did not finish the sentence; or if she did, +he could not hear. + +Then she opened the door wide, and disappeared into the darkness of the +unlighted stairway, murmuring, "Pity--have pity on me, holy Mother, +Vierge Marie!" Then the door closed behind her almost with a bang. + +After a moment of stupefied inaction Jean Jacques hurried over and threw +open the door she had closed. "Zoe--little Zoe, come back and say good- +night," he called. But she did not hear, for, with a burst of crying, +she had hurried into her own room and shut and locked the door. + +It was a pity, a measureless pity, as Mary the Mother must have seen, +if she could see mortal life at all, that Zoe did not hear him. It might +have altered the future. As it was, the Devil of Estrangement might well +be content with his night's work. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +BON MARCHE + +Vilray was having its market day, and everyone was either going to or +coming from market, or buying and selling in the little square by the +Court House. It was the time when the fruits were coming in, when +vegetables were in full yield, when fish from the Beau Cheval were to be +had in plenty--from mud-cats and suckers, pike and perch, to rock-bass, +sturgeon and even maskinonge. Also it was the time of year when butter +and eggs, chickens and ducks were so cheap that it was a humiliation not +to buy. There were other things on sale also, not for eating and +drinking, but for wear and household use--from pots and pans to rag- +carpets and table-linen, from woollen yarn to pictures of the Virgin and +little calvaries. + +These were side by side with dried apples, bottled fruits, jars of maple +syrup, and cordials of so generous and penetrating a nature that the +currant and elderberry wine by which they were flanked were tipple for +babes beside them. Indeed, when a man wanted to forget himself quickly +he drank one of these cordials, in preference to the white whisky so +commonly imbibed in the parishes. But the cordials being expensive, they +were chiefly bought for festive occasions like a wedding, a funeral, a +confirmation, or the going away of some young man or young woman to the +monastery or the convent to forget the world. Meanwhile, if these +spiritual argonauts drank it, they were likely to forget the world on the +way to their voluntary prisons. It was very seldom that a man or woman +bought the cordials for ordinary consumption, and when that was done, it +would almost make a parish talk! Yet cordials of nice brown, of delicate +green, of an enticing yellow colour, were here for sale at Vilray market +on the morning after the painful scene at the Manor Cartier between Zoe +and her father. + +The market-place was full--fuller than it had been for many a day. A +great many people were come in as much to "make fete" as to buy and sell. +It was a saint's day, and the bell of St. Monica's had been ringing away +cheerfully twice that morning. To it the bell of the Court House had +made reply, for a big case was being tried in the court. It was a river- +driving and lumber case for which many witnesses had been called; and +there were all kinds of stray people in the place--red-shirted river- +drivers, a black-coated Methodist minister from Chalfonte, clerks from +lumber-firms, and foremen of lumber-yards; and among these was one who +greatly loved such a day as this when he could be free from work, and +celebrate himself! + +Other people might celebrate saints dead and gone, and drink to 'La +Patrie', and cry "Vive Napoleon!" or "Vive la Republique!" or "Vive la +Reine!" though this last toast of the Empire was none too common--but he +could only drink with real sincerity to the health of Sebastian Dolores, +which was himself. Sebastian Dolores was the pure anarchist, the most +complete of monomaniacs. + +"Here comes the father of the Spanische," remarked Mere Langlois, who +presided over a heap of household necessities, chiefly dried fruits, +preserves and pickles, as Sebastian Dolores appeared not far away. + +"Good-for-nothing villain! I pity the poor priest that confesses him." + +"Who is the Spanische?" asked a young woman from her own stall or stand +very near, as she involuntarily arranged her hair and adjusted her waist- +belt; for the rakish-looking reprobate, with the air of having been +somewhere, was making towards them; and she was young enough to care how +she looked when a man, who took notice, was near. Her own husband had +been a horse-doctor, farmer, and sportsman of a kind, and she herself was +now a farmer of a kind; and she had only resided in the parish during the +three years since she had been married to, and buried, Palass Poucette. + +Old Mere Langlois looked at her companion in merchanting irritably, then +she remembered that Virginie Poucette was a stranger, in a way, and was +therefore deserving of pity, and she said with compassionate patronage: +"Newcomer you--I'd forgotten. Look you then, the Spanische was the wife +of my third cousin, M'sieu' Jean Jacques, and--" + +Virginie Poucette nodded, and the slight frown cleared from her low yet +shapely forehead. "Yes, yes, of course I know. I've heard enough. What +a fool she was, and M'sieu' Jean Jacques so rich and kind and good- +looking! So this is her father--well, well, well!" + +Palass Poucette's widow leaned forward, and looked intently at Sebastian +Dolores, who had stopped near by, and facing a couple of barrels on which +were exposed some bottles of cordial and home-made wine. He was +addressing himself with cheerful words to the dame that owned the +merchandise. + +"I suppose you think it's a pity Jean Jacques can't get a divorce," +said Mere Langlois, rather spitefully to Virginie, for she had her +sex's aversion to widows who had had their share of mankind, and were +afterwards free to have someone else's share as well. But suddenly +repenting, for Virginie was a hard-working widow who had behaved very +well for an outsider--having come from Chalfonte beyond the Beau +Chevalshe added: "But if he was a Protestant and could get a divorce, +and you did marry him, you'd make him have more sense than he's got; for +you've a quiet sensible way, and you've worked hard since Palass Poucette +died." + +"Where doesn't he show sense, that M'sieu' Jean Jacques?" the younger +woman asked. + +"Where? Why, with his girl--with Ma'm'selle." "Everybody I ever heard +speaks well of Ma'm'selle Zoe," returned the other warmly, for she had a +very generous mind and a truthful, sentimental heart. Mere Langlois +sniffed, and put her hands on her hips, for she had a daughter of her +own; also she was a relation of Jean Jacques, and therefore resented in +one way the difference in their social position, while yet she plumed +herself on being kin. + +"Then you'll learn something now you never knew before," she said. +"She's been carrying on--there's no other word for it--with an actor +fellow--" + +"Yes, yes, I did hear about him--a Protestant and an Englishman." + +"Well, then, why do you pretend you don't know--only to hear me talk, is +it? Take my word, I'd teach cousin Zoe a lesson with all her education +and her two years at the convent. Wasn't it enough that her mother +should spoil everything for Jean Jacques, and make the Manor Cartier a +place to point the finger at, without her bringing disgrace on the parish +too! What happened last night--didn't I hear this morning before I had +my breakfast! Didn't I--" + +She then proceeded to describe the scene in which Jean Jacques had thrown +the wrecked guitar of his vanished spouse into the fire. Before she had +finished, however, something occurred which swept them into another act +of the famous history of Jean Jacques Barbille and his house. + +She had arrived at the point where Zoe had cried aloud in pain at her +father's incendiary act, when there was a great stir at the Court House +door which opened on the market-place, and vagrant cheers arose. These +were presently followed by a more disciplined fusillade; which presently, +in turn, was met by hisses and some raucous cries of resentment. These +increased as a man appeared on the steps of the Court House, looked round +for a moment in a dazed kind of way, then seeing some friends below who +were swarming towards him, gave a ribald cry, and scrambled down the +steps towards them. + +He was the prisoner whose release had suddenly been secured by a piece of +evidence which had come as a thunder-clap on judge and jury. Immediately +after giving this remarkable evidence the witness--Sebastian Dolores-- +had left the court-room. He was now engaged in buying cordials in the +market-place--in buying and drinking them; for he had pulled the cork out +of a bottle filled with a rich yellow liquid, and had drained half the +bottle at a gulp. Presently he offered the remainder to a passing +carter, who made a gesture of contempt and passed on, for, to him, white +whisky was the only drink worth while. Besides, he disliked Sebastian +Dolores. Then, with a flourish, the Spaniard tendered the bottle to +Madame Langlois and Palass Poucette's widow, at whose corner of +merchandise he had now arrived. + +Surely there never was a more benign villain and perjurer in the world +than Sebastian Dolores! His evidence, given a half-hour before, with +every sign of truthfulness, was false. The man--Rocque Valescure--for +whom he gave it was no friend of his; but he owned a tavern called "The +Red Eagle," a few miles from the works where the Spaniard was employed; +also Rocque Valescure's wife set a good table, and Sebastian Dolores was +a very liberal feeder; when he was not hungry he was always thirsty. The +appeasement of hunger and thirst was now become a problem to him, for his +employers at Beauharnais had given him a month's notice because of +certain irregularities which had come to their knowledge. Like a wise +man Sebastian Dolores had said nothing about this abroad, but had +enlarged his credit in every direction, and had then planned this piece +of friendly perjury for Rocque Valescure, who was now descending the +steps of the Court House to the arms of his friends and amid the +execrations of his foes. What the alleged crime was does not matter. +It has no vital significance in the history of Jean Jacques Barbille, +though it has its place as a swivel on which the future swung. + +Sebastian Dolores had saved Rocque Valescure from at least three years in +jail, and possibly a very heavy fine as well; and this service must have +its due reward. Something for nothing was not the motto of Sebastian +Dolores; and he confidently looked forward to having a home at "The Red +Eagle" and a banker in its landlord. He was no longer certain that he +could rely on help from Jean Jacques, to whom he already owed so much. +That was why he wanted to make Rocque Valescure his debtor. It was not +his way to perjure his soul for nothing. He had done so in Spain--yet +not for nothing either. He had saved his head, which was now doing +useful work for himself and for a needy fellow-creature. No one could +doubt that he had helped a neighbour in great need, and had done it at +some expense to his own nerve and brain. None but an expert could have +lied as he had done in the witness-box. Also he had upheld his lies with +a striking narrative of circumstantiality. He made things fit in "like +mortised blocks" as the Clerk of the Court said to Judge Carcasson, when +they discussed the infamy afterwards with clear conviction that it was +perjury of a shameless kind; for one who would perjure himself to save a +man from jail, would also swear a man into the gallows-rope. But Judge +Carcasson had not been able to charge the jury in that sense, for there +was no effective evidence to rebut the untruthful attestation of the +Spaniard. It had to be taken for what it was worth, since the +prosecuting attorney could not shake it; and yet to the Court itself it +was manifestly false witness. + +Sebastian Dolores was too wise to throw himself into the arms of his +released tavern-keeper here immediately after the trial, or to allow +Rocque Valescure a like indiscretion and luxury; for there was a strong +law against perjury, and right well Sebastian Dolores knew that old Judge +Carcasson would have little mercy on him, in spite of the fact that he +was the grandfather of Zoe Barbille. The Judge would probably think that +safe custody for his wayward character would be the kindest thing he +could do for Zoe. Therefore it was that Sebastian Dolores paid no +attention to the progress of the released landlord of "The Red Eagle," +though, by a glance out of the corner of his eyes, he made sure that the +footsteps of liberated guilt were marching at a tangent from where he +was--even to the nearest tavern. + +It was enough for Dolores that he should watch the result of his good +deed from the isolated area where he now was, in the company of two +virtuous representatives of domesticity. His time with liberated guilt +would come! He chuckled to think how he had provided himself with a +refuge against his hour of trouble. That very day he had left his +employment, meaning to return no more, securing his full wages through +having suddenly become resentful and troublesome, neglectful--and +imperative. To avoid further unpleasantness the firm had paid him all +his wages; and he had straightway come to Vilray to earn his bed and +board by other means than through a pen, a ledger and a gift for figures. +It would not be a permanent security against the future, but it would +suffice for the moment. It was a rest-place on the road. If the worst +came to the worst, there was his grand-daughter and his dear son-in-law +whom he so seldom saw--blood was thicker than water, and he would see to +it that it was not thinned by neglect. + +Meanwhile he ogled Palass Poucette's widow with one eye, and talked +softly with his tongue to Mere Langlois, as he importuned Madame to "Sip +the good cordial in the name of charity to all and malice towards none." + +"You're a bad man--you, and I want none of your cordials," was Mere +Langlois's response. "Malice towards none, indeed! If you and the devil +started business in the same street, you'd make him close up shop in a +year. I've got your measure, for sure; I have you certain as an arm and +a pair of stirrups." + +"I go about doing good--only good," returned the old sinner with a leer +at the young widow, whose fingers he managed to press unseen, as he swung +the little bottle of cordial before the eyes of Mere Langlois. He was +not wholly surprised when Palass Poucette's widow did not show abrupt +displeasure at his bold familiarity. + +A wild thought flashed into his mind. Might there not be another refuge +here--here in Palass Poucette's widow! He was sixty-three, it was true, +and she was only thirty-two; but for her to be an old man's darling who +had no doubt been a young man's slave, that would surely have its weight +with her. Also she owned the farm where she lived; and she was pleasant +pasturage--that was the phrase he used in his own mind, even as his eye +swept from Mere Langlois to hers in swift, hungry inquiry. + +He seemed in earnest when he spoke--but that was his way; it had done him +service often. "I do good whenever it comes my way to do it," he +continued. "I left my work this morning"--he lied of course--"and hired +a buggy to bring me over here, all at my own cost, to save a fellow-man. +There in the Court House he was sure of prison, with a wife and three +small children weeping in 'The Red Eagle'; and there I come at great +expense and trouble to tell the truth--before all to tell the truth--and +save him and set him free. Yonder he is in the tavern, the work of my +hands, a gift to the world from an honest man with a good heart and a +sense of justice. But for me there would be a wife and three children in +the bondage of shame, sorrow, poverty and misery"--his eyes again +ravished the brown eyes of Palass Poucette's widow--"and here again +I drink to my own health and to that of all good people--with charity +to all and malice towards none!" + +The little bottle of golden cordial was raised towards Mere Langlois. +The fingers of one hand, however, were again seeking those of the comely +young widow who was half behind him, when he felt them caught +spasmodically away. Before he had time to turn round he heard a voice, +saying: "I should have thought that 'With malice to all and charity +towards none,' was your motto, Dolores." + +He knew that voice well enough. He had always had a lurking fear that +he would hear it say something devastating to him, from the great chair +where its owner sat and dispensed what justice a jury would permit him to +do. That devastating something would be agony to one who loved liberty +and freedom--had not that ever been his watchword, liberty and freedom to +do what he pleased in the world and with the world? Yes, he well knew +Judge Carcasson's voice. He would have recognized it in the dark--or +under the black cap. "M'sieu' le juge !" he said, even before he turned +round and saw the faces of the tiny Judge and his Clerk of the Court. +There was a kind of quivering about his mouth, and a startled look in his +eyes as he faced the two. But there was the widow of Palass Poucette, +and, if he was to pursue and frequent her, something must be done to keep +him decently figured in her eye and mind. + +"It cost me three dollars to come here and save a man from jail to-day, +m'sieu' le juge," he added firmly. The Judge pressed the point of his +cane against the stomach of the hypocrite and perjurer. "If the Devil +and you meet, he will take off his hat to you, my escaped anarchist"-- +Dolores started almost violently now--"for you can teach him much, and +Ananias was the merest aboriginal to you. But we'll get you--we'll get +you, Dolores. You saved that guilty fellow by a careful and remarkable +perjury to-day. In a long experience I have never seen a better +performance--have you, monsieur?" he added to M. Fille. + +"But once," was the pointed and deliberate reply. "Ah, when was that?" +asked Judge Carcasson, interested. + +"The year monsieur le juge was ill, and Judge Blaquiere took your place. +It was in Vilray at the Court House here." + +"Ah--ah, and who was the phenomenon--the perfect liar?" asked the Judge +with the eagerness of the expert. + +"His name was Sebastian Dolores," meditatively replied M. Fille. "It was +even a finer performance than that of to-day." + +The Judge gave a little grunt of surprise. "Twice, eh?" he asked. +"Yet this was good enough to break any record," he added. He fastened +the young widow's eyes. "Madame, you are young, and you have an eye of +intelligence. Be sure of this: you can protect yourself against almost +anyone except a liar--eh, madame?" he added to Mere Langlois. "I am +sure your experience of life and your good sense--" + +"My good sense would make me think purgatory was hell if I saw him"-- +she nodded savagely at Dolores as she said it, for she had seen that last +effort of his to take the fingers of Palass Poucette's widow--"if I saw +him there, m'sieu' le juge." + +"We'll have you yet--we'll have you yet, Dolores," said the Judge, as the +Spaniard prepared to move on. But, as Dolores went, he again caught the +eyes of the young widow. + +This made him suddenly bold. "'Thou shalt not bear false witness against +thy neighbour,'--that is the commandment, is it not, m'sieu' le juge? +You are doing against me what I didn't do in Court to-day. I saved a man +from your malice." + +The crook of the Judge's cane caught the Spaniard's arm, and held him +gently. + +"You're possessed of a devil, Dolores," he said, "and I hope I'll never +have to administer justice in your case. I might be more man than judge. +But you will come to no good end. You will certainly--" + +He got no further, for the attention of all was suddenly arrested by a +wagon driving furiously round the corner of the Court House. It was a +red wagon. In it was Jean Jacques Barbille. + +His face was white and set; his head was thrust forward, as though +looking at something far ahead of him; the pony stallions he was driving +were white with sweat, and he had an air of tragic helplessness and +panic. + +Suddenly a child ran across the roadway in front of the ponies, and the +wild cry of the mother roused Jean Jacques out of his agonized trance. +He sprang to his feet, wrenching the horses backward and aside with +deftness and presence of mind. The margin of safety was not more than a +foot, but the child was saved. + +The philosopher of the Manor Cartier seemed to come out of a dream as men +and women applauded, and cries arose of "Bravo, M'sieu' Jean Jacques!" + +At any other time this would have made Jean Jacques nod and smile, or +wave a hand, or exclaim in good fellowship. Now, however, his eyes were +full of trouble, and the glassiness of the semi-trance leaving them, they +shifted restlessly here and there. Suddenly they fastened on the little +group of which Judge Carcasson was the centre. He had stopped his horses +almost beside them. + +"Ah!" he said, "ah!" as his eyes rested on the Judge. "Ah!" he again +exclaimed, as the glance ran from the Judge to Sebastian Dolores. "Ah, +mercy of God!" he added, in a voice which had both a low note and a high +note-deep misery and shrill protest in one. Then he seemed to choke, and +words would not come, but he kept looking, looking at Sebastian Dolores, +as though fascinated and tortured by the sight of him. + +"What is it, Jean Jacques?" asked the little Clerk of the Court gently, +coming forward and laying a hand on the steaming flank of a spent and +trembling pony. + +As though he could not withdraw his gaze from Sebastian Dolores, Jean +Jacques did not look at M. Fil1e; but he thrust out the long whip he +carried towards the father of his vanished Carmen and his Zoe's +grandfather, and with the deliberation of one to whom speaking was like +the laceration of a nerve he said: "Zoe's run away--gone--gone!" + +At that moment Louis Charron, his cousin, at whose house Gerard Fynes had +lodged, came down the street galloping his horse. Seeing the red wagon, +he made for it, and drew rein. + +"It's no good, Jean Jacques," he called. "They're married and gone to +Montreal--married right under our noses by the Protestant minister at +Terrebasse Junction. I've got the telegram here from the stationmaster +at Terrebasse. . . . Ah, the villain to steal away like that--only a +child--from her own father! Here it is--the telegram. But believe me, +an actor, a Protestant and a foreigner--what a devil's mess!" + +He waved the telegram towards Jean Jacques. + +"Did he owe you anything, Louis?" asked old Mere Langlois, whose +practical mind was alert to find the material status of things. + +"Not a sou. Well, but he was honest, I'll say that for the rogue and +seducer." + +"Seducer--ah, God choke you with your own tongue!" cried Jean Jacques, +turning on Louis Charron with a savage jerk of the whip he held. "She is +as pure--" + +"It is no marriage, of course!" squeaked a voice from the crowd. + +"It'll be all right among the English, won't it, monsieur le juge?" +asked the gentle widow of Palass Poucette, whom the scene seemed to rouse +out of her natural shyness. + +"Most sure, madame, most sure," answered the Judge. "It will be all +right among the English, and it is all right among the French so far as +the law is concerned. As for the Church, that is another matter. But-- +but see," he added addressing Louis Charron, "does the station-master say +what place they took tickets for?" + +"Montreal and Winnipeg," was the reply. "Here it is in the telegram. +Winnipeg--that's as English as London." + +"Winnipeg--a thousand miles!" moaned Jean Jacques. + +With the finality which the tickets for Winnipeg signified, the shrill +panic emotion seemed to pass from him. In its mumbling, deadening force +it was like a sentence on a prisoner. + +As many eyes were on Sebastian Dolores as on Jean Jacques. "It's the bad +blood that was in her," said a farmer with a significant gesture towards +Sebastian Dolores. + +"A little bad blood let out would be a good thing," remarked a truculent +river-driver, who had given evidence directly contrary to that given by +Sebastian Dolores in the trial just concluded. There was a savage look +in his eye. + +Sebastian Dolores heard, and he was not the man to invite trouble. He +could do no good where he was, and he turned to leave the market-place; +but in doing so he sought the eye of Virginie Poucette, who, however, +kept her face at an angle from him, as she saw Mere Langlois sharply +watching her. + +"Grandfather, mother and daughter, all of a piece!" said a spiteful +woman, as Sebastian Dolores passed her. The look he gave her was not the +same as that he had given to Palass Poucette's widow. If it had been +given by a Spanish inquisitor to a heretic, little hope would have +remained in the heretic's heart. Yet there was a sad patient look on his +face, as though he was a martyr. He had no wish to be a martyr; but he +had a feeling that for want of other means of expressing their sympathy +with Jean Jacques, these rough people might tar and feather him at least; +though it was only his misfortune that those sprung from his loins had +such adventurous spirits! + +Sebastian Dolores was not without a real instinct regarding things. What +was in his mind was also passing through that of the river-driver and a +few of his friends, and they carefully watched the route he was taking. + +Jean Jacques prepared to depart. He had ever loved to be the centre of a +picture, but here was a time when to be in the centre was torture. Eyes +of morbid curiosity were looking at the open wounds of his heart-ragged +wounds made by the shrapnel of tragedy and treachery, not the clean +wounds got in a fair fight, easily healed. For the moment at least the +little egoist was a mere suffering soul--an epitome of shame, misery and +disappointment. He must straightway flee the place where he was tied to +the stake of public curiosity and scorn. He drew the reins tighter, and +the horses straightened to depart. Then it was that old Judge Carcasson +laid a hand on his knee. + +"Come, come," he said to the dejected and broken little man, "where is +your philosophy?" + +Jean Jacques looked at the Judge, as though with a new-born suspicion +that henceforth the world would laugh at him, and that Judge Carcasson +was setting the fashion; but seeing a pitying moisture in the other's +eyes, he drew himself up, set his jaw, and calling on all the forces at +his command, he said: + +"Moi je suis philosophe!" + +His voice frayed a little on the last word, but his head was up now. +The Clerk of the Court would have asked to accompany him to the Manor +Cartier, but he was not sure that Jean Jacques would like it. He had a +feeling that Jean Jacques would wish to have his dark hour alone. So he +remained silent, and Jean Jacques touched his horses with the whip. +After starting, however, and having been followed for a hundred yards or +so by the pitying murmurs and a few I-told-you-so's and revilings for +having married as he did, Jean Jacques stopped the ponies. Standing up +in the red wagon he looked round for someone whom, for a moment, he did +not see in the slowly shifting crowd. + +Philosophy was all very well, and he had courageously given his +allegiance to it, or a formula of it, a moment before; but there was +something deeper and rarer still in the little man's soul. His heart +hungered for the two women who had been the joy and pride of his life, +even when he had been lost in the business of the material world. They +were more to him than he had ever known; they were parts of himself which +had slowly developed, as the features and characteristics of ancestors +gradually emerge and are emphasized in a descendant as his years +increase. Carmen and Zoe were more a part of himself now than they had +ever been. + +They were gone, the living spirits of his home. Anything that reminded +him of them, despite the pain of the reminder, was dear to him. Love was +greater than the vengeful desire of injured human nature. His eyes +wandered over the people, over the market. At last he saw what he was +looking for. He called. A man turned. Jean Jacques beckoned to him. +He came eagerly, he hurried to the red wagon. + +"Come home with me," said Jean Jacques. + +The words were addressed to Sebastian Dolores, who said to himself that +this was a refuge surer than "The Red Eagle," or the home of the widow +Poucette. He climbed in beside Jean Jacques with a sigh of content. + +"Ah, but that--but that is the end of our philosopher," said Judge +Carcasson sadly to the Clerk of the Court, as with amazement he saw this +catastrophe. + +"Alas! if I had only asked to go with him, as I wished to do!" +responded M. Fille. "There, but a minute ago, it was in my mind," he +added with a look of pain. + +"You missed your chance, falterer," said the Judge severely. "If you +have a good thought, act on it--that is the golden rule. You missed your +chance. It will never come again. He has taken the wrong turning, our +unhappy Jean Jacques." + +"Monsieur--oh, monsieur, do not shut the door in the face of God like +that!" said the shocked little master of the law. "Those two together +--it may be only for a moment." + +"Ah, no, my little owl, Jean Jacques will wind the boa-constrictor round +his neck like a collar, all for love of those he has lost," answered the +Judge with emotion; and he caught M. Fille's arm in the companionship of +sorrow. + +In silence these two watched the red wagon till it was out of sight. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +He hated irony in anyone else +I said I was not falling in love--I am in love +If you have a good thought, act on it +Philosophers are often stupid in human affairs +The beginning of the end of things was come for him + + + + + + +THE MONEY MASTER + +By Gilbert Parker + + + +EPOCH THE FOURTH + +XVI. MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY +XVII. HIS GREATEST ASSET +XVIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER +XIX. SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP +XX. "AU 'VOIR, M'SIEU' JEAN JACQUES" +XXI. IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +MISFORTUNES COME NOT SINGLY + +Judge Carcasson was right. For a year after Zoe's flight Jean Jacques +wrapped Sebastian Dolores round his neck like a collar, and it choked him +like a boaconstrictor. But not Sebastian Dolores alone did that. When +things begin to go wrong in the life of a man whose hands have held too +many things, the disorder flutters through all the radii of his affairs, +and presently they rattle away from the hub of his control. + +So it was with Jean Jacques. To take his reprobate father-in-law to his +lonely home would have brought him trouble in any case; but as things +were, the Spaniard became only the last straw which broke his camel's +back. And what a burden his camel carried--flour-mill, saw-mill, ash- +factory, farms, a general store, lime-kilns, agency for lightning-rods +and insurance, cattle-dealing, the project for the new cheese-factory, +and money-lending! + +Money-lending? It seemed strange that Jean Jacques should be able to +lend money, since he himself had to borrow, and mortgage also, from time +to time. When things began to go really wrong with him financially, he +mortgaged his farms, his flour-mill, and saw-mill, and then lent money on +other mortgages. This he did because he had always lent money, and it +was a habit so associated with his prestige, that he tied himself up in +borrowing and lending and counter-mortgaging till, as the saying is, "a +Philadelphia lawyer" could not have unravelled his affairs without having +been born again in the law. That he was able to manipulate his tangled +affairs, while keeping the confidence of those from whom he borrowed, and +the admiration of those to whom he lent, was evidence of his capacity. +"Genius of a kind" was what his biggest creditor called it later. + +After a personal visit to St. Saviour's, this biggest creditor and +financial potentate--M. Mornay--said that if Jean Jacques had been +started right and trained right, he would have been a "general in the +financial field, winning big battles." + +M. Mornay chanced to be a friend of Judge Carcasson, and when he visited +Vilray he remembered that the Judge had spoken often of his humble but +learned friend, the Clerk of the Court, and of his sister. So M. Mornay +made his way from the office of the firm of avocats whom he had +instructed in his affairs with Jean Jacques, to that of M. Fille. Here +he was soon engaged in comment on the master-miller and philosopher. + +"He has had much trouble, and no doubt his affairs have suffered," +remarked M. Fille cautiously, when the ice had been broken and the Big +Financier had referred casually to the difficulties among which Jean +Jacques was trying to maintain equilibrium; "but he is a man who can do +things too hard for other men." + +The Big Financier lighted another cigar and blew away several clouds of +smoke before he said in reply, "Yes, I know he has had family trouble +again, but that is a year ago, and he has had a chance to get another +grip of things." + +"He did not sit down and mope," explained M. Fille. "He was at work the +next day after his daughter's flight just the same as before. He is a +man of great courage. Misfortune does not paralyse him." + +M. Mornay's speech was of a kind which came in spurts, with pauses of +thought between, and the pause now was longer than usual. + +"Paralysis--certainly not," he said at last. "Physical activity is one +of the manifestations of mental, moral, and even physical shock and +injury. I've seen a man with a bullet in him run a half-mile--anywhere; +I've seen a man ripped up by a crosscut-saw hold himself together, and +walk--anywhere--till he dropped. Physical and nervous activity is one of +the forms which shattered force takes. I expect that your 'M'sieu' Jean +Jacques' has been busier this last year than ever before in his life. +He'd have to be; for a man who has as many irons in the fire as he has, +must keep running from bellows to bellows when misfortune starts to damp +him down." + +The Clerk of the Court sighed. He realized the significance of what his +visitor was saying. Ever Since Zoe had gone, Jean Jacques had been for +ever on the move, for ever making hay on which the sun did not shine. +Jean Jacques' face these days was lined and changeful. It looked +unstable and tired--as though disturbing forces were working up to the +surface out of control. The brown eyes, too, were far more restless than +they had ever been since the Antoine was wrecked, and their owner +returned with Carmen to the Manor Cartier. But the new restlessness of +the eyes was different from the old. That was a mobility impelled by an +active, inquisitive soul, trying to observe what was going on in the +world, and to make sure that its possessor was being seen by the world. +This activity was that of a mind essentially concerned to find how many +ways it could see for escape from a maze of things; while his vanity was +taking new forms. It was always anxious to discover if the world was +trying to know how he was taking the blows of fate and fortune. He had +been determined that, whatever came, it should not see him paralysed or +broken. + +As M. Fille only nodded his head in sorrowful assent, the Big Financier +became more explicit. He was determined to lose nothing by Jean Jacques, +and he was prepared to take instant action when it was required; but he +was also interested in the man who might have done really powerful things +in the world, had he gone about them in the right way. + +"M. Barbille has had some lawsuits this year, is it not so?" he asked. + +"Two of importance, monsieur, and one is not yet decided," answered M. +Fille. + +"He lost those suits of importance?" + +"That is so, monsieur." + +"And they cost him six thousand dollars--and over?" The Big Financier +seemed to be pressing towards a point. + +"Something over that amount, monsieur." + +"And he may lose the suit now before the Courts?" + +"Who can tell, monsieur!" vaguely commented the little learned official. + +M. Mornay was not to be evaded. "Yes, yes, but the case as it stands-- +to you who are wise in experience of legal affairs, does it seem at all +a sure thing for him?" + +"I wish I could say it was, monsieur," sadly answered the other. + +The Big Financier nodded vigorously. "Exactly. Nothing is so +unproductive as the law. It is expensive whether you win or lose, and it +is murderously expensive when you do lose. You will observe, I know, +that your Jean Jacques is a man who can only be killed once--eh?" + +"Monsieur?" M. Fille really did not grasp this remark. + +M. Mornay's voice became precise. "I will explain. He has never +created; he has only developed what has been created. He inherited much +of what he has or has had. His designs were always affected by the fact +that he had never built from the very bottom. When he goes to pieces--" + +"Monsieur--to pieces!" exclaimed the Clerk of the Court painfully. + +"Well, put it another way. If he is broken financially, he will never +come up again. Not because of his age--I lost a second fortune at fifty, +and have a third ready to lose at sixty--but because the primary +initiative won't be in him. He'll say he has lost, and that there's +an end to it all. His philosophy will come into play--just at the last. +It will help him in one way and harm him in another." + +"Ah, then you know about his philosophy, monsieur?" queried M. Fille. +Was Jean Jacques' philosophy, after all, to be a real concrete asset of +his life sooner or later? + +The Big Financier smiled, and turned some coins over in his pocket rather +loudly. Presently he said: "The first time I ever saw him he treated me +to a page of Descartes. It cost him one per cent. I always charge a man +for talking sentiment to me in business hours. I had to listen to him, +and he had to pay me for listening. I've no doubt his general yearly +expenditure has been increased for the same reason--eh, Maitre Fille? He +has done it with others--yes?" M. Fille waved a hand in deprecation, and +his voice had a little acidity as he replied: "Ah, monsieur, what can we +poor provincials do--any of us--in dealing with men like you, philosophy +or no philosophy? You get us between the upper and the nether mill +stones. You are cosmopolitan; M. Jean Jacques Barbille is a provincial; +and you, because he has soul enough to forget business for a moment and +to speak of things that matter more than money and business, you grind +him into powder." + +M. Mornay shook his head and lighted his cigar again. "There you are +wrong, Maitre Fille. It is bad policy to grind to powder, or grind at +all, men out of whom you are making money. It is better to keep them +from between the upper and nether mill-stones. + +"I have done so with your Barbille. I could give him such trouble as +would bring things crashing down upon him at once, if I wanted to be +merely vicious in getting my own; but that would make it impossible for +me to meet at dinner my friend Judge Carcasson. So, as long as I can, +I will not press him. But I tell you that the margin of safety on which +he is moving now is too narrow--scarce a foot-hold. He has too much +under construction in the business of his life, and if one stone slips +out, down may come the whole pile. He has stopped building the cheese- +factory--that represents sheer loss. The ash-factory is to close next +week, the saw-mill is only paying its way, and the flour-mill and the +farms, which have to sustain the call of his many interests, can't stand +the drain. Also, he has several people heavily indebted to him, and if +they go down--well, it depends on the soundness of the security he holds. +If they listened to him talk philosophy, encouraged him to do it, and +told him they liked it, when the bargain was being made, the chances are +the security is inadequate." + +The Clerk of the Court bridled up. "Monsieur, you are very hard on a man +who for twenty-five years has been a figure and a power in this part of +the province. You sneer at one who has been a benefactor to the place +where he lives; who has given with the right hand and the left; whose +enterprise has been a source of profit to many; and who has got a savage +reward for the acts of a blameless and generous life. You know his +troubles, monsieur, and we who have seen him bear them with fortitude and +Christian philosophy, we resent--" + +"You need resent nothing, Maitre Fille," interrupted the Big Financier, +not unkindly. "What I have said has been said to his friend and the +friend of my own great friend, Judge Carcasson; and I am only anxious +that he should be warned by someone whose opinions count with him; whom +he can trust--" + +"But, monsieur, alas!" broke in the Clerk of the Court, "that is the +trouble; he does not select those he can trust. He is too confiding. +He believes those who flatter him, who impose on his good heart. +It has always been so." + +"I judge it is so still in the case of Monsieur Dolores, his daughter's +grandfather?" the Big Financier asked quizzically. + +"It is so, monsieur," replied M. Fille. "The loss of his daughter shook +him even more than the flight of his wife; and it is as though he could +not live without that scoundrel near him--a vicious man, who makes +trouble wherever he goes. He was a cause of loss to M. Barbille years +ago when he managed the ash-factory; he is very dangerous to women--even +now he is a danger to the future of a young widow" (he meant the widow of +Palass Poucette); "and he has caused a scandal by perjury as a witness, +and by the consequences--but I need not speak of that here. He will do +Jean Jacques great harm in the end, of that I am sure. The very day +Mademoiselle Zoe left the Manor Cartier to marry the English actor, Jean +Jacques took that Spanish bad-lot to his home; and there he stays, and +the old friends go--the old friends go; and he does not seem to miss +them." + +There was something like a sob in M. Fille's voice. He had loved Zoe +in a way that in a mother would have meant martyrdom, if necessary, +and in a father would have meant sacrifice when needed; and indeed he +had sacrificed both time and money to find Zoe. He had even gone as far +as Winnipeg on the chance of finding her, making that first big journey +in the world, which was as much to him in all ways as a journey to Bagdad +would mean to most people of M. Mornay's world. Also he had spent money +since in corresponding with lawyers in the West whom he engaged to search +for her; but Zoe had never been found. She had never written but one +letter to Jean Jacques since her flight. This letter said, in effect, +that she would come back when her husband was no longer "a beggar" as her +father had called him, and not till then. It was written en route to +Winnipeg, at the dictation of Gerard Fynes, who had a romantic view of +life and a mistaken pride, but some courage too--the courage of love. + +"He thinks his daughter will come back--yes?" asked M. Mornay. "Once he +said to me that he was sorry there was no lady to welcome me at the Manor +Cartier, but that he hoped his daughter would yet have the honour. His +talk is quite spacious and lofty at times, as you know." + +"So--that is so, monsieur . . . Mademoiselle Zoe's room is always +ready for her. At time of Noel he sent cards to all the families of the +parish who had been his friends, as from his daughter and himself; and +when people came to visit at the Manor on New Year's Day, he said to each +and all that his daughter regretted she could not arrive in time from the +West to receive them; but that next year she would certainly have the +pleasure." + +"Like the light in the window for the unreturning sailor," somewhat +cynically remarked the Big Financier. "Did many come to the Manor on +that New Year's Day?" + +"But yes, many, monsieur. Some came from kindness, and some because they +were curious--" + +"And Monsieur Dolores?" + +The lips of the Clerk of the Court curled, "He went about with a manner +as soft as that of a young cure. Butter would not melt in his mouth. +Some of the women were sorry for him, until they knew he had given one +of Jean Jacques' best bear-skin rugs to Madame Palass Poucette for a New +Year's gift." + +The Big Financier laughed cheerfully. "It's an old way to popularity-- +being generous with other people's money. That is why I am here. The +people that spend your Jean Jacques' money will be spending mine too, if +I don't take care." + +M. Fille noted the hard look which now settled in M. Mornay's face, and +it disturbed him. He rose and leaned over the table towards his visitor +anxiously. + +"Tell me, if you please, monsieur, is there any real and immediate danger +of the financial collapse of Jean Jacques?" + +The other regarded M. Fille with a look of consideration. He liked this +Clerk of the Court, but he liked Jean Jacques for the matter of that, +and away now from the big financial arena where he usually worked, his +natural instincts had play. He had come to St. Saviour's with a bigger +thing in his mind than Jean Jacques and his affairs; he had come on the +matter of a railway, and had taken Jean Jacques on the way, as it were. +The scheme for the railway looked very promising to him, and he was in +good humour; so that all he said about Jean Jacques was free from that +general irritation of spirit which has sacrificed many a small man on a +big man's altar. He saw the agitation he had caused, and he almost +repented of what he had already said; yet he had acted with a view to +getting M. Fille to warn Jean Jacques. + +"I repeat what I said," he now replied. "Monsieur Jean Jacques' affairs +are too nicely balanced. A little shove one way or another and over goes +the whole caboose. If anyone here has influence over him, it would be a +kindness to use it. That case before the Court of Appeal, for instance; +he'd be better advised to settle it, if there is still time. One or two +of the mortgages he holds ought to be foreclosed, so that he may get out +of them all the law will let him. He ought to pouch the money that's +owing him; he ought to shave away his insurance, his lightning-rod, and +his horsedealing business; and he ought to sell his farms and his store, +and concentrate on the flour-mill and the saw-mill. He has had his +warnings generally from my lawyers, but what he wants most is the gentle +hand to lead him; and I should think that yours, M. Fille, is the hand +the Almighty would choose if He was concerned with what happens at St. +Saviour's and wanted an agent." + +The Clerk of the Court blushed greatly. This was a very big man +indeed in the great commercial world, and flattery from him had unusual +significance; but he threw out his hands with a gesture of helplessness, +and said: "Monsieur, if I could be of use I would; but he has ceased to +listen to me; he--" + +He got no further, for there was a sharp knock at the street door of the +outer office, and M. Fille hastened to the other room. After a moment he +came back, a familiar voice following him. + +"It is Monsieur Barbille, monsieur," M. Fille said quietly, but with +apprehensive eyes. + +"Well--he wants to see me?" asked M. Mornay. "No, no, monsieur. +It would be better if he did not see you. He is in some agitation." + +"Fille! Maitre Fille--be quick now," called Jean Jacques' voice from the +other room. + +"What did I say, monsieur?" asked the Big Financier. "The mind that's +received a blow must be moving--moving; the man with the many irons must +be flying from bellows to bellows!" + +"Come, come, there's no time to lose," came Jean Jacques' voice again, +and the handle of the door of their room turned. + +M. Fille's hand caught the handle. "Excuse me, Monsieur Barbille, +--a minute please," he persisted almost querulously. "Be good enough to +keep your manners . . . monsieur!" he added to the Financier, "if you +do not wish to speak with him, there is a door"--he pointed--"which will +let you into the side-street." + +"What is his trouble?" asked M. Mornay. + +M. Fille hesitated, then said reflectively: "He has lost his case in the +Appeal Court, monsieur; also, his cousin, Auguste Charron, who has been +working the Latouche farm, has flitted, leaving--" + +"Leaving Jean Jacques to pay unexpected debts?" + +"So, monsieur." + +"Then I can be of no use, I fear," remarked M. Mornay dryly. + +"Fille! Fille !" came the voice of Jean Jacques insistently from the +room. + +"And so I will say au revoir, Monsieur Fille," continued the Big +Financier. + +A moment later the great man was gone, and M. Fille was alone with the +philosopher of the Manor Cartier. + +"Well, well, why do you keep me waiting! Who was it in there--anyone +that's concerned with my affairs?" asked Jean Jacques. + +In these days he was sensitive when there was no cause, and he was +credulous where he ought to be suspicious. The fact that the little man +had held the door against him made him sure that M. Fille had not wished +him to see the departed visitor. + +"Come, out with it--who was it making fresh trouble for me?" persisted +Jean Jacques. + +"No one making trouble for you, my friend," answered the Clerk of the +Court, "but someone who was trying to do you a good turn." + +"He must have been a stranger then," returned Jean Jacques bitterly. +"Who was it?" + +M. Fille, after an instant's further hesitation, told him. + +"Oh, him--M. Momay !" exclaimed Jean Jacques, with a look of relief, his +face lighting. "That's a big man with a most capable and far-reaching +mind. He takes a thing in as the ocean mouths a river. If I had had +men like that to deal with all my life, what a different ledger I'd be +balancing now! Descartes, Kant, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Hegel--he has +an ear for them all. That is the intellectual side of him; and in +business"--he threw up a hand--"there he views the landscape from the +mountain-top. He has vision, strategy, executive. He is Napoleon and +Anacreon in one. He is of the builders on the one hand, of the +Illuminati and the Encyclopedistes on the other." + +Even the Clerk of the Court, with his circumscribed range of thought and +experience, in that moment saw Jean Jacques as he really was. Here was a +man whose house of life was beginning to sway from an earthquake; who had +been smitten in several deadly ways, and was about to receive buffetings +beyond aught he had yet experienced, philosophizing on the tight-rope-- +Blondin and Plato in one. Yet sardonically piteous as it was, the +incident had shown Jean Jacques with the germ of something big in him. +He had recognized in M. Mornay, who could level him to the dust tomorrow +financially, a master of the world's affairs, a prospector of life's +fields, who would march fearlessly beyond the farthest frontiers into the +unknown. Jean Jacques' admiration of the lion who could, and would, slay +him was the best tribute to his own character. + +M. Fille's eyes moistened as he realized it; and he knew that nothing he +could say or do would make this man accommodate his actions to the hard +rules of the business of life; he must for ever be applying to them +conceptions of a half-developed mind. + +"Quite so, quite so, Jean Jacques," M. Fille responded gently, "but" +--here came a firmer note to his voice, for he had taken to heart the +lesson M. Mornay had taught him, and he was determined to do his duty now +when the opportunity was in his hand--"but you have got to deal with +things as they are; not as they might have been. If you cannot have the +great men you have to deal with the little men like me. You have to +prove yourself bigger than the rest of us by doing things better. A man +doesn't fail only because of others, but also because of himself. You +were warned that the chances were all against you in the case that's just +been decided, yet you would go on; you were warned that your cousin, +Auguste Charron, was in debt, and that his wife was mad to get away from +the farm and go West, yet you would take no notice. Now he has gone, and +you have to pay, and your case has gone against you in the Appellate +Court besides. . . . I will tell you the truth, my friend, even if it +cuts me to the heart. You have not kept your judgment in hand; you have +gone ahead like a bull at a gate; and you pay the price. You listen to +those who flatter, and on those who would go through fire and water for +you, you turn your back--on those who would help you in your hour of +trouble, in your dark day." + +Jean Jacques drew himself up with a gesture, impatient, masterful and +forbidding. "I have fought my fight alone in the dark day; I have not +asked for any one's help," he answered. "I have wept on no man's +shoulder. I have been mauled by the claws of injury and shame, and I +have not flinched. I have healed my own wounds, and I wear my scars +without--" + +He stopped, for there came a sharp rat-tat-tat at the door which opened +into the street. Somehow the commonplace, trivial interruption produced +on both a strange, even startling effect. It suddenly produced in their +minds a feeling of apprehension, as though there was whispered in their +ears, "Something is going to happen--beware!" + +Rat-tat-tat! The two men looked at each other. The same thought was in +the mind of both. Jean Jacques clutched at his beard nervously, then +with an effort he controlled himself. He took off his hat as though he +was about to greet some important person, or to receive sentence in a +court. Instinctively he felt the little book of philosophy which he +always carried now in his breast-pocket, as a pietist would finger his +beads in moments of fear or anxiety. The Clerk of the Court passed his +thin hand over his hair, as he was wont to do in court when the Judge +began his charge to the Jury, and then with an action more impulsive than +was usual with him, he held out his hand, and Jean Jacques grasped it. +Something was bringing them together just when it seemed that, in the +storm of Jean Jacques' indignation, they were about to fall apart. +M. Fille's eyes said as plainly as words could do, "Courage, my friend!" + +Rat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat! The knocking was sharp and imperative now. +The Clerk of the Court went quickly forward and threw open the door. + +There stepped inside the widow of Palass Poucette. She had a letter in +her hand. "M'sieu', pardon, if I intrude," she said to M. Fille; "but I +heard that M'sieu' Jean Jacques was here. I have news for him." + +"News!" repeated Jean Jacques, and he looked like a man who was waiting +for what he feared to hear. "They told me at the post-office that you +were here. I got the letter only a quarter of an hour ago, and I thought +I would go at once to the Manor Cartier and tell M'sieu' Jean Jacques +what the letter says. I wanted to go to the Manor Cartier for something +else as well, but I will speak of that by and by. It is the letter now." + +She pulled off first one glove and then the other, still holding the +letter, as though she was about to perform some ceremony. "It was a good +thing I found out that M'sieu' Jean Jacques was here. It saves a four- +mile drive," she remarked. + +"The news--ah, nom de Dieu, the slowness of the woman--like a river going +uphill!" exclaimed Jean Jacques, who was finding it hard to still the +trembling of his limbs. + +The widow of Palass Poucette flushed, but she had some sense in her head, +and she realized that Jean Jacques was a little unbalanced at the moment. +Indeed, Jean Jacques was not so old that she would have found it +difficult to take a well-defined and warm interest in him, were +circumstances propitious. She held out the letter to him at once. +"It is from my sister in the West--at Shilah," she explained. "There is +nothing in it you can't read, and most of it concerns you." Jean Jacques +took the letter, but he could not bring himself to read it, for Virginie +Poucette's manner was not suggestive of happy tidings. After an +instant's hesitation he handed the letter to M. Fille, who pressed +his lips with an air of determination, and put on his glasses. + +Jean Jacques saw the face of the Clerk of the Court flush and then turn +pale as he read the letter. "There, be quick!" he said before M. Fille +had turned the first page. + +Then the widow of Palass Poucette came to him and, in a simple harmless +way she had, free from coquetry or guile, stood beside him, took his hand +and held it. He seemed almost unconscious of her act, but his fingers +convulsively tightened on hers; while she reflected that here was one who +needed help sorely; here was a good, warm-hearted man on whom a woman +could empty out affection like rain and get a good harvest. She really +was as simple as a child, was Virginie Poucette, and even in her +acquaintance with Sebastian Dolores, there had only been working in her +the natural desire of a primitive woman to have a man saying that which +would keep alive in her the things that make her sing as she toils; and +certainly Virginie toiled late and early on her farm. She really was +concerned for Jean Jacques. Both wife and daughter had taken flight, and +he was alone and in trouble. At this moment she felt she would like to +be a sister to him--she was young enough to be his daughter almost. Her +heart was kind. + +"Now!" said Jean Jacques at last, as the Clerk of the Court's eyes +reached the end of the last page. "Now, speak! It is--it is my Zoe?" + +"It is our Zoe," answered M. Fille. + +"Figure de Christ, what do you wait for--she is not dead?" exclaimed +Jean Jacques with a courage which made him set his feet squarely. + +The Clerk of the Court shook his head and began. "She is alive. +Madame Poucette's sister saw her by chance. Zoe was on her way up the +Saskatchewan River to the Peace River country with her husband. Her +husband's health was bad. He had to leave the stage in the United States +where he had gone after Winnipeg. The doctors said he must live the +open-air life. He and Zoe were going north, to take a farm somewhere." + +"Somewhere! Somewhere!" murmured Jean Jacques. The farther away from +Jean Jacques the better--that is what she thinks." + +"No, you are wrong, my friend," rejoined M. Fille. "She said to Madame +Poucette's sister"--he held up the letter--"that when they had proved +they could live without anybody's help they would come back to see you. +Zoe thought that, having taken her life in her own hands, she ought to +justify herself before she asked your forgiveness and a place at your +table. She felt that you could only love her and be glad of her, if her +man was independent of you. It is a proud and sensitive soul--but there +it is!" + +"It is romance, it is quixotism--ah, heart of God, what quixotism!" +exclaimed Jean Jacques. + +"She gets her romance and quixotism from Jean Jacques Barbille," retorted +the Clerk of the Court. "She does more feeling than thinking--like you." + +Jean Jacques' heart was bleeding, but he drew himself up proudly, and +caught his hand away from the warm palm of Poucette's widow. As his +affairs crumbled his pride grew more insistent. M. Fille had challenged +his intellect--his intellect! + +"My life has been a procession of practical things," he declared +oracularly. "I have been a man of business who designs. I am no +dreamer. I think. I act. I suffer. I have been the victim of romance, +not its interpreter. Mercy of God, what has broken my life, what but +romance--romance, first with one and then with another! More feeling +than thinking, Maitre Fille--you say that? Why the Barbilles have ever +in the past built up life on a basis of thought and action, and I have +added philosophy--the science of thought and act. Jean Jacques Barbille +has been the man of design and the man of action also. Don Quixote was a +fool, a dreamer, but Jean Jacques is no Don Quixote. He is a man who has +done things, but also he is a man who has been broken on the wheel of +life. He is a man whose heart-strings have been torn--" + +He had worked himself up into a fit of eloquence and revolt. He was +touched by the rod of desperation, which makes the soul protest that it +is right when it knows that it is wrong. + +Suddenly, breaking off his speech, he threw up his hands and made for the +door. + +"I will fight it out alone!" he declared with rough emotion, and at the +door he turned towards them again. He looked at them both as though he +would dare them to contradict him. The restless fire of his eyes seemed +to dart from one to the other. + +"That's the way it is," said the widow of Palass Poucette coming quickly +forward to him. "It's always the way. We must fight our battles alone, +but we don't have to bear the wounds alone. In the battle you are alone, +but the hand to heal the wounds may be another's. You are a philosopher +--well, what I speak is true, isn't it?" + +Virginie had said the one thing which could have stayed the tide of Jean +Jacques' pessimism and broken his cloud of gloom. She appealed to him in +the tune of an old song. The years and the curses of years had not +dispelled the illusion that he was a philosopher. He stopped with his +hand on the door. + +"That's so, without doubt that's so," he said. "You have stumbled on a +truth of life, madame." + +Suddenly there came into his look something of the yearning and hunger +which the lonely and forsaken feel when they are not on the full tide of +doing. It was as though he must have companionship, in spite of his +brave announcement that he must fight his fight alone. He had been +wounded in the battle, and here was one who held out the hand of healing +to him. Never since his wife had left him the long lonely years ago had +a woman meant anything to him except as one of a race; but in this moment +here a woman had held his hand, and he could feel still the warm palm +which had comforted his own agitated fingers. + +Virginie Poucette saw, and she understood what was passing in his mind. +Yet she did not see and understand all by any means; and it is hard to +tell what further show of fire there might have been, but that the Clerk +of the Court was there, saying harshly under his breath, "The huzzy! +The crafty huzzy!" + +The Clerk of the Court was wrong. Virginie was merely sentimental, not +intriguing or deceitful; for Jean Jacques was not a widower--and she was +an honest woman and genuinely tender-hearted. + +"I'm coming to the Manor Cartier to-morrow," Virginie continued. "I have +a rug of yours. By mistake it was left at my house by M'sieu' Dolores." + +"You needn't do that. I will call at your place tomorrow for it," +replied Jean Jacques almost eagerly. "I told M'sieu' Dolores to-day +never to enter my house again. I didn't know it was your rug. It was +giving away your property, not his own," she hurriedly explained, and her +face flushed. + +"That is the Spanish of it," said Jean Jacques bitterly. His eyes were +being opened in many directions to-day. + +M. Fille was in distress. Jean Jacques had had a warning about Sebastian +Dolores, but here was another pit into which he might fall, the pit +digged by a widow, who, no doubt, would not hesitate to marry a divorced +Catholic philosopher, if he could get a divorce by hook or by crook. +Jean Jacques had said that he was going to Virginie Poucette's place +the next day. That was as bad as it could be; yet there was this to the +good, that it was to-morrow and not to-day; and who could tell what might +happen between to-day and to-morrow! + +A moment later the three were standing outside the office in the street. +As Jean Jacques climbed into his red wagon, Virginie Poucette's eyes were +attracted to the northern sky where a reddish glow appeared, and she gave +an exclamation of surprise. + +"That must be a fire," she said, pointing. + +"A bit of pine-land probably," said M. Fille--with anxiety, however, for +the red glow lay in the direction of St. Saviour's where were the Manor +Cartier and Jean Jacques' mills. Maitre Fille was possessed of a +superstition that all the things which threaten a man's life to wreck it, +operate awhile in their many fields before they converge like an army in +one field to deliver the last attack on their victim. It would not have +seemed strange to him, if out of the night a voice of the unseen had said +that the glow in the sky came from the Manor Cartier. This very day +three things had smitten Jean Jacques, and, if three, why not four or +five, or fifty! + +With a strange fascination Jean Jacques' eyes were fastened on the glow. +He clucked to his horses, and they started jerkily away. M. Fille and +the widow Poucette said good-bye to him, but he did not hear, or if he +heard, he did not heed. His look was set upon the red reflection which +widened in the sky and seemed to grow nearer and nearer. The horses +quickened their pace. He touched them with the whip, and they went +faster. The glow increased as he left Vilray behind. He gave the horses +the whip again sharply, and they broke into a gallop. Yet his eyes +scarcely left the sky. The crimson glow drew him, held him, till his +brain was afire also. Jean Jacques had a premonition and a conviction +which was even deeper than the imagination of M. Fille. + +In Vilray, behind him, the telegraph clerk was in the street shouting to +someone to summon the local fire-brigade to go to St. Saviour's. + +"What is it--what is it?" asked M. Fille of the telegraph clerk in +marked agitation. + +"It's M'sieu' Jean Jacques' flour-mill," was the reply. + +Wagons and buggies and carts began to take the road to the Manor Cartier; +and Maitre Fille went also with the widow of Palass Poucette. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HIS GREATEST ASSET + +Jean Jacques did not go to the house of the widow of Palass Poucette +"next day" as he had proposed: and she did not expect him. She had seen +his flour-mill burned to the ground on the-evening when they met in the +office of the Clerk of the evening Court, when Jean Jacques had learned +that his Zoe had gone into farther and farther places away from him. +Perhaps Virginie Poucette never had shed as many tears in any whole year +of her life as she did that night, not excepting the year Palass Poucette +died, and left her his farm and seven horses, more or less sound, and a +threshing-machine in good condition. The woman had a rare heart and +there was that about Jean Jacques which made her want to help him. She +had no clear idea as to how that could be done, but she had held his hand +at any rate, and he had seemed the better for it. Virginie had only an +objective view of things; and if she was not material, still she could +best express herself through the medium of the senses. + +There were others besides her who shed tears also--those who saw Jean +Jacques' chief asset suddenly disappear in flame and smoke and all his +other assets become thereby liabilities of a kind; and there were many +who would be the poorer in the end because of it. If Jean Jacques went +down, he probably would not go alone. Jean Jacques had done a good fire- +insurance business over a course of years, but somehow he had not insured +himself as heavily as he ought to have done; and in any case the fire- +policy for the mill was not in his own hands. It was in the safe-keeping +of M. Mornay at Montreal, who had warned M. Fille of the crisis in the +money-master's affairs on the very day that the crisis came. + +No one ever knew how it was that the mill took fire, but there was one +man who had more than a shrewd suspicion, though there was no occasion +for mentioning it. This was Sebastian Dolores. He had not set the mill +afire. That would have been profitable from no standpoint, and he had no +grudge against Jean Jacques. Why should he have a grudge? Jean Jacques' +good fortune, as things were, made his own good fortune; for he ate and +drank and slept and was clothed at his son-in-law's expense. But he +guessed accurately who had set the mill on fire, and that it was done +accidentally. He remembered that a man who smoked bad tobacco which had +to be lighted over and over again, threw a burning match down after +applying it to his pipe. He remembered that there was a heap of flour- +bags near where the man stood when the match was thrown down; and that +some loose strings for tying were also in a pile beside the bags. So it +was easy for the thing to have happened if the man did not turn round +after he threw the match down, but went swaying on out of the mill, and +over to the Manor Cartier, and up staggering to bed; for he had been +drinking potato-brandy, and he had been brought up on the mild wines of +Spain! In other words, the man who threw down the lighted match which +did the mischief was Sebastian Dolores himself. + +He regretted it quite as much as he had ever regretted anything; and on +the night of the fire there were tears in his large brown eyes which +deceived the New Cure and others; though they did not deceive the widow +of Palass Poucette, who had found him out, and who now had no pleasure at +all in his aged gallantries. But the regret Dolores experienced would +not prevent him from doing Jean Jacques still greater injury if, and +when, the chance occurred, should it be to his own advantage. + +Jean Jacques shed no tears on the night that his beloved flour-mill +became a blackened ruin, and his saw-mill had a narrow escape. He was +like one in a dream, scarcely realizing that men were saying kind things +to him; that the New Cure held his hand and spoke to him more like a +brother than one whose profession it was to be good to those who +suffered. In his eyes was the same half-rapt, intense, distant look +which came into them when, at Vilray, he saw that red reflection in the +sky over against St. Saviour's, and urged his horses onward. + +The world knew that the burning of the mill was a blow to Jean Jacques, +but it did not know how great and heavy the blow was. First one and then +another of his friends said he was insured, and that in another six +months the mill-wheel would be turning again. They said so to Jean +Jacques when he stood with his eyes fixed on the burning fabric, which +nothing could save; but he showed no desire to speak. He only nodded and +kept on staring at the fire with that curious underglow in his eyes. +Some chemistry of the soul had taken place in him in the hour when he +drove to the Manor Cartier from Vilray, and it produced a strange fire, +which merged into the reflection of the sky above the burning mill. +Later, came things which were strange and eventful in his life, but that +under-glow was for ever afterwards in his eyes. It was in singular +contrast to the snapping fire which had been theirs all the days of his +life till now--the snapping fire of action, will and design. It still +was there when they said to him suddenly that the wind had changed, and +that the flame and sparks were now blowing toward the saw-mill. Even +when he gave orders, and set to work to defend the saw-mill, arranging a +line of men with buckets on its roof, and so saving it, this look +remained. It was something spiritual and unmaterial, something, maybe, +which had to do with the philosophy he had preached, thought and +practised over long years. It did not disappear when at last, after +midnight, everyone had gone, and the smouldering ruins of his greatest +asset lay mournful in the wan light of the moon. + +Kind and good friends like the Clerk of the Court and the New Cure had +seen him to his bedroom at midnight, leaving him there with a promise +that they would come on the morrow; and he had said goodnight evenly, and +had shut the door upon them with a sort of smile. But long after they +had gone, when Sebastian Dolores and Seraphe Corniche were asleep, he had +got up again and left the house, to gaze at the spot where the big white +mill with the red roof had been-the mill which had been there in the days +of the Baron of Beaugard, and to which time had only added size and +adornment. The gold-cock weathervane of the mill, so long the admiration +of people living and dead, and indeed the symbol of himself, as he had +been told, being so full of life and pride, courage and vigour-it lay +among the ruins, a blackened relic of the Barbilles. + +He had said in M. Fille's office not many hours before, "I will fight it +all out alone," and here in the tragic quiet of the night he made his +resolve a reality. In appearance he was not now like the "Seigneur" who +sang to the sailors on the Antoine when she was fighting for the shore of +Gaspe; nevertheless there was that in him which would keep him much the +same man to the end. + +Indeed, as he got into bed that fateful night he said aloud: "They shall +see that I am not beaten. If they give me time up there in Montreal I'll +keep the place till Zoe comes back--till Zoe comes home." + +As he lay and tried to sleep, he kept saying over to himself, "Till Zoe +comes home." + +He thought that if he could but have Zoe back, it all would not matter so +much. She would keep looking at him and saying, "There's the man that +never flinched when things went wrong; there's the man that was a friend +to everyone." + +At last a thought came to him--the key to the situation as it seemed, the +one thing necessary to meet the financial situation. He would sell the +biggest farm he owned, which had been to him in its importance like the +flour-mill itself. He had had an offer for it that very day, and a +bigger offer still a week before. It was mortgaged to within eight +thousand dollars of what it could be sold for but, if he could gain time, +that eight thousand dollars would build the mill again. M. Mornay, the +Big Financier, would certainly see that this was his due--to get his +chance to pull things straight. Yes, he would certainly sell the +Barbille farm to-morrow. With this thought in his mind he went to sleep +at last, and he did not wake till the sun was high. + +It was a sun of the most wonderful brightness and warmth. Yesterday it +would have made the Manor Cartier and all around it look like Arcady. +But as it shone upon the ruins of the mill, when Jean Jacques went out +into the working world again, it made so gaunt and hideous a picture +that, in spite of himself, a cry of misery came from his lips. + +Through all the misfortunes which had come to him the outward semblance +of things had remained, and when he went in and out of the plantation of +the Manor Cartier, there was no physical change in the surroundings, +which betrayed the troubles and disasters fallen upon its overlord. +There it all was just as it had ever been, and seeming to deny that +anything had changed in the lives of those who made the place other than +a dead or deserted world. When Carmen went, when Zoe fled, when his +cousin Auguste Charron took his flight, when defeats at law abashed him, +the house and mills, and stores and offices, and goodly trees, and well- +kept yards and barns and cattle-sheds all looked the same. Thus it was +that he had been fortified. In one sense his miseries had seemed unreal, +because all was the same in the outward scene. It was as though it all +said to him: "It is a dream that those you love have vanished, that ill- +fortune sits by your fireside. One night you will go to bed thinking +that wife and child have gone, that your treasury is nearly empty; and in +the morning you will wake up and find your loved ones sitting in their +accustomed places, and your treasury will be full to overflowing as of +old." + +So it was while the picture of his home scene remained unbroken and +serene; but the hideous mass of last night's holocaust was now before his +eyes, with little streams of smoke rising from the cindered pile, and +a hundred things with which his eyes had been familiar lay distorted, +excoriated and useless. He realized with sudden completeness that a +terrible change bad come in his life, that a cyclone had ruined the face +of his created world. + +This picture did more to open up Jean Jacques' eyes to his real position +in life than anything he had experienced, than any sorrow he had +suffered. He had been in torment in the past, but he had refused to see +that he was in Hades. Now it was as though he had been led through the +streets of Hell by some dark spirit, while in vain he looked round for +his old friends Kant and Hegel, Voltaire and Rousseau and Rochefoucauld, +Plato and Aristotle. + +While gazing at the dismal scene, however, and unheeding the idlers who +poked about among the ruins, and watched him as one who was the centre of +a drama, he suddenly caught sight of the gold Cock of Beaugard, which had +stood on the top of the mill, in the very centre of the ruins. + +Yes, there it was, the crested golden cock which had typified his own +life, as he went head high, body erect, spurs giving warning, and a +clarion in his throat ready to blare forth at any moment. There was the +golden Cock of Beaugard in the cinders, the ashes and the dust. His chin +dropped on his breast, and a cloud like a fog on the coast of Gaspe +settled round him. Yet even as his head drooped, something else +happened--one of those trivial things which yet may be the pivot of great +things. A cock crowed--almost in his very ear, it seemed. He lifted his +head quickly, and a superstitious look flashed into his face. His eyes +fastened on the burnished head of the Cock among the ruins. To his +excited imagination it was as though the ancient symbol of the Barbilles +had spoken to him in its own language of good cheer and defiance. Yes, +there it was, half covered by the ruins, but its head was erect in the +midst of fire and disaster. Brought low, it was still alert above the +wreckage. The child, the dreamer, the optimist, the egoist, and the man +alive in Jean Jacques sprang into vigour again. It was as though the +Cock of Beaugard had really summoned him to action, and the crowing had +not been that of a barnyard bantam not a hundred feet away from him. +Jean Jacques' head went up too. + +"Me--I am what I always was, nothing can change me," he exclaimed +defiantly. "I will sell the Barbille farm and build the mill again." + +So it was that by hook or by crook, and because the Big Financier had +more heart than he even acknowledged to his own wife, Jean Jacques did +sell the Barbille farm, and got in cash--in good hard cash-eight thousand +dollars after the mortgage was paid. M. Mornay was even willing to take +the inadequate indemnity of the insurance policy on the mill, and lose +the rest, in order that Jean Jacques should have the eight thousand +dollars to rebuild. This he did because Jean Jacques showed such amazing +courage after the burning of the mill, and spread himself out in a +greater activity than his career had yet shown. He shaved through this +financial crisis, in spite of the blow he had received by the loss of his +lawsuits, the flitting of his cousin, Auguste Charron, and the farm debts +of this same cousin. It all meant a series of manipulations made +possible by the apparent confidence reposed in him by M. Mornay. + +On the day he sold his farm he was by no means out of danger of absolute +insolvency--he was in fact ruined; but he was not yet the victim of those +processes which would make him legally insolvent. The vultures were +hovering, but they had not yet swooped, and there was the Manor saw-mill +going night and day; for by the strangest good luck Jean Jacques received +an order for M. Mornay's new railway (Judge Carcasson was behind that) +which would keep his saw-mill working twenty-four hours in the day for +six months. + +"I like his pluck, but still, ten to one, he loses," remarked M. Mornay +to Judge Carcasson. "He is an unlucky man, and I agree with Napoleon +that you oughtn't to be partner with an unlucky man." + +"Yet you have had to do with Monsieur Jean Jacques," responded the aged +Judge. + +M. Mornay nodded indulgently. + +"Yes, without risk, up to the burning of the mill. Now I take my +chances, simply because I'm a fool too, in spite of all the wisdom I see +in history and in life's experiences. I ought to have closed him up, but +I've let him go on, you see." + +"You will not regret it," remarked the Judge. "He really is worth it." + +"But I think I will regret it financially. I think that this is the last +flare of the ambition and energy of your Jean Jacques. That often +happens--a man summons up all his reserves for one last effort. It's +partly pride, partly the undefeated thing in him, partly the gambling +spirit which seizes men when nothing is left but one great spectacular +success or else be blotted out. That's the case with your philosopher; +and I'm not sure that I won't lose twenty thousand dollars by him yet." + +"You've lost more with less justification," retorted the Judge, who, in +his ninetieth year, was still as alive as his friend at sixty. + +M. Mornay waved a hand in acknowledgment, and rolled his cigar from +corner to corner of his mouth. "Oh, I've lost a lot more in my time, +Judge, but with a squint in my eye! But I'm doing this with no +astigmatism. I've got the focus." + +The aged Judge gave a conciliatory murmur-he had a fine persuasive voice. +"You would never be sorry for what you have done if you had known his +daughter--his Zoe. It's the thought of her that keeps him going. He +wants the place to be just as she left it when she comes back." + +"Well, well, let's hope it will. I'm giving him a chance," replied M. +Mornay with his wineglass raised. "He's got eight thousand dollars in +cash to build his mill again; and I hope he'll keep a tight hand on it +till the mill is up." + +Keep a tight hand on it? + +That is what Jean Jacques meant to do; but if a man wants to keep a tight +hand on money he should not carry it about in his pocket in cold, hard +cash. It was a foolish whim of Jean Jacques that he must have the eight +thousand dollars in cash--in hundred-dollar bills--and not in the form of +a cheque; but there was something childlike in him. When, as he thought, +he had saved himself from complete ruin, he wanted to keep and gloat over +the trophy of victory, and his trophy was the eight thousand dollars got +from the Barbille farm. He would have to pay out two thousand dollars in +cash to the contractors for the rebuilding of the mill at once,--they +were more than usually cautious--but he would have six thousand left, +which he would put in the bank after he had let people see that he was +well fortified with cash. + +The child in him liked the idea of pulling out of his pocket a few +thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He had always carried a good +deal of money loose in his pocket, and now that his resources were so +limited he would still make a gallant show. After a week or two he would +deposit six thousand dollars in the bank; but he was so eager to begin +building the mill, that he paid over the stipulated two thousand dollars +to the contractors on the very day he received the eight thousand. A few +days later the remaining six thousand were housed in a cupboard with an +iron door in the wall of his office at the Manor Cartier. + +"There, that will keep me in heart and promise," said Jean Jacques as he +turned the key in the lock. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +JEAN JACQUES HAS AN OFFER + +The day after Jean Jacques had got a new lease of life and become his own +banker, he treated himself to one of those interludes of pleasure from +which he had emerged in the past like a hermit from his cave. He sat on +the hill above his lime-kilns, reading the little hand-book of philosophy +which had played so big a part in his life. Whatever else had disturbed +his mind and diverted him from his course, nothing had weaned him from +this obsession. He still interlarded all his conversation with +quotations from brilliant poseurs like Chateaubriand and Rochefoucauld, +and from missionaries of thought like Hume and Hegel. + +His real joy, however, was in withdrawing for what might be called a +seance of meditation from the world's business. Some men make +celebration in wine, sport and adventure; but Jean Jacques made it in +flooding his mind with streams of human thought which often tried to run +uphill, which were frequently choked with weeds, but still were like the +pool of Siloam to his vain mind. They bathed that vain mind in the +illusion that it could see into the secret springs of experience. + +So, on as bright a day as ever the New World offered, Jean Jacques sat +reciting to himself a spectacular bit of logic from one of his idols, +wedged between a piece of Aristotle quartz and Plato marble. The sound +of it was good in his ears. He mouthed it as greedily and happily as +though he was not sitting on the edge of a volcano instead of the moss- +grown limestone on a hill above his own manor. + +"The course of events in the life of a man, whatever their gravity or +levity, are only to be valued and measured by the value and measure of +his own soul. Thus, what in its own intrinsic origin and material should +in all outer reason be a tragedy, does not of itself shake the +foundations or make a fissure in the superstructure. Again--" + +Thus his oracle, but Jean Jacques' voice suddenly died down, for, as he +sat there, the face of a woman made a vivid call of recognition. He +slowly awakened from his self-hypnotism, to hear a woman speaking to him; +to see two dark eyes looking at him from under heavy black brows with +bright, intent friendliness. + +"They said at the Manor you had come this way, so I thought I'd not have +my drive for nothing, and here I am. I wanted to say something to you, +M'sieu' Jean Jacques." + +It was the widow of Palass Poucette. She looked very fresh and friendly +indeed, and she was the very acme of neatness. If she was not handsome, +she certainly had a true and sweet comeliness of her own, due to the deep +rose-colour of her cheeks, the ivory whiteness round the lustrous brown +eyes, the regular shining teeth which showed so much when she smiled, and +the look half laughing, half sentimental which dominated all. + +Before she had finished speaking Jean Jacques was on his feet with his +hat off. Somehow she seemed to be a part of that abstraction, that +intoxication, in which he had just been drowning his accumulated +anxieties. Not that Virginie Poucette was logical or philosophical, or +a child of thought, for she was wholly the opposite-practical, sensuous, +emotional, a child of nature and of Eve. But neither was Jean Jacques a +real child of thought, though he made unconscious pretence of it. He +also was a child of nature--and Adam. He thought he had the courage of +his convictions, but it was only the courage of his emotions. His +philosophy was but the bent or inclination of a mind with a capacity +to feel things rather than to think them. He had feeling, the first +essential of the philosopher, but there he stayed, an undeveloped +chrysalis. + +His look was abstracted still as he took the hand of the widow of Palass +Poucette; but he spoke cheerfully. "It is a pleasure, madame, to welcome +you among my friends," he said. + +He made a little flourish with the book which had so long been his bosom +friend, and added: "But I hope you are in no trouble that you come to me +--so many come to me in their troubles," he continued with an air of +satisfaction. + +"Come to you--why, you have enough troubles of your own!" she made +answer. "It's because you have your own troubles that I'm here." + +"Why you are here," he remarked vaguely. + +There was something very direct and childlike in Virginie Poucette. She +could not pretend; she wore her heart on her sleeve. She travelled a +long distance in a little while. + +"I've got no trouble myself," she responded. "But, yes, I have," she +added. "I've got one trouble--it's yours. It's that you've been having +hard times--the flour-mill, your cousin Auguste Charron, the lawsuits, +and all the rest. They say at Vilray that you have all you can do to +keep out of the Bankruptcy Court, and that--" + +Jean Jacques started, flushed, and seemed about to get angry; but she put +things right at once. + +"People talk more than they know, but there's always some fire where +there's smoke," she hastened to explain. "Besides, your father-in-law +babbles more than is good for him or for you. I thought at first that +M. Dolores was a first-class kind of man, that he had had hard times too, +and I let him come and see me; but I found him out, and that was the end +of it, you may be sure. If you like him, I don't want to say anything +more, but I'm sure that he's no real friend to you-or to anybody. If +that man went to confession--but there, that's not what I've come for. +I've come to say to you that I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life +as I do for you. I cried all night after your beautiful mill was burned +down. You were coming to see me next day--you remember what you said in +M. Fille's office--but of course you couldn't. Of course, there was no +reason why you should come to see me really--I've 'only got two hundred +acres and the house. It's a good house, though--Palass saw to that--and +it's insured; but still I know you'd have come just the same if I'd had +only two acres. I know. There's hosts of people you've been good to +here, and they're sorry for you; and I'm sorrier than any, for I'm alone, +and you're alone, too, except for the old Dolores, and he's no good to +either of us--mark my words, no good to you! I'm sorry for you, M'sieu' +Jean Jacques, and I've come to say that I'm ready to lend you two +thousand dollars, if that's any help. I could make it more if I had +time; but sometimes money on the spot is worth a lot more than what's +just crawling to you--snailing along while you eat your heart out. Two +thousand dollars is two thousand dollars--I know what it's worth to me, +though it mayn't be much to you; but I didn't earn it. It belonged to +a first-class man, and he worked for it, and he died and left it to me. +It's not come easy, go easy with me. I like to feel I've got two +thousand cash without having to mortgage for it. But it belonged to +a number-one man, a man of brains--I've got no brains, only some sense +--and I want another good man to use it and make the world easier for +himself." + +It was a long speech, and she delivered it in little gasps of oratory +which were brightened by her wonderfully kind smile and the heart--not to +say sentiment--which showed in her face. The sentiment, however, did not +prejudice Jean Jacques against her, for he was a sentimentalist himself. +His feelings were very quick, and before she had spoken fifty words the +underglow of his eyes was flooded by something which might have been +mistaken for tears. It was, however, only the moisture of gratitude and +the soul's good feeling. + +"Well there, well there," he said when she had finished, "I've never had +anything like this in my life before. It's the biggest thing in the art +of being a neighbour I've ever seen. You've only been in the parish +three years, and yet you've shown me a confidence immense, inspiring! +It is as the Greek philosopher said, 'To conceive the human mind aright +is the greatest gift from the gods.' And to you, who never read a line +of philosophy, without doubt, you have done the thing that is greatest. +It says, 'I teach neighbourliness and life's exchange.' Madame, your +house ought to be called Neighbourhood House. It is the epitome of the +spirit, it is the shrine of--" + +He was working himself up to a point where he could forget all the things +that trouble humanity, in the inebriation of an idealistic soul which had +a casing of passion, but the passion of the mind and not of the body; for +Jean Jacques had not a sensual drift in his organism. If there had been +a sensual drift, probably Carmen would still have been the lady of his +manor, and he would still have been a magnate and not a potential +bankrupt; for in her way Carmen had been a kind of balance to his +judgment in the business of life, in spite of her own material and +(at the very last) sensual strain. It was a godsend to Jean Jacques to +have such an inspiration as Virginie Poucette had given him. He could +not in these days, somehow, get the fires of his soul lighted, as he was +wont to do in the old times, and he loved talking--how he loved talking +of great things! He was really going hard, galloping strong, when +Virginie interrupted him, first by an exclamation, then, as insistently +he repeated the words, "It is the epitome of the spirit, the shrine of--" + +She put out a hand, interrupting him, and said: "Yes, yes, M'sieu' +Jean Jacques, that's as good as Moliere, I s'pose, or the Archbishop at +Quebec, but are you going to take it, the two thousand dollars? I made a +long speech, I know, but that was to tell you why I come with the money" +--she drew out a pocketbook--"with the order on my lawyer to hand the +cash over to you. As a woman I had to explain to you, there being lots +of ideas about what a woman should do and what she shouldn't do; but +there's nothing at all for you to explain, and Mere Langlois and a lot of +others would think I'm vain enough now without your compliments. I'm a +neighbour if you like, and I offer you a loan. Will you take it--that's +all?" + +He held out his hand in silence and took the paper from her. Putting his +head a little on one side, he read it. At first he seemed hardly to get +the formal language clear in his mind; however, or maybe his mind was +still away in that abstraction into which he had whisked it when he began +his reply to her fine offer; but he read it out aloud, first quickly, +then very slowly, and he looked at the signature with a deeply meditative +air. + +"Virginie Poucette--that's a good name," he remarked; "and also good for +two thousand dollars!" He paused to smile contentedly over his own joke. +"And good for a great deal more than that too," he added with a nod. + +"Yes, ten times as much as that," she responded quickly, her eyes fixed +on his face. She scarcely knew herself what she was thinking when she +said it; but most people who read this history will think she was hinting +that her assets might be united with his, and so enable him to wipe out +his liabilities and do a good deal more besides. Yet, how could that be, +since Carmen Dolores was still his wife if she was alive; and also they +both were Catholics, and Catholics did not recognize divorce! + +Truth is, Virginie Poucette's mind did not define her feelings at all +clearly, or express exactly what she wanted. Her actions said one thing +certainly; but if the question had been put to her, whether she was doing +this thing because of a wish to take the place of Carmen Dolores in Jean +Jacques' life she would have said no at once. She had not come to that +--yet. She was simply moved by a sentiment of pity for Jean Jacques, and +as she had no child, or husband, or sister, or brother, or father, or +mother, but only relatives who tried to impose upon her, she needed an +objective for the emotions of her nature, for the overflow of her unused +affection and her unsatisfied maternal spirit. Here, then, was the most +obvious opportunity--a man in trouble who had not deserved the bitter bad +luck which had come to him. Even old Mere Langlois in the market-place +at Vilray had admitted that, and had said the same later on in Virginie's +home. + +For an instant Jean Jacques was fascinated by the sudden prospect which +opened out before him. If he asked her, this woman would probably loan +him five thousand dollars--and she had mentioned nothing about security! + +"What security do you want?" he asked in a husky voice. + +"Security? I don't understand about that," she replied. "I'd not offer +you the money if I didn't think you were an honest man, and an honest man +would pay me back. A dishonest man wouldn't pay me back, security or no +security." + +"He'd have to pay you back if the security was right to start with," Jean +Jacques insisted. "But you don't want security, because you think I'm an +honest man! Well, for sure you're right. I am honest. I never took a +cent that wasn't mine; but that's not everything. If you lend you ought +to have security. I've lost a good deal from not having enough security +at the start. You are willing to lend me money without security--that's +enough to make me feel thirty again, and I'm fifty--I'm fifty," he added, +as though with an attempt to show her that she could not think of him in +any emotional way; though the day when his flour-mill was burned he had +felt the touch of her fingers comforting and thrilling. + +"You think Jean Jacques Barbille's word as good as his bond?" he +continued. "So it is; but I'm going to pull this thing through alone. +That's what I said to you and Maitre Fille at his office. I meant it too +--help of God, it is the truth!" + +He had forgotten that if M. Mornay had not made it easy for him, and had +not refrained from insisting on his pound of flesh, he would now be +insolvent and with no roof over him. Like many another man Jean Jacques +was the occasional slave of formula, and also the victim of phases of his +own temperament. In truth he had not realized how big a thing M. Mornay +had done for him. He had accepted the chance given him as the tribute to +his own courage and enterprise and integrity, and as though it was to the +advantage of his greatest creditor to give him another start; though in +reality it had made no difference to the Big Financier, who knew his man +and, with wide-open eyes, did what he had done. + +Virginie was not subtle. She did not understand, was never satisfied +with allusions, and she had no gift for catching the drift of things. +She could endure no peradventure in her conversation. She wanted plain +speaking and to be literally sure. + +"Are you going to take it?" she asked abruptly. + +He could not bear to be checked in his course. He waved a hand and +smiled at her. Then his eyes seemed to travel away into the distance, +the look of the dreamer in them; but behind all was that strange, ruddy +underglow of revelation which kept emerging from shadows, retreating and +emerging, yet always there now, in much or in little, since the burning +of the mill. + +"I've lent a good deal of money without security in my time," he +reflected, "but the only people who ever paid me back were a deaf and +dumb man and a flyaway--a woman that was tired of selling herself, and +started straight and right with the money I lent her. She had been the +wife of a man who studied with me at Laval. She paid me back every +penny, too, year by year for five years. The rest I lent money to never +paid; but they paid, the dummy and the harlot that was, they paid! But +they paid for the rest also! If I had refused these two because of the +others, I'd not be fit to visit at Neighbourhood House where Virginie +Poucette lives." + +He looked closely at the order she had given him again, as though to let +it sink in his mind and be registered for ever. "I'm going to do without +any further use of your two thousand dollars," he continued cheer fully. +"It has done its work. You've lent it to me, I've used it"--he put the +hand holding it on his breast--"and I'm paying it back to you, but +without interest." He gave the order to her. + +"I don't see what you mean," she said helplessly, and she looked at the +paper, as though it had undergone some change while it was in his hand. + +"That you would lend it me is worth ten times two thousand to me, +Virginie Poucette," he explained. "It gives me, not a kick from behind +--I've not had much else lately--but it holds a light in front of me. +It calls me. It says, 'March on, Jean Jacques--climb the mountain.' +It summons me to dispose my forces for the campaign which will restore +the Manor Cartier to what it has ever been since the days of the Baron +of Beaugard. It quickens the blood at my heart. It restores--" + +Virginie would not allow him to go on. "You won't let me help you? +Suppose I do lose the money--I didn't earn it; it was earned by Palass +Poucette, and he'd understand, if he knew. I can live without the money, +if I have to, but you would pay it back, I know. You oughtn't to take +any extra risks. If your daughter should come back and not find you +here, if she returned to the Manor Cartier, and--" + +He made an insistent gesture. "Hush! Be still, my friend--as good a +friend as a man could have. If my Zoe came back I'd like to feel--I'd +like to feel that I had saved things alone; that no woman's money made +me safe. If Zoe or if--" + +He was going to say, "If Carmen came back," for his mind was moving in +past scenes; but he stopped short and looked around helplessly. Then +presently, as though by an effort, he added with a bravura note in his +voice: + +"The world has been full of trouble for a long time, but there have +always been men to say to trouble, 'I am master, I have the mind to get +above it all.' Well, I am one of them." + +There was no note of vanity or bombast in his voice as he said this, +and in his eyes that new underglow deepened and shone. Perhaps in this +instant he saw more of his future than he would speak of to anyone on +earth. Perhaps prevision was given him, and it was as the Big Financier +had said to Maitre Fille, that his philosophy was now, at the last, to be +of use to him. When his wife had betrayed him, and his wife and child +had left him, he had said, "Moi je suis philosophe!" but he was a man of +wealth in those days, and money soothes hurts of that kind in rare +degree. Would he still say, whatever was yet to come, that he was a +philosopher? + +"Well, I've done what I thought would help you, and I can't say more than +that," Virginie remarked with a sigh, and there was despondency in her +eyes. Her face became flushed, her bosom showed agitation; she looked at +him as she had done in Maitre Fille's office, and a wave of feeling +passed over him now, as it did then, and he remembered, in response to +her look, the thrill of his fingers in her palm. His face now flushed +also, and he had an impulse to ask her to sit down beside him. He put it +away from him, however, for the present, at any rate-who could tell what +to-morrow might bring forth!--and then he held out his hand to her. His +voice shook a little when he spoke; but it cleared, and began to ring, +before he had said a dozen words. + +"I'll never forget what you've said and done this morning, Virginie +Poucette," he declared; "and if I break the back of the trouble that's in +my way, and come out cock o' the walk again"--the gold Cock of Beaugard +in the ruins near and the clarion of the bantam of his barnyard were in +his mind and ears--"it'll be partly because of you. I hug that thought +to me." + +"I could do a good deal more than that," she ventured, with a tremulous +voice, and then she took her warm hand from his nervous grasp, and turned +sharply into the path which led back towards the Manor. She did not turn +around, and she walked quickly away. + +There was confusion in her eyes and in her mind. It would take some time +to make the confusion into order, and she was now hot, now cold, in all +her frame, when at last she climbed into her wagon. + +This physical unrest imparted itself to all she did that day. First her +horses were driven almost at a gallop; then they were held down to a slow +walk; then they were stopped altogether, and she sat in the shade of the +trees on the road to her home, pondering--whispering to herself and +pondering. + +As her horses were at a standstill she saw a wagon approaching. +Instantly she touched her pair with the whip, and moved on. Before the +approaching wagon came alongside, she knew from the grey and the +darkbrown horses who was driving them, and she made a strong effort for +composure. She succeeded indifferently, but her friend, Mere Langlois, +did not notice this fact as her wagon drew near. There was excitement in +Mere Langlois' face. + +"There's been a shindy at the 'Red Eagle' tavern," she said. "That +father-in-law of M'sieu' Jean Jacques and Rocque Valescure, the landlord, +they got at each other's throats. Dolores hit Valescure on the head with +a bottle." + +"He didn't kill Valescure, did he?" + +"Not that--no. But Valescure is hurt bad--as bad. It was six to one and +half a dozen to the other--both no good at all. But of course they'll +arrest the old man--your great friend! He'll not give you any more fur- +robes, that's sure. He got away from the tavern, though, and he's hiding +somewhere. M'sieu' Jean Jacques can't protect him now; he isn't what he +once was in the parish. He's done for, and old Dolores will have to go +to trial. They'll make it hot for him when they catch him. No more fur- +robes from your Spanish friend, Virginie ! You'll have to look somewhere +else for your beaux, though to be sure there are enough that'd be glad to +get you with that farm of yours, and your thrifty ways, if you keep your +character." + +Virginie was quite quiet now. The asperity and suggestiveness of the +other's speech produced a cooling effect upon her. + +"Better hurry, Mere Langlois, or everybody won't hear your story before +sundown. If your throat gets tired, there's Brown's Bronchial Troches--" +She pointed to an advertisement on the fence near by. "M. Fille's cook +says they cure a rasping throat." + +With that shot, Virginie Poucette whipped up her horses and drove on. +She did not hear what Mere Langlois called after her, for Mere Langlois +had been slow to recover from the unexpected violence dealt by one whom +she had always bullied. + +"Poor Jean Jacques!" said Virginie Poucette to herself as her horses ate +up the ground. "That's another bit of bad luck. He'll not sleep to- +night. Ah, the poor Jean Jacques--and all alone--not a hand to hold; no +one to rumple that shaggy head of his or pat him on the back! His wife +and Ma'm'selle Zoe, they didn't know a good thing when they had it. No, +he'll not sleep to-night-ah, my dear Jean Jacques!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +SEBASTIAN DOLORES DOES NOT SLEEP + +But Jean Jacques did sleep well that night; though it would have been +better for him if he had not done so. The contractor's workmen had +arrived in the early afternoon, he had seen the first ton of debris +removed from the ruins of the historic mill, and it was crowned by the +gold Cock of Beaugard, all grimy with the fire, but jaunty as of yore. +The cheerfulness of the workmen, who sang gaily an old chanson of mill- +life as they tugged at the timbers and stones, gave a fillip to the +spirits of Jean Jacques, to whom had come a red-letter day. + +Like Mirza on the high hill of Bagdad he had had his philosophic +meditations; his good talk with Virginie Poucette had followed; and the +woman of her lingered in the feeling of his hand all day, as something +kind and homelike and true. Also in the evening had come M. Fille, who +brought him a message from Judge Carcasson, that he must make the world +sing for himself again. + +Contrary to what Mere Langlois had thought, he had not been perturbed by +the parish noise about the savage incident at "The Red Eagle," and the +desperate affair which would cause the arrest of his father-in-law. He +was at last well inclined to be rid of Sebastian Dolores, who had ceased +to be a comfort to him, and who brought him hateful and not kindly +memories of his lost women, and the happy hours of the past they +represented. + +M. Fille had come to the Manor in much alarm, lest the news of the +miserable episode at "The Red Eagle" should bring Jean Jacques down again +to the depths. He was infinitely relieved, however, to find that the +lord of the Manor Cartier seemed only to be grateful that Sebastian +Dolores did not return, and nodded emphatically when M. Fille remarked +that perhaps it would be just as well if he never did return. + +As M. Fille sat with his host at the table in the sunset light, Jean +Jacques seemed quieter and steadier of body and mind than he had been for +a long, long time. He even drank three glasses of the cordial which Mere +Langlois had left for him, with the idea that it might comfort him when +he got the bad news about Sebastian Dolores; and parting with M. Fille at +the door, he waved a hand and said: "Well, good-night, master of the +laws. Safe journey! I'm off to bed, and I'll sleep without rocking, +that's very sure and sweet." + +He stood and waved his hand several times to M. Fille--till he was +out of sight indeed; and the Clerk of the Court smiled to himself long +afterwards, recalling Jean Jacques' cheerful face as he had seen it at +their parting in the gathering dusk. As for Jean Jacques, when he locked +up the house at ten o'clock, with Dolores still absent, he had the air of +a man from whose shoulders great weights had fallen. + +"Now I've shut the door on him, it'll stay shut," he said firmly. "Let +him go back to work. He's no good here to me, to himself, or to anyone. +And that business of the fur-robe and Virginie Poucette--ah, that!" + +He shook his head angrily, then seeing the bottle of cordial still +uncorked on the sideboard, he poured some out and drank it very slowly, +till his eyes were on the ceiling above him and every drop had gone home. +Presently, with the bedroom lamp in his hand, he went upstairs, humming +to himself the chanson the workmen had sung that afternoon as they raised +again the walls of the mill: + + "Distaff of flax flowing behind her + Margatton goes to the mill + On the old grey ass she goes, + The flour of love it will blind her + Ah, the grist the devil will grind her, + When Margatton goes to the mill! + On the old grey ass she goes, + And the old grey ass, he knows!" + +He liked the sound of his own voice this night of his Reconstruction +Period--or such it seemed to him; and he thought that no one heard his +singing save himself. There, however, he was mistaken. Someone was +hidden in the house--in the big kitchen-bunk which served as a bed or a +seat, as needed. This someone had stolen in while Jean Jacques and M. +Fille were at supper. His name was Dolores, and he had a horse just over +the hill near by, to serve him when his work was done, and he could get +away. + +The constables of Vilray had twice visited the Manor to arrest him that +day, but they had been led in another direction by a clue which he had +provided; and afterwards in the dusk he had doubled back and hid himself +under Jean Jacques' roof. He had very important business at the Manor +Cartier. + +Jean Jacques' voice ceased one song, and then, after a silence, it took +up another, not so melodious. Sebastian Dolores had impatiently waited +for this later "musicale" to begin--he had heard it often before; and +when it was at last a regular succession of nasal explosions, he crawled +out and began to do the business which had brought him to the Manor +Cartier. + +He did it all alone and with much skill; for when he was an anarchist in +Spain, those long years ago, he had learned how to use tools with expert +understanding. Of late, Spain had been much in his mind. He wanted to +go back there. Nostalgia had possessed him ever since he had come again +to the Manor Cartier after Zoe had left. He thought much of Spain, and +but little of his daughter. Memory of her was only poignant, in so far +as it was associated with the days preceding the wreck of the Antoine. +He had had far more than enough of the respectable working life of the +New World; but there never was sufficient money to take him back to +Europe, even were it safe to go. Of late, however, he felt sure that he +might venture, if he could only get cash for the journey. He wanted to +drift back to the idleness and adventure and the "easy money" of the old +anarchist days in Cadiz and Madrid. He was sick for the patio and the +plaza, for the bull-fight, for the siesta in the sun, for the lazy +glamour of the gardens and the red wine of Valladolid, for the redolent +cigarette of the roadside tavern. This cold iron land had spoiled him, +and he would strive to get himself home again before it was too late. In +Spain there would always be some woman whom he could cajole; some comrade +whom he could betray; some priest whom he could deceive, whose pocket he +could empty by the recital of his troubles. But if, peradventure, he +returned to Spain with money to spare in his pocket, how easy indeed it +would all be, and how happy he would find himself amid old surroundings +and old friends! + +The way had suddenly opened up to him when Jean Jacques had brought +home in hard cash, and had locked away in the iron-doored cupboard in +the officewall, his last, his cherished, eight thousand dollars. Six +thousand of that eight were still left, and it was concern for this six +thousand which had brought Dolores to the Manor this night when Jean +Jacques snored so loudly. The events of the day at "The Red Eagle" had +brought things to a crisis in the affairs of Carmen's father. It was a +foolish business that at the tavern--so, at any rate, he thought, when +it was all over, and he was awake to the fact that he must fly or go to +jail. From the time he had, with a bottle of gin, laid Valescure low, +Spain was the word which went ringing through his head, and the way to +Spain was by the Six Thousand Dollar Route, the New World terminal of +which was the cupboard in the wall at the Manor Cartier. + +Little cared Sebastian Dolores that the theft of the money would mean +the end of all things for Jean Jacques Barbille-for his own daughter's +husband. He was thinking of himself, as he had always done. + +He worked for two whole hours before he succeeded in quietly forcing open +the iron door in the wall; but it was done at last. Curiously enough, +Jean Jacques' snoring stopped on the instant that Sebastian Dolores' +fingers clutched the money; but it began cheerfully again when the door +in the wall closed once more. + +Five minutes after Dolores had thrust the six thousand dollars into his +pocket, his horse was galloping away over the hills towards the River St. +Lawrence. If he had luck, he would reach it by the morning. As it +happened, he had the luck. Behind him, in the Manor Cartier, the man +who had had no luck and much philosophy, snored on till morning in +unconscious content. + +It was a whole day before Jean Jacques discovered his loss. When he had +finished his lonely supper the next evening, he went to the cupboard in +his office to cheer himself with the sight of the six thousand dollars. +He felt that he must revive his spirits. They had been drooping all day, +he knew not why. + +When he saw the empty pigeon-hole in the cupboard, his sight swam. It +was some time before it cleared, but, when it did, and he knew beyond +peradventure the crushing, everlasting truth, not a sound escaped him. +His heart stood still. His face filled with a panic confusion. He +seemed like one bereft of understanding. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +"AU 'VOIR, M'SIEU' JEAN JACQUES" + +It is seldom that Justice travels as swiftly as Crime, and it is also +seldom that the luck is more with the law than with the criminal. It +took the parish of St. Saviour's so long to make up its mind who stole +Jean Jacques' six thousand dollars, that when the hounds got the scent at +last the quarry had reached the water--in other words, Sebastian Dolores +had achieved the St. Lawrence. The criminal had had near a day's start +before a telegram was sent to the police at Montreal, Quebec, and other +places to look out for the picaroon who had left his mark on the parish +of St. Saviour's. The telegram would not even then have been sent had it +not been for M. Fille, who, suspecting Sebastian Dolores, still refrained +from instant action. This he did because he thought Jean Jacques would +not wish his beloved Zoe's grandfather sent to prison. But when other +people at last declared that it must have been Dolores, M. Fille insisted +on telegrams being sent by the magistrate at Vilray without Jean Jacques' +consent. He had even urged the magistrate to "rush" the wire, because it +came home to him with stunning force that, if the money was not +recovered, Jean Jacques would be a beggar. It was better to jail the +father-in-law, than for the little money-master to take to the road a +pauper, or stay on at St. Saviour's as an underling where he had been +overlord. + +As for Jean Jacques, in his heart of hearts he knew who had robbed him. +He realized that it was one of the radii of the comedy-tragedy which +began on the Antoine, so many years before; and it had settled in his +mind at last that Sebastian Dolores was but part of the dark machinery +of fate, and that what was now had to be. + +For one whole day after the robbery he was like a man paralysed-- +dispossessed of active being; but when his creditors began to swarm, when +M. Mornay sent his man of business down to foreclose his mortgages before +others could take action, Jean Jacques waked from his apathy. He began +an imitation of his old restlessness, and made essay again to pull the +strings of his affairs. They were, however, so confused that a pull at +one string tangled them all. + +When the constables and others came to him, and said that they were on +the trail of the robber, and that the rogue would be caught, he nodded +his head encouragingly; but he was sure in his own mind that the flight +of Dolores would be as successful as that of Carmen and Zoe. + +This is the way he put it: "That man--we will just miss finding him, +as I missed Zoe at the railroad junction when she went away, as I missed +catching Carmen at St. Chrisanthine. When you are at the shore, he will +be on the river; when you are getting into the train, he will be getting +out. It is the custom of the family. At Bordeaux, the Spanish +detectives were on the shore gnashing their teeth, when he was a hundred +yards away at sea on the Antoine. They missed him like that; and we'll +miss him too. What is the good! It was not his fault--that was the way +of his bringing up beyond there at Cadiz, where they think more of a +toreador than of John the Baptist. It was my fault. I ought to have +banked the money. I ought not to have kept it to look at like a gamin +with his marbles. There it was in the wall; and there was Dolores a long +way from home and wanting to get back. He found the way by a gift of the +tools; and I wish I had the same gift now; for I've got no other gift +that'll earn anything for me." + +These were the last dark or pessimistic words spoken at St. Saviour's by +Jean Jacques; and they were said to the Clerk of the Court, who could not +deny the truth of them; but he wrung the hand of Jean Jacques +nevertheless, and would not leave him night or day. M. Fille was like a +little cruiser protecting a fort when gunboats swarm near, not daring to +attack till their battleship heaves in sight. The battleship was the +Big Financier, who saw that a wreck was now inevitable, and was only +concerned that there should be a fair distribution of the assets. That +meant, of course, that he should be served first, and then that those +below the salt should get a share. + +Revelation after revelation had been Jean Jacques' lot of late years, +but the final revelation of his own impotence was overwhelming. When +he began to stir about among his affairs, he was faced by the fact that +the law stood in his way. He realized with inward horror his shattered +egotism and natural vanity; he saw that he might just as well be in jail; +that he had no freedom; that he could do nothing at all in regard to +anything he owned; that he was, in effect, a prisoner of war where +he had been the general commanding an army. + +Yet the old pride intervened, and it was associated with some innate +nobility; for from the hour in which it was known that Sebastian Dolores +had escaped in a steamer bound for France, and could not be overhauled, +and the chances were that he would never have to yield up the six +thousand dollars, Jean Jacques bustled about cheerfully, and as though +he had still great affairs of business to order and regulate. It was a +make-believe which few treated with scorn. Even the workmen at the mill +humoured him, as he came several times every day to inspect the work of +rebuilding; and they took his orders, though they did not carry them out. +No one really carried out any of his orders except Seraphe Corniche, who, +weeping from morning till night, protested that there never was so good a +man as M'sieu' Jean Jacques; and she cooked his favourite dishes, giving +him no peace until he had eaten them. + +The days, the weeks went on, with Jean Jacques growing thinner and +thinner, but going about with his head up like the gold Cock of Beaugard, +and even crowing now and then, as he had done of yore. He faced the +inevitable with something of his old smiling volubility; treating nothing +of his disaster as though it really existed; signing off this asset and +that; disposing of this thing and that; stripping himself bare of all the +properties on his life's stage, in such a manner as might have been his +had he been receiving gifts and not yielding up all he owned. He chatted +as his belongings were, figuratively speaking, being carried away--as +though they were mechanical, formal things to be done as he had done them +every day of a fairly long life; as a clerk would check off the boxes or +parcels carried past him by the porters. M. Fille could hardly bear to +see him in this mood, and the New Cure hovered round him with a mournful +and harmlessly deceptive kindness. But the end had to come, and +practically all the parish was present when it came. That was on the +day when the contents of the Manor were sold at auction by order of the +Court. One thing Jean Jacques refused absolutely and irrevocably to do +from the first--refused it at last in anger and even with an oath: he +would not go through the Bankruptcy Court. No persuasion had any effect. +The very suggestion seemed to smirch his honour. His lawyer pleaded with +him, said he would be able to save something out of the wreck, and that +his creditors would be willing that he should take advantage of the +privileges of that court; but he only said in reply: + +"Thank you, thank you altogether, monsieur, but it is impossible--'non +possumus, non possumus, my son,' as the Pope said to Bonaparte. I owe +and I will pay what I can; and what I can't pay now I will try to pay in +the future, by the cent, by the dollar, till all is paid to the last +copper. It is the way with the Barbilles. They have paid their way and +their debts in honour, and it is in the bond with all the Barbilles of +the past that I do as they do. If I can't do it, then that I have tried +to do it will be endorsed on the foot of the bill." + +No one could move him, not even Judge Carcasson, who from his armchair in +Montreal wrote a feeble-handed letter begging him to believe that it was +"well within his rights as a gentleman"--this he put in at the request of +M. Mornay--to take advantage of the privileges of the Bankruptcy Court. +Even then Jean Jacques had only a few moments' hesitation. What the +Judge said made a deep impression; but he had determined to drink the cup +of his misfortune to the dregs. He was set upon complete renunciation; +on going forth like a pilgrim from the place of his troubles and sorrows, +taking no gifts, no mercies save those which heaven accorded him. + +When the day of the auction came everything went. Even his best suit +of clothes was sold to a blacksmith, while his fur-coat was bought by a +horse-doctor for fifteen dollars. Things that had been part of his life +for a generation found their way into hands where he would least have +wished them to go--of those who had been envious of him, who had cheated +or deceived him, of people with whom he had had nothing in common. The +red wagon and the pair of little longtailed stallions, which he had +driven for six years, were bought by the owner of a rival flour-mill in +the parish of Vilray; but his best sleigh, with its coon-skin robes, was +bought by the widow of Palass Poucette, who bought also the famous +bearskin which Dolores had given her at Jean Jacques' expense, and had +been returned by her to its proper owner. The silver fruitdish, once (it +was said) the property of the Baron of Beaugard, which each generation of +Barbilles had displayed with as much ceremony as though it was a chalice +given by the Pope, went to Virginie Poucette. Virginie also bought the +furniture from Zoe's bedroom as it stood, together with the little +upright piano on which she used to play. The Cure bought Jean Jacques' +writing-desk, and M. Fille purchased his armchair, in which had sat at +least six Barbilles as owners of the Manor. The beaver-hat which Jean +Jacques wore on state occasions, as his grandfather had done, together +with the bonnet rouge of the habitant, donned by him in his younger days +--they fell to the nod of Mere Langlois, who declared that, as she was a +cousin, she would keep the things in the family. Mere Langlois would +have bought the fruit-dish also if she could have afforded to bid against +Virginie Poucette; but the latter would have had the dish if it had cost +her two hundred dollars. The only time she had broken bread in Jean +Jacques' house, she had eaten cake from this fruit-dish; and to her, +as to the parish generally, the dish so beautifully shaped, with its +graceful depth and its fine-chased handles, was symbol of the social +caste of the Barbilles, as the gold Cock of Beaugard was sign of their +civic and commercial glory. + +Jean Jacques, who had moved about all day with an almost voluble +affability, seeming not to realize the tragedy going on, or, if he +realized it, rising superior to it, was noticed to stand still suddenly +when the auctioneer put up the fruit-dish for sale. Then the smile left +his face, and the reddish glow in his eyes, which had been there since +the burning of the mill, fled, and a touch of amazement and confusion +took its place. All in a moment he was like a fluttered dweller of the +wilds to whom comes some tremor of danger. + +His mouth opened as though he would forbid the selling of the heirloom; +but it closed again, because he knew he had no right to withhold it from +the hammer; and he took on a look like that which comes to the eyes of a +child when it faces humiliating denial. Quickly as it came, however, it +vanished, for he remembered that he could buy the dish himself. He could +buy it himself and keep it. . . . Yet what could he do with it? Even +so, he could keep it. It could still be his till better days came. + +The auctioneer's voice told off the value of the fruitdish--"As an +heirloom, as an antique; as a piece of workmanship impossible of +duplication in these days of no handicraft; as good pure silver, bearing +the head of Louis Quinze--beautiful, marvellous, historic, honourable," +and Jean Jacques made ready to bid. Then he remembered he had no money-- +he who all his life had been able to take a roll of bills from his pocket +as another man took a packet of letters. His glance fell in shame, and +the words died on his lips, even as M. Manotel, the auctioneer, was about +to add another five-dollar bid to the price, which already was standing +at forty dollars. + +It was at this moment Jean Jacques heard a woman's voice bidding, then +two women's voices. Looking up he saw that one of the women was Mere +Langlois and the other was Virginie Poucette, who had made the first bid. +For a moment they contended, and then Mere Langlois fell out of the +contest, and Virginie continued it with an ambitious farmer from the next +county, who was about to become a Member of Parliament. Presently the +owner of a river pleasure-steamer entered into the costly emulation also, +but he soon fell away; and Virginie Poucette stubbornly raised the +bidding by five dollars each time, till the silver symbol of the +Barbilles' pride had reached one hundred dollars. Then she raised the +price by ten dollars, and her rival, seeing that he was face to face with +a woman who would now bid till her last dollar was at stake, withdrew; +and Virginie was left triumphant with the heirloom. + +At the moment when Virginie turned away with the handsome dish from M. +Manotel, and the crowd cheered her gaily, she caught Jean-Jacques' eye, +and she came straight towards him. She wanted to give the dish to him +then and there; but she knew that this would provide annoying gossip for +many a day, and besides, she thought he would refuse. More than +that, she had in her mind another alternative which might in the end +secure the heirloom to him, in spite of all. As she passed him, +she said: + +"At least we keep it in the parish. If you don't have it, well, then..." + +She paused, for she did not quite know what to say unless she spoke what +was really in her mind, and she dared not do that. + +"But you ought to have an heirloom," she added, leaving unsaid what was +her real thought and hope. With sudden inspiration, for he saw she was +trying to make it easy for him, he drew the great silver-watch from his +pocket, which the head of the Barbilles had worn for generations, and +said: + +"I have the only heirloom I could carry about with me. It will keep time +for me as long as I'll last. The Manor clock strikes the time for the +world, and this watch is set by the Manor clock." + +"Well said--well and truly said, M'sieu' Jean Jacques," remarked the lean +watchmaker and so-called jeweller of Vilray, who stood near. "It is a +watch which couldn't miss the stroke of Judgment Day." + +It was at that moment, in the sunset hour, when the sale had drawn to a +close, and the people had begun to disperse, that the avocat of Vilray +who represented the Big Financier came to Jean Jacques and said: + +"M'sieu', I have to say that there is due to you three hundred and fifty +dollars from the settlement, excluding this sale, which will just do what +was expected of it. I am instructed to give it to you from the +creditors. Here it is." + +He took out a roll of bills and offered it to Jean Jacques. + +"What creditors?" asked Jean Jacques. + +"All the creditors," responded the other, and he produced a receipt for +Jean Jacques to sign. "A formal statement will be sent you, and if there +is any more due to you, it will be added then. But now--well, there it +is, the creditors think there is no reason for you to wait." + +Jean Jacques did not yet take the roll of bills. "They come from M. +Mornay?" he asked with an air of resistance, for he did not wish to be +under further obligations to the man who would lose most by him. + +The lawyer was prepared. M. Mornay had foreseen the timidity and +sensitiveness of Jean Jacques, had anticipated his mistaken chivalry--for +how could a man decline to take advantage of the Bankruptcy Court unless +he was another Don Quixote! He had therefore arranged with all the +creditors for them to take responsibility with 'himself, though he +provided the cash which manipulated this settlement. + +"No, M'sieu' Jean Jacques," the lawyer replied, this comes from all the +creditors, as the sum due to you from all the transactions, so far as can +be seen as yet. Further adjustment may be necessary, but this is the +interim settlement." + +Jean Jacques was far from being ignorant of business, but so bemused was +his judgment and his intelligence now, that he did not see there was no +balance which could possibly be his, since his liabilities vastly +exceeded his assets. Yet with a wave of the hand he accepted the roll of +bills, and signed the receipt with an air which said, "These forms must +be observed, I suppose." + +What he would have done if the three hundred and fifty dollars had not +been given him, it would be hard to say, for with gentle asperity he had +declined a loan from his friend M. Fille, and he had but one silver +dollar in his pocket, or in the world. Indeed, Jean Jacques was living +in a dream in these dark days--a dream of renunciation and sacrifice, and +in the spirit of one who gives up all to some great cause. He was not +yet even face to face with the fulness of his disaster. Only at moments +had the real significance of it all come to him, and then he had shivered +as before some terror menacing his path. Also, as M. Mornay had said, +his philosophy was now in his bones and marrow rather than in his words. +It had, after all, tinctured his blood and impregnated his mind. He had +babbled and been the egotist, and played cock o' the walk; and now at +last his philosophy was giving some foundation for his feet. Yet at +this auction-sale he looked a distracted, if smiling, whimsical, rather +bustling figure of misfortune, with a tragic air of exile, of isolation +from all by which he was surrounded. A profound and wayworn loneliness +showed in his figure, in his face, in his eyes. + +The crowd thinned in time, and yet very many lingered to see the last of +this drama of lost fortunes. A few of the riff-raff, who invariably +attend these public scenes, were now rather the worse for drink, from the +indifferent liquor provided by the auctioneer, and they were inclined to +horseplay and coarse chaff. More than one ribald reference to Jean +Jacques had been checked by his chivalrous fellow-citizens; indeed, M. +Fille had almost laid himself open to a charge of assault in his own +court by raising his stick at a loafer, who made insulting references to +Jean Jacques. But as the sale drew to a close, an air of rollicking +humour among the younger men would not be suppressed, and it looked as +though Jean Jacques' exit would be attended by the elements of farce and +satire. + +In this world, however, things do not happen logically, and Jean Jacques +made his exit in a wholly unexpected manner. He was going away by the +train which left a new railway junction a few miles off, having gently +yet firmly declined M. Fille's invitation, and also the invitations of +others--including the Cure and Mere Langlois--to spend the night with +them and start off the next day. He elected to go on to Montreal that +very night, and before the sale was quite finished he prepared to start. +His carpet-bag containing a few clothes and necessaries had been sent on +to the junction, and he meant to walk to the station in the cool of the +evening. + +M. Manotel, the auctioneer, hoarse with his heavy day's work, was +announcing that there were only a few more things to sell, and no doubt +they could be had at a bargain, when Jean Jacques began a tour of the +Manor. There was something inexpressibly mournful in this lonely +pilgrimage of the dismantled mansion. Yet there was no show of cheap +emotion by Jean Jacques; and a wave of the hand prevented any one from +following him in his dry-eyed progress to say farewell to these haunts of +childhood, manhood, family, and home. There was a strange numbness in +his mind and body, and he had a feeling that he moved immense and +reflective among material things. Only tragedy can produce that feeling. +Happiness makes the universe infinite and stupendous, despair makes it +small and even trivial. + +It was when he had reached the little office where he had done the +business of his life--a kind of neutral place where he had ever isolated +himself from the domestic scene--that the final sensation, save one, of +his existence at the Manor came to him. Virginie Poucette had divined +his purpose when he began the tour of the house, and going by a +roundabout way, she had placed herself where she could speak with him +alone before he left the place for ever--if that was to be. She was not +sure that his exit was really inevitable--not yet. + +When Jean Jacques saw Virginie standing beside the table in his office +where he lead worked over so many years, now marked Sold, and waiting to +be taken away by its new owner, he started and drew back, but she held +out her hand and said: + +"But one word, M'sieu' Jean Jacques; only one word from a friend--indeed +a friend." + +"A friend of friends," he answered, still in abstraction, his eyes having +that burnished light which belonged to the night of the fire; but yet +realizing that she was a sympathetic soul who had offered to lend him +money without security. + +"Oh, indeed yes, as good a friend as you can ever have!" she added. + +Something had waked the bigger part of her, which had never been awake in +the days of Palass Poucette. Jean Jacques was much older than she, but +what she felt had nothing to do with age, or place or station. It had +only to do with understanding, with the call of nature and of a +motherhood crying for expression. Her heart ached for him. + +"Well, good-bye, my friend," he said, and held out his hand. "I must be +going now." + +"Wait," she said, and there was something insistent and yet pleading in +her voice. "I've got something to say. You must hear it. . . . Why +should you go? There is my farm--it needs to be worked right. It has +got good chances. It has water-power and wood and the best flax in the +province--they want to start a flax-mill on it--I've had letters from big +men in Montreal. Well, why shouldn't you do it instead? There it is, +the farm, and there am I a woman alone. I need help. I've got no head. +I have to work at a sum of figures all night to get it straight. . . . +Ah, m'sieu', it is a need both sides! You want someone to look after +you; you want a chance again to do things; but you want someone to look +after you, and it is all waiting there on the farm. Palass Poucette left +behind him seven sound horses, and cows and sheep, and a threshing- +machine and a fanning-mill, and no debts, and two thousand dollars in the +bank. You will never do anything away from here. You must stay here, +where--where I can look after you, Jean Jacques." + +The light in his eyes flamed up, died down, flamed up again, and +presently it covered all his face, as he grasped what she meant. + +"Wonder of God, do you forget?" he asked. "I am married--married still, +Virginie Poucette. There is no divorce in the Catholic Church--no, none +at all. It is for ever and ever." + +"I said nothing about marriage," she said bravely, though her face +suffused. + +"Hand of Heaven, what do you mean? You mean to say you would do that for +me in spite of the Cure and--and everybody and everything?" + +"You ought to be taken care of," she protested. "You ought to have your +chance again. No one here is free to do it all but me. You are alone. +Your wife that was--maybe she is dead. I am alone, and I'm not afraid of +what the good God will say. I will settle with Him myself. Well, then, +do you think I'd care what--what Mere Langlois or the rest of the world +would say? . . . I can't bear to think of you going away with +nothing, with nobody, when here is something and somebody--somebody +who would be good to you. Everybody knows that you've been badly used-- +everybody. I'm young enough to make things bright and warm in your life, +and the place is big enough for two, even if it isn't the Manor Cartier." + +"Figure de Christ, do you think I'd let you do it--me?" declared Jean +Jacques, with lips trembling now and his shoulders heaving. Misfortune +and pain and penalty he could stand, but sacrifice like this and--and +whatever else it was, were too much for him. They brought him back to +the dusty road and everyday life again; they subtracted him from his big +dream, in which he had been detached from the details of his catastrophe. + +"No, no, no," he added. "You go look another way, Virginie. Turn your +face to the young spring, not to the dead winter. To-morrow I'll be gone +to find what I've got to find. I've finished here, but there's many a +good man waiting for you--men who'll bring you something worth while +besides themselves. Make no mistake, I've finished. I've done my term +of life. I'm only out on ticket-of-leave now--but there, enough, I shall +always want to think of you. I wish I had something to give you--but +yes, here is something." He drew from his pocket a silver napkin-ring. +"I've had that since I was five years old. My uncle Stefan gave it to +me. I've always used it. I don't know why I put it in my pocket this +morning, but I did. Take it. It's more than money. It's got something +of Jean Jacques about it. You've got the Barbille fruit-dish-that is a +thing I'll remember. I'm glad you've got it, and--" + +"I meant we should both eat from it," she said helplessly. + +"It would cost too much to eat from it with you, Virginie--" + +He stopped short, choked, then his face cleared, and his eyes became +steady. + +"Well then, good-bye, Virginie," he said, holding out his hand. + +"You don't think I'd say to any other living man what I've said to you?" +she asked. + +He nodded understandingly. "That's the best part of it. It was for me +of all the world," he answered. "When I look back, I'll see the light +in your window--the light you lit for the lost one--for Jean Jacques +Barbille." + +Suddenly, with eyes that did not see and hands held out before him, he +turned, felt for the door and left the room. + +She leaned helplessly against the table. "The poor Jean Jacques--the +poor Jean Jacques!" she murmured. "Cure or no Cure, I'd have done it," +she declared, with a ring to her voice. "Ah, but Jean Jacques, come with +me!" she added with a hungry and compassionate gesture, speaking into +space. "I could make life worth while for us both." + +A moment later Virginie was outside, watching the last act in the career +of Jean Jacques in the parish of St. Saviour's. + +This was what she saw. + +The auctioneer was holding up a bird-cage containing a canary-Carmen's +bird-cage, and Zoe's canary which had remained to be a vocal memory of +her in her old home. + +"Here," said the rhetorical, inflammable auctioneer, "here is the +choicest lot left to the last. I put it away in the bakery, meaning to +sell it at noon, when everybody was eating-food for the soul and food for +the body. I forgot it. But here it is, worth anything you like to +anybody that loves the beautiful, the good, and the harmonious. What do +I hear for this lovely saffron singer from the Elysian fields? What did +the immortal poet of France say of the bird in his garret, in 'L'Oiseau +de Mon Crenier'? What did he say: + + 'Sing me a song of the bygone hour, + A song of the stream and the sun; + Sing of my love in her bosky bower, + When my heart it was twenty-one.' + +"Come now, who will renew his age or regale her youth with the divine +notes of nature's minstrel? Who will make me an offer for this vestal +virgin of song--the joy of the morning and the benediction of the +evening? What do I hear? The best of the wine to the last of the feast! +What do I hear?--five dollars--seven dollars--nine dollars--going at nine +dollars--ten dollars--Well, ladies and gentlemen, the bird can sing--ah, +voila !" + +He stopped short for a moment, for as the evening sun swept its veil of +rainbow radiance over the scene, the bird began to sing. Its little +throat swelled, it chirruped, it trilled, it called, it soared, it lost +itself in a flood of ecstasy. In the applausive silence, the emotional +recess of the sale, as it were, the man to whom the bird and the song +meant most, pushed his way up to the stand where M. Manotel stood. When +the people saw who it was, they fell back, for there was that in his face +which needed no interpretation. It filled them with a kind of awe. + +He reached up a brown, eager, affectionate hand--it had always been that +--fat and small, but rather fine and certainly emotional, though not +material or sensual. + +"Go on with your bidding," he said. + +He was going to buy the thing which had belonged to his daughter, was +beloved by her--the living oracle of the morning, the muezzin of his +mosque of home. It had been to the girl who had gone as another such a +bird had been to the mother of the girl, the voice that sang, "Praise +God," in the short summer of that bygone happiness of his. Even this +cage and its homebird were not his; they belonged to the creditors. + +"Go on. I buy--I bid," Jean Jacques said in a voice that rang. It had +no blur of emotion. It had resonance. The hammer that struck the bell +of his voice was the hammer of memory, and if it was plaintive it also +was clear, and it was also vibrant with the silver of lost hopes. + +M. Manotel humoured him, while the bird still sang. "Four dollars--five +dollars: do I hear no more than five dollars?--going once, going twice, +going three times--gone!" he cried, for no one had made a further bid; +and indeed M. Manotel would not have heard another voice than Jean +Jacques' if it had been as loud as the falls of the Saguenay. He was a +kind of poet in his way, was M. Manotel. He had been married four times, +and he would be married again if he had the chance; also he wrote verses +for tombstones in the churchyard at St. Saviour's, and couplets for fetes +and weddings. + +He handed the cage to Jean Jacques, who put it down on the ground at his +feet, and in an instant had handed up five dollars for one of the idols +of his own altar. Anyone else than M. Manotel, or perhaps M. Fille or +the New Cure, would have hesitated to take the five dollars, or, if they +had done so, would have handed it back; but they had souls to understand +this Jean Jacques, and they would not deny him his insistent +independence. And so, in a moment, he was making his way out of the +crowd with the cage in his hand, the bird silent now. + +As he went, some one touched his arm and slipped a book into his hand. +It was M. Fille, and the book was his little compendium of philosophy +which his friend had retrieved from his bedroom in the early morning. + +"You weren't going to forget it, Jean Jacques?" M. Fille said +reproachfully. "It is an old friend. It would not be happy with +any one else." + +Jean Jacques looked M. Fille in the eyes. "Moi--je suis philosophe," he +said without any of the old insistence and pride and egotism, but as one +would make an affirmation or repeat a creed. + +"Yes, yes, to be sure, always, as of old," answered M. Fille firmly; +for, from that formula might come strength, when it was most needed, +in a sense other and deeper far than it had been or was now. "You will +remember that you will always know where to find us--eh?" added the +little Clerk of the Court. + +The going of Jean Jacques was inevitable; all persuasion had failed to +induce him to stay--even that of Virginie; and M. Fille now treated it +as though it was the beginning of a new career for Jean Jacques, whatever +that career might be. It might be he would come back some day, but not +to things as they were, not ever again, nor as the same man. + +"You will move on with the world outside there," continued M. Fille, +"but we shall be turning on the same swivel here always; and whenever you +come--there, you understand. With us it is semper fidelis, always the +same." + +Jean Jacques looked at M. Fille again as though to ask him a question, +but presently he shook his head in negation to his thought. + +"Well, good-bye," he said cheerfully--"A la bonne heure!" + +By that M. Fille knew that Jean Jacques did not wish for company as he +went--not even the company of his old friend who had loved the bright +whimsical emotional Zoe; who had hovered around his life like a +protecting spirit. + +"A bi'tot," responded M. Fille, declining upon the homely patois. + +But as Jean Jacques walked away with his little book of philosophy in his +pocket, and the bird-cage in his hand, someone sobbed. M. Fille turned +and saw. It was Virginie Poucette. Fortunately for Virginie other women +did the same, not for the same reason, but out of a sympathy which was +part of the scene. + +It had been the intention of some friends of Jean Jacques to give him +a cheer when he left, and even his sullen local creditors, now that the +worst had come, were disposed to give him a good send-off; but the +incident of the canary in its cage gave a turn to the feeling of the +crowd which could not be resisted. They were not a people who could cut +and dry their sentiments; they were all impulse and simplicity, with an +obvious cocksure shrewdness too, like that of Jean Jacques--of the old +Jean Jacques. He had been the epitome of all their faults and all their +virtues. + +No one cheered. Only one person called, "Au 'voir, M'sieu' Jean +Jacques!" and no one followed him--a curious, assertive, feebly-brisk, +shock-headed figure in the brown velveteen jacket, which he had bought in +Paris on his Grand Tour. + +"What a ridiculous little man!" said a woman from Chalfonte over the +water, who had been buying freely all day for her new "Manor," her +husband being a member of the provincial legislature. + +The words were no sooner out of her mouth than two women faced her +threateningly. + +"For two pins I'd slap your face," said old Mere Langlois, her great +breast heaving. "Popinjay--you, that ought to be in a cage like his +canary." + +But Virginie Poucette also was there in front of the offender, and she +also had come from Chalfonte--was born in that parish; and she knew what +she was facing. + +"Better carry a bird-cage and a book than carry swill to swine," she +said; and madame from Chalfonte turned white, for it had been said that +her father was once a swine-herd, and that she had tried her best to +forget it when, with her coarse beauty, she married the well-to-do +farmer who was now in the legislature. + +"Hold your tongues, all of you, and look at that," said M. Manotel, who +had joined the agitated group. He was pointing towards the departing +Jean Jacques, who was now away upon his road. + +Jean Jacques had raised the cage on a level with his face, and was +evidently speaking to the bird in the way birds love--that soft kissing +sound to which they reply with song. + +Presently there came a chirp or two, and then the bird thrust up its +head, and out came the full blessedness of its song, exultant, home-like, +intimate. + +Jean Jacques walked on, the bird singing by his side; and he did not look +back. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +IF SHE HAD KNOWN IN TIME + +Nothing stops when we stop for a time, or for all time, except ourselves. +Everything else goes on--not in the same way; but it does go on. Life +did not stop at St. Saviour's after Jean Jacques made his exit. Slowly +the ruined mill rose up again, and very slowly indeed the widow of Palass +Poucette recovered her spirits, though she remained a widow in spite of +all appeals; but M. Fille and his sister never were the same after they +lost their friend. They had great comfort in the dog which Jean Jacques +had given to them, and they roused themselves to a malicious pleasure +when Bobon, as he had been called by Zoe, rushed out at the heels of an +importunate local creditor who had greatly worried Jean Jacques at the +last. They waited in vain for a letter from Jean Jacques, but none came; +nor did they hear anything from him, or of him, for a long, long time. + +Jean Jacques did not mean that they should. When he went away with his +book of philosophy and his canary he had but one thing in his mind, and +that was to find Zoe and make her understand that he knew he had been in +the wrong. He had illusions about starting life again, in which he +probably did not believe; but the make-believe was good for him. Long +before the crash came, in Zoe's name--not his own--he had bought from the +Government three hundred and twenty acres of land out near the Rockies +and had spent five hundred dollars in improvements on it. + +There it was in the West, one remaining asset still his own--or rather +Zoe's--but worth little if he or she did not develop it. As he left St. +Saviour's, however, he kept fixing his mind on that "last domain," as he +called it to himself. If this was done intentionally, that he might be +saved from distraction and despair, it was well done; if it was a real +illusion--the old self-deception which had been his bane so often in the +past--it still could only do him good at the present. It prevented him +from noticing the attention he attracted on the railway journey from St. +Saviour's to Montreal, cherishing his canary and his book as he went. + +He was not so self-conscious now as in the days when he was surprised +that Paris did not stop to say, "Bless us, here is that fine fellow, Jean +Jacques Barbille of St. Saviour's!" He could concentrate himself more +now on things that did not concern the impression he was making on the +world. At present he could only think of Zoe and of her future. + +When a patronizing and aggressive commercial traveller in the little +hotel on a side-street where he had taken a room in Montreal said to him, +"Bien, mon vieux" (which is to say, "Well, old cock"), "aren't you a long +way from home?" something of a new dignity came into Jean Jacques' +bearing, very different from the assurance of the old days, and in reply +he said: + +"Not so far that I need be careless about my company." This made the +landlady of the little hotel laugh quite hard, for she did not like the +braggart "drummer" who had treated her with great condescension for a +number of years. Also Madame Glozel liked Jean Jacques because of his +canary. She thought there must be some sentimental reason for a man of +fifty or more carrying a bird about with him; and she did not rest until +she had drawn from Jean Jacques that he was taking the bird to his +daughter in the West. There, however, madame was stayed in her search +for information. Jean Jacques closed up, and did but smile when she +adroitly set traps for him, and at last asked him outright where his +daughter was. + +Why he waited in Montreal it would be hard to say, save that it was a +kind of middle place between the old life and the new, and also because +he must decide what was to be his plan of search. First the West--first +Winnipeg, but where after that? He had at last secured information of +where Zoe and Gerard Fynes had stayed while in Montreal; and now he +followed clues which would bring him in touch with folk who knew them. +He came to know one or two people who were with Zoe and Gerard in the +last days they spent in the metropolis, and he turned over and over in +his mind every word said about his girl, as a child turns a sweetmeat in +its mouth. This made him eager to be off; but on the very day he decided +to start at once for the West, something strange happened. + +It was towards the late afternoon of a Saturday, when the streets were +full of people going to and from the shops in a marketing quarter, that +Madame Glozel came to him and said: + +"M'sieu', I have an idea, and you will not think it strange, for you have +a kind heart. There is a woman--look you, it is a sad, sad story hers. +She is ill and dying in a room a little way down the street. But yes, +I am sure she is dying--of heart disease it is. She came here first when +the illness took her, but she could not afford to stay. She went to +those cheaper lodgings down the street. She used to be on the stage +over in the States, and then she came back here, and there was a man-- +married to him or not I do not know, and I will not think. Well, the +man--the brute--he left her when she got ill--but yes, forsook her +absolutely! He was a land-agent or something like that, and all very +fine to your face, to promise and to pretend--just make-believe. When +her sickness got worse, off he went with 'Au revoir, my dear--I will be +back to supper.' Supper! If she'd waited for her supper till he came +back, she'd have waited as long as I've done for the fortune the gipsy +promised me forty years ago. Away he went, the rogue, without a thought +of her, and with another woman. That's what hurt her most of all. +Straight from her that could hardly drag herself about--ah, yes, and has +been as handsome a woman as ever was!--straight from her he went to a +slut. She was a slut, m'sieu'--did I not know her? Did Ma'm'selle Slut +not wait at table in this house and lead the men a dance here night and +day-day and night till I found it out! Well, off he went with the slut, +and left the lady behind. . . . You men, you treat women so." + +Jean Jacques put out a hand as though to argue with her. "Sometimes it +is the other way," he retorted. "Most of us have seen it like that." + +"Well, for sure, you're right enough there, m'sieu'," was the response. +"I've got nothing to say to that, except that it's a man that runs away +with a woman, or that gets her to leave her husband when she does go. +There's always a man that says, 'Come along, I'm the better chap for +you.'" + +Jean Jacques wearily turned his head away towards the cage where his +canary was beginning to pipe its evening lay. + +"It all comes to the same thing in the end," he said pensively; and then +he who had been so quiet since he came to the little hotel--Glozel's, +it was called--began to move about the room excitedly, running his +fingers through his still bushy hair, which, to his credit, was always +as clean as could be, burnished and shiny even at his mid-century period. +He began murmuring to himself, and a frown settled on his fore head. +Mme. Glozel saw that she had perturbed him, and that no doubt she had +roused some memories which made sombre the sunny little room where the +canary sang; where, to ravish the eyes of the pessimist, was a picture of +Louis XVI. going to heaven in the arms of St. Peter. + +When started, however, the good woman could no more "slow down" than her +French pony would stop when its head was turned homewards from market. +So she kept on with the history of the woman down the street. + +"Heart disease," she said, nodding with assurance and finality; "and we +know what that is--a start, a shock, a fall, a strain, and pht! off the +poor thing goes. Yes, heart disease, and sometimes with such awful pain. +But so; and yesterday she told me she had only a hundred dollars left. +'Enough to last me through,' she said to me. Poor thing, she lifted up +her eyes with a way she has, as if looking for something she couldn't +find, and she says, as simple as though she was asking about the price of +a bed-tick, 'It won't cost more than fifty dollars to bury me, I s'pose?' +Well, that made me squeamish, for the poor dear's plight came home to me +so clear, and she young enough yet to get plenty out of life, if she had +the chance. So I asked her again about her people--whether I couldn't +send for someone belonging to her. 'There's none that belongs to me,' +she says, 'and there's no one I belong to.' + +"I thought very likely she didn't want to tell me about herself; perhaps +because she had done wrong, and her family had not been good to her. Yet +it was right I should try and get her folks to come, if she had any +folks. So I said to her, 'Where was your home?' And now, what do you +think she answered, m'sieu'?' 'Look there,' she said to me, with her big +eyes standing out of her head almost--for that's what comes to her +sometimes when she is in pain, and she looks more handsome then than at +any other time--'Look there,' she said to me, 'it was in heaven, that's +where--my home was; but I didn't know it. I hadn't been taught to know +the place when I saw it.' + +"Well, I felt my skin go goosey, for I saw what was going on in her +mind, and how she was remembering what had happened to her some time, +somewhere; but there wasn't a tear in her eyes, and I never saw her cry- +never once, m'sieu'--well, but as brave as brave. Her eyes are always +dry--burning. They're like two furnaces scorching up her face. So I +never found out her history, and she won't have the priest. I believe +that's because she wants to die unknown, and doesn't want to confess. +I never saw a woman I was sorrier for, though I think she wasn't married +to the man that left her. But whatever she was, there's good in her--I +haven't known hundreds of women and had seven sisters for nothing. Well, +there she is--not a friend near her at the last; for it's coming soon, +the end--no one to speak to her, except the woman she pays to come in and +look after her and nurse her a bit. Of course there's the landlady too, +Madame Popincourt, a kind enough little cricket of a woman, but with no +sense and no head for business. And so the poor sick thing has not a +single pleasure in the world. She can't read, because it makes her head +ache, she says; and she never writes to any one. One day she tried to +sing a little, but it seemed to hurt her, and she stopped before she had +begun almost. Yes, m'sieu', there she is without a single pleasure in +the long hours when she doesn't sleep." + +"There's my canary--that would cheer her up," eagerly said Jean Jacques, +who, as the story of the chirruping landlady continued, became master of +his agitation, and listened as though to the tale of some life for which +he had concern. "Yes, take my canary to her, madame. It picked me up +when I was down. It'll help her--such a bird it is! It's the best +singer in the world. It's got in its throat the music of Malibran and +Jenny Lind and Grisi, and all the stars in heaven that sang together. +Also, to be sure, it doesn't charge anything, but just as long as there's +daylight it sings and sings, as you know." + +"M'sieu'--oh, m'sieu', it was what I wanted to ask you, and I didn't +dare!" gushingly declared madame. "I never heard a bird sing like that +--just as if it knew how much good it was doing, and with all the airs of +a grand seigneur. It's a prince of birds, that. If you mean it, +m'sieu', you'll do as good a thing as you have ever done." + +"It would have to be much better, or it wouldn't be any use," remarked +Jean Jacques. + +The woman made a motion of friendliness with both hands. "I don't +believe that. You may be queer, but you've got a kind eye. It won't be +for long she'll need the canary, and it will cheer her. There certainly +was never a bird so little tied to one note. Now this note, now that, +and so amusing. At times it's as though he was laughing at you." + +"That's because, with me for his master, he has had good reason to +laugh," remarked Jean Jacques, who had come at last to take a despondent +view of himself. + +"That's bosh," rejoined Mme. Glozel; "I've seen several people odder than +you." + +She went over to the cage eagerly, and was about to take it away. +"Excuse me," interposed Jean Jacques, "I will carry 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 armchair, so pale yet so splendid +in her death-beauty, raised herself up. With eyes that Francesca might +have turned to the vision of her fate, she looked at the opening door, as +though to learn if he who came was one she had wished to see through +long, relentless days. + +"Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!" she cried out presently in +a voice like a wisp of sound, for she had little breath; and then with a +smile she sank back, too late to hear, but not too late to know, what +Jean Jacques said to her. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Being generous with other people's money +I had to listen to him, and he had to pay me for listening +Law. It is expensive whether you win or lose +Protest that it is right when it knows that it is wrong + + + + + + +THE MONEY MASTER + +By Gilbert Parker + + + +EPOCH THE FIFTH + +XXII. BELLS OF MEMORY +XXIII. JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO +XXIV. JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED. +XXV. WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE + +EPILOGUE + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +BELLS OF MEMORY + +However far Jean Jacques went, however long the day since leaving the +Manor Cartier, he could not escape the signals from his past. He heard +more than once the bells of memory ringing at the touch of the invisible +hand of Destiny which accepts no philosophy save its own. At Montreal, +for one hallowed instant, he had regained his lost Carmen, but he had +turned from her grave--the only mourners being himself, Mme. Glozel and +Mme. Popincourt, together with a barber who had coiffed her wonderful +hair once a week--with a strange burning at his heart. That iceberg +which most mourners carry in their breasts was not his, as he walked down +the mountainside from Carmen's grave. Behind him trotted Mme. Glozel and +Mme. Popincourt, like little magpies, attendants on this eagle of sorrow +whose life-love had been laid to rest, her heart-troubles over. Passion +or ennui would no more vex her. + +She had had a soul, had Carmen Dolores, though she had never known it +till her days closed in on her, and from the dusk she looked out of the +casements of life to such a glowing as Jean Jacques had seen when his +burning mill beatified the evening sky. She had known passion and vivid +life in the days when she went hand-in-hand with Carvillho Gonzales +through the gardens of Granada; she had known the smothering home- +sickness which does not alone mean being sick for a distant home, but a +sickness of the home that is; and she had known what George Masson gave +her for one thrilling hour, and then--then the man who left her in her +death-year, taking not only the last thread of hope which held her to +life. This vulture had taken also little things dear to her daily life, +such as the ring Carvillho Gonzales had given her long ago in Cadiz, also +another ring, a gift of Jean Jacques, and things less valuable to her, +such as money, for which she knew surely she would have no long use. + +As she lay waiting for the day when she must go from the garish scene, +she unconsciously took stock of life in her own way. There intruded on +her sight the stages of the theatres where she had played and danced, and +she heard again the music of the paloma and those other Spanish airs +which had made the world dance under her girl's feet long ago. At first +she kept seeing the faces of thousands looking up at her from the stalls, +down at her from the gallery, over at her from the boxes; and the hot +breath of that excitement smote her face with a drunken odour that sent +her mad. Then, alas! somehow, as disease took hold of her, there were +the colder lights, the colder breath from the few who applauded so +little. And always the man who had left her in her day of direst need; +who had had the last warm fires of her life, the last brief outrush of +her soul, eager as it was for a joy which would prove she had not lost +all when she fled from the Manor Cartier--a joy which would make her +forget! + +What she really did feel in this last adventure of passion only made her +remember the more when she was alone now, her life at the Manor Cartier. +She was wont to wake up suddenly in the morning--the very early morning +--with the imagined sound of the gold Cock of Beaugard crowing in her +ears. Memory, memory, memory--yet never a word, and never a hearsay of +what had happened at the Manor Cartier since she had left it! Then there +came a time when she longed intensely to see Jean Jacques before she +died, though she could not bring herself to send word to him. She +dreaded what the answer might be-not Jean Jacques' answer, but the answer +of Life. Jean Jacques and her child, her Zoe--more his than hers in +years gone by--one or both might be dead! She dared not write, but she +cherished a desire long denied. Then one day she saw everything in her +life more clearly than she had ever done. She found an old book of +French verse, once belonging to Mme. Popincourt's husband, who had been a +professor. Some lines therein opened up a chamber of her being never +before unlocked. At first only the feeling of the thing came, then +slowly the spiritual meaning possessed her. She learnt it by heart and +let it sing to her as she lay half-sleeping and half-waking, half-living +and half-dying: + + "There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o'er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home. + + "A land that triumphs over shame and pain, + Penitence and passion and the parting breath, + Over the former and the latter rain, + The birth-morn fire and the frost of death. + + "From its safe shores the white boats ride away, + Salving the wreckage of the portless ships + The light desires of the amorous day, + The wayward, wanton wastage of the lips. + + "Star-mist and music and the pensive moon + These when I harboured at that perfumed shore; + And then, how soon! the radiance of noon, + And faces of dear children at the door. + + "Land of the Greater Love--men call it this; + No light-o'-love sets here an ambuscade; + No tender torture of the secret kiss + Makes sick the spirit and the soul afraid. + + "Bright bowers and the anthems of the free, + The lovers absolute--ah, hear the call! + Beyond the long island and the sheltering sea, + That World I found which holds my world in thrall. + + "There is a World; men compass it through tears, + Dare doom for joy of it; it called me o'er the foam; + I found it down the track of sundering years, + Beyond the long island where the sea steals home." + + +At last the inner thought of it got into her heart, and then it was in +reply to Mme. Glozel, who asked her where her home was, she said: "In +Heaven, but I did not know it!" And thus it was, too, that at the very +last, when Jean Jacques followed the singing bird into her death-chamber, +she cried out, "Ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques!" + +And because Jean Jacques knew that, at the last, she had been his, soul +and body, he went down from the mountain-side, the two black magpies +fluttering mournfully and yet hopefully behind him, with more warmth at +his heart than he had known for years. It never occurred to him that the +two elderly magpies would jointly or severally have given the rest of +their lives and their scant fortunes to have him with them either as +husband, or as one who honourably hires a home at so much a day. + +Though Jean Jacques did not know this last fact, when he fared forth +again he left behind his canary with Mme. Glozel; also all Carmen's +clothes, except the dress she died in, he gave to Mme. Popincourt, on +condition that she did not wear them till he had gone. The dress in +which Carmen died he wrapped up carefully, with her few jewels and her +wedding-ring, and gave the parcel to Mme. Glozel to care for till he +should send for it or come again. + +"The bird--take him on my birthday to sing at her grave," he said to Mme. +Glozel just before he went West. "It is in summer, my birthday, and you +shall hear how he will sing there," he added in a low voice at the very +door. Then he took out a ten-dollar bill, and would have given it to her +to do this thing for him; but she would have none of his money. She only +wiped her eyes and deplored his going, and said that if ever he wanted a +home, and she was alive, he would know where to find it. It sounded and +looked sentimental, yet Jean Jacques was never less sentimental in a very +sentimental life. This particular morning he was very quiet and grave, +and not in the least agitated; he spoke like one from a friendly, sun- +bright distance to Mme. Glozel, and also to Mme. Popincourt as he passed +her at the door of her house. + +Jean Jacques had no elation as he took the Western trail; there was not +much hope in his voice; but there was purpose and there was a little +stream of peace flowing through his being--and also, mark, a stream of +anger tumbling over rough places. He had read two letters addressed to +Carmen by the man--Hugo Stolphe--who had left her to her fate; and there +was a grim devouring thing in him which would break loose, if ever the +man crossed his path. He would not go hunting him, but if he passed him +or met him on the way--! Still he would go hunting--to find his +Carmencita, his little Carmen, his Zoe whom he had unwittingly, God knew! +driven forth into the far world of the millions of acres--a wide, wide +hunting-ground in good sooth. + +So he left his beloved province where he no longer had a home, and though +no letters came to him from St. Saviour's, from Vilray or the Manor +Cartier, yet he heard the bells of memory when the Hand Invisible +arrested his footsteps. One day these bells rang so loud that he would +have heard them were he sunk in the world's deepest well of shame; but, +as it was, he now marched on hills far higher than the passes through the +mountains which his patchwork philosophy had ever provided. + +It was in the town of Shilah on the Watloon River that the bells boomed +out--not because he had encountered one he had ever known far down by the +Beau Cheval, or in his glorious province, not because he had found his +Zoe, but because a man, the man--not George Masson, but the other--met +him in the way. + +Shilah was a place to which, almost unconsciously, he had deviated his +course, because once Virginie Poucette had read him a letter from there. +That was in the office of the little Clerk of the Court at Vilray. The +letter was from Virginie's sister at Shilah, and told him that Zoe and +her husband had gone away into farther fields of homelessness. Thus it +was that Shilah ever seemed to him, as he worked West, a goal in his +quest--not the last goal perhaps, but a goal. + +He had been far past it by another route, up, up and out into the more +scattered settlements, and now at last he had come to it again, having +completed a kind of circle. As he entered it, the past crowded on to him +with a hundred pictures. Shilah--it was where Virginie Poucette's sister +lived; and Virginie had been a part of the great revelation of his life +at St. Saviour's. + +As he was walking by the riverside at Shilah, a woman spoke to him, +touching his arm as she did so. He was in a deep dream as she spoke, +but there certainly was a look in her face that reminded him of someone +belonging to the old life. For an instant he could not remember. For a +moment he did not even realize that he was at Shilah. His meditation had +almost been a trance, and it took him time to adjust himself to the +knowledge of the conscious mind. His subconsciousness was very +powerfully alive in these days. There was not the same ceaselessly +active eye, nor the vibration of the impatient body which belonged to the +money-master and miller of the Manor Cartier. Yet the eye had more depth +and force, and the body was more powerful and vigorous than it had ever +been. The long tramping, the everlasting trail on false scents, the +mental battling with troubles past and present, had given a fortitude and +vigour to the body beyond what it had ever known. In spite of his +homelessness and pilgrim equipment he looked as though he had a home-- +far off. The eyes did not smile; but the lips showed the goodness of +his heart--and its hardness too. Hardness had never been there in the +old days. It was, however, the hardness of resentment, and not of +cruelty. It was not his wife's or his daughter's flight that he +resented, nor yet the loss of all he had, nor the injury done him by +Sebastian Dolores. No, his resentment was against one he had never seen, +but was now soon to see. As his mind came back from the far places where +it had been, and his eyes returned to the concrete world, he saw what the +woman recalled to him. It was--yes, it was Virginie Poucette--the kind +and beautiful Virginie--for her goodness had made him remember her as +beautiful, though indeed she was but comely, like this woman who stayed +him as he walked by the river. + +"You are M'sieu' Jean Jacques Barbille?" she said questioningly. + +"How did you know?" he asked. . . . "Is Virginie Poucette here?" + +"Ah, you knew me from her?" she asked. + +"There was something about her--and you have it also--and the look in the +eyes, and then the lips!" he replied. + +Certainly they were quite wonderful, luxurious lips, and so shapely too +--like those of Virginie. + +"But how did you know I was Jean Jacques Barbille?" he repeated. + +"Well, then it is quite easy," she replied with a laugh almost like a +giggle, for she was quite as simple and primitive as her sister. "There +is a photographer at Vilray, and Virginie got one of your pictures there, +and sent, it to me. 'He may come your way,' said Virginie to me, 'and if +he does, do not forget that he is my friend.'" + +"That she is my friend," corrected Jean Jacques. "And what a friend-- +merci, what a friend!" Suddenly he caught the woman's arm. "You once +wrote to your sister about my Zoe, my daughter, that married and ran +away--" + +"That ran away and got married," she interrupted. + +"Is there any more news--tell me, do you know-?" + +But Virginie's sister shook her head. "Only once since I wrote Virginie +have I heard, and then the two poor children--but how helpless they were, +clinging to each other so! Well, then, once I heard from Faragay, but +that was much more than a year ago. Nothing since, and they were going +on--on to Fort Providence to spend the winter--for his health--his +lungs." + +"What to do--on what to live?" moaned Jean Jacques. + +"His grandmother sent him a thousand dollars, so your Madame Zoe wrote +me." + +Jean Jacques raised a hand with a gesture of emotion. "Ah, the blessed +woman! May there be no purgatory for her, but Heaven at once and +always!" + +"Come home with me--where are your things?" she asked. + +"I have only a knapsack," he replied. "It is not far from here. But I +cannot stay with you. I have no claim. No, I will not, for--" + +"As to that, we keep a tavern," she returned. "You can come the same +as the rest of the world. The company is mixed, but there it is. You +needn't eat off the same plate, as they say in Quebec." + +Quebec! He looked at her with the face of one who saw a vision. How +like Virginie Poucette--the brave, generous Virginie--how like she was! + +In silence now he went with her, and seeing his mood she did not talk to +him. People stared as they walked along, for his dress was curious and +his head was bare, and his hair like the coat of a young lion. Besides, +this woman was, in her way, as brave and as generous as Virginie +Poucette. In the very doorway of the tavern by the river a man jostled +them. He did not apologize. He only leered. It made his foreign- +looking, coarsely handsome face detestable. + +"Pig!" exclaimed Virginie Poucette's sister. "That's a man--well, look +out! There's trouble brewing for him. If he only knew! If suspicion +comes out right and it's proved--well, there, he'll jostle the door-jamb +of a jail." + +Jean Jacques stared after the man, and somehow every nerve in his body +became angry. He had all at once a sense of hatred. He shook the +shoulder against which the man had collided. He remembered the leer +on the insolent, handsome face. + +"I'd like to see him thrown into the river," said Virginie Poucette's +sister. "We have a nice girl here--come from Ireland--as good as can be. +Well, last night--but there, she oughtn't to have let him speak to her. +'A kiss is nothing,' he said. Well, if he kissed me I would kill him--if +I didn't vomit myself to death first. He's a mongrel--a South American +mongrel with nigger blood." + +Jean Jacques kept looking after the man. "Why don't you turn him out?" +he asked sharply. + +"He's going away to-morrow anyhow," she replied. "Besides, the girl, +she's so ashamed--and she doesn't want anyone to know. 'Who'd want to +kiss me after him' she said, and so he stays till to-morrow. He's not in +the tavern itself, but in the little annex next door-there, where he's +going now. He's only had his meals here, though the annex belongs to us +as well. He's alone there on his dung-hill." + +She brought Jean Jacques into a room that overlooked the river--which, +indeed, hung on its very brink. From the steps at its river-door, a +little ferry-boat took people to the other side of the Watloon, and very +near--just a few hand-breadths away--was the annex where was the man who +had jostled Jean Jacques. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +JEAN JACQUES HAS WORK TO DO + +A single lighted lamp, turned low, was suspended from the ceiling of the +raftered room, and through the open doorway which gave on to a little +wooden piazza with a slight railing and small, shaky gate came the swish +of the Watloon River. No moon was visible, but the stars were radiant +and alive--trembling with life. There was something soothing, something +endlessly soothing in the sound of the river. It suggested the ceaseless +movement of life to the final fulness thereof. + +So still was the room that it might have seemed to be without life, were +it not for a faint sound of breathing. The bed, however, was empty, and +no chair was occupied; but on a settle in a corner beside an unused +fireplace sat a man, now with hands clasped between his knees, again with +arms folded across his breast; but with his head always in a listening +attitude. The whole figure suggested suspense, vigilance and +preparedness. The man had taken off his boots and stockings, and his +bare feet seemed to grip the floor; also the sleeves of his jacket were +rolled up a little. It was not a figure you would wish to see in your +room at midnight unasked. Once or twice he sighed heavily, as he +listened to the river slishing past and looked out to the sparkle of the +skies. It was as though the infinite had drawn near to the man, or else +that the man had drawn near to the infinite. Now and again he brought +his fists down on his knees with a savage, though noiseless, force. The +peace of the river and the night could not contend successfully against a +dark spirit working in him. When, during his vigil, he shook his shaggy +head and his lips opened on his set teeth, he seemed like one who would +take toll at a gateway of forbidden things. + +He started to his feet at last, hearing footsteps outside upon the +stairs. Then he settled back again, drawing near to the chimney-wall, so +that he should not be easily seen by anyone entering. Presently there +was the click of a latch, then the door opened and shut, and cigar-smoke +invaded the room. An instant later a hand went up to the suspended oil- +lamp and twisted the wick into brighter flame. As it did so, there was a +slight noise, then the click of a lock. Turning sharply, the man under +the lamp saw at the door the man who had been sitting in the corner. The +man had a key in his hand. Exit now could only be had through the door +opening on to the river. + +"Who are you? What the hell do you want here?" asked the fellow under +the lamp, his swarthy face drawn with fear and yet frowning with anger. + +"Me--I am Jean Jacques Barbille," said the other in French, putting the +key of the door in his pocket. The other replied in French, with a +Spanish-English accent. "Barbille--Carmen's husband! Well, who would +have thought--!" + +He ended with a laugh not pleasant to hear, for it was coarse with +sardonic mirth; yet it had also an unreasonable apprehension; for why +should he fear the husband of the woman who had done that husband such an +injury! + +"She treated you pretty bad, didn't she--not much heart, had Carmen!" +he added. + +"Sit down. I want to talk to you," said Jean Jacques, motioning to two +chairs by a table at the side of the room. This table was in the middle +of the room when the man under the lamp-Hugo Stolphe was his name--had +left it last. Why had the table been moved? + +"Why should I sit down, and what are you doing here?--I want to know +that," Stolphe demanded. Jean Jacques' hands were opening and shutting. +"Because I want to talk to you. If you don't sit down, I'll give you no +chance at all. . . . Sit down!" Jean Jacques was smaller than +Stolphe, but he was all whipcord and leather; the other was sleek and +soft, but powerful too; and he had one of those savage natures which go +blind with hatred, and which fight like beasts. He glanced swiftly round +the room. + +"There is no weapon here," said Jean Jacques, nodding. "I have put +everything away--so you could not hurt me if you wanted. . . . Sit +down!" + +To gain time Stolphe sat down, for he had a fear that Jean Jacques was +armed, and might be a madman armed--there were his feet bare on the brown +painted boards. They looked so strange, so uncanny. He surely must be a +madman if he wanted to do harm to Hugo Stolphe; for Hugo Stolphe had only +"kept" the woman who had left her husband, not because of himself, but +because of another man altogether--one George Masson. Had not Carmen +herself told him that before she and he lived together? What grudge +could Carmen's husband have against Hugo Stolphe? + +Jean Jacques sat down also, and, leaning on the table said: "Once I was a +fool and let the other man escape-George Masson it was. Because of what +he did, my wife left me." + +His voice became husky, but he shook his throat, as it were, cleared it, +and went on. "I won't let you go. I was going to kill George Masson--I +had him like that!" He opened and shut his hand with a gesture of fierce +possession. "But I did not kill him. I let him go. He was so clever-- +cleverer than you will know how to be. She said to me--my wife said to +me, when she thought I had killed him, 'Why did you not fight him? Any +man would have fought him.' That was her view. She was right--not to +kill without fighting. That is why I did not kill you at once when I +knew." + +"When you knew what?" Stolphe was staring at the madman. + +"When I knew you were you. First I saw that ring--that ring on your +hand. It was my wife's. I gave it to her the first New Year after we +married. I saw it on your hand when you were drinking at the bar next +door. Then I asked them your name. I knew it. I had read your letters +to my wife--" + +"Your wife once on a time!" + +Jean Jacques' eyes swam red. "My wife always and always--and at the last +there in my arms." Stolphe temporized. "I never knew you. She did not +leave you because of me. She came to me because--because I was there for +her to come to, and you weren't there. Why do you want to do me any +harm?" He still must be careful, for undoubtedly the man was mad--his +eyes were too bright. + +"You were the death of her," answered Jean Jacques, leaning forward. +"She was most ill-ah, who would not have been sorry for her! She was +poor. She had been to you--but to live with a woman day by day, but to +be by her side when the days are done, and then one morning to say, 'Au +revoir till supper' and then go and never come back, and to take money +and rings that belonged to her! . . . That was her death--that was +the end of Carmen Barbille; and it was your fault." + +"You would do me harm and not hurt her! Look how she treated you--and +others." + +Jean Jacques half rose from his seat in sudden rage, but he restrained +himself, and sat down again. "She had one husband--only one. It was +Jean Jacques Barbille. She could only treat one as she treated me--me, +her husband. But you, what had you to do with that! You used her--so!" +He made a motion as though to stamp out an insect with his foot. +"Beautiful, a genius, sick and alone--no husband, no child, and you used +her so! That is why I shall kill you to-night. We will fight for it." + +Yes, but surely the man was mad, and the thing to do was to humour him, +to gain time. To humour a madman--that is what one always advised, +therefore Stolphe would make the pourparler, as the French say. + +"Well, that's all right," he rejoined, "but how is it going to be done? +Have you got a pistol?" He thought he was very clever, and that he would +now see whether Jean Jacques Barbille was armed. If he was not armed, +well, then, there would be the chances in his favour; it wasn't easy to +kill with hands alone. + +Jean Jacques ignored the question, however. He waved a hand impatiently, +as though to dismiss it. "She was beautiful and splendid; she had been a +queen down there in Quebec. You lied to her, and she was blind at first +--I can see it all. She believed so easily--but yes, always! There +she was what she was, and you were what you are, not a Frenchman, not +Catholic, and an American--no, not an American--a South American. But +no, not quite a South American, for there was the Portuguese nigger in +you--Sit down!" + +Jean Jacques was on his feet bending over the enraged mongrel. He had +spoken the truth, and Carmen's last lover had been stung as though a +serpent's tooth was in his flesh. Of all things that could be said about +him, that which Jean Jacques said was the worst--that he was not all +white, that he had nigger blood! Yet it was true; and he realized that +Jean Jacques must have got his information in Shilah itself where he had +been charged with it. Yet, raging as he was, and ready to take the +Johnny Crapaud--that is the name by which he had always called Carmen's +husband--by the throat, he was not yet sure that Jean Jacques was +unarmed. He sat still under an anger greater than his own, for there +was in it that fanaticism which only the love or hate of a woman could +breed in a man's mind. + +Suddenly Stolphe laughed outright, a crackling, mirthless, ironical +laugh; for it really was absurdity made sublime that this man, who had +been abandoned by his wife, should now want to kill one who had abandoned +her! This outdid Don Quixote over and over. + +"Well, what do you want?" he asked. + +"I want you to fight," said Jean Jacques. "That is the way. That was +Carmen's view. You shall have your chance to live, but I shall throw you +in the river, and you can then fight the river. The current is swift, +the banks are steep and high as a house down below there. Now, I am +ready. . . . !" + +He had need to be, for Stolphe was quick, kicking the chair from beneath +him, and throwing himself heavily on Jean Jacques. He had had his day at +that in South America, and as Jean Jacques Barbille had said, the water +was swift and deep, and the banks of the Watloon high and steep! + +But Jean Jacques was unconscious of everything save a debt to be +collected for a woman he had loved, a compensation which must be taken in +flesh and blood. Perhaps at the moment, as Stolphe had said to himself, +he was a little mad, for all his past, all his plundered, squandered, +spoiled life was crying out at him like a hundred ghosts, and he was +fighting with beasts at Ephesus. An exaltation possessed him. Not since +the day when his hand was on the lever of the flume with George Masson +below; not since the day he had turned his back for ever on the Manor +Cartier had he been so young and so much his old self-an egotist, with +all the blind confidence of his kind; a dreamer inflamed into action with +all a mad dreamer's wild power. He was not fifty-two years of age, but +thirty-two at this moment, and all the knowledge got of the wrestling +river-drivers of his boyhood, when he had spent hours by the river +struggling with river-champions, came back to him. It was a relief to +his sick soul to wrench and strain, and propel and twist and force +onward, step by step, to the door opening on the river, this creature who +had left his Carmen to die alone. + +"No, you don't--not yet. The jail before the river!" called a cool, +sharp, sour voice; and on the edge of the trembling platform overhanging +the river, Hugo Stolphe was dragged back from the plunge downward he was +about to take, with Jean Jacques' hand at his throat. + +Stolphe had heard the door of the bedroom forced, but Jean Jacques had +not heard it; he was only conscious of hands dragging him back just at +the moment of Stolphe's deadly peril. + +"What is it?" asked Jean Jacques, seeing Stolphe in the hands of two +men, and hearing the snap of steel. "Wanted for firing a house for +insurance--wanted for falsifying the accounts of a Land Company--wanted +for his own good, Mr. Hugo Stolphe, C.O.D.--collect on delivery!" said +the officer of the law. "And collected just in time!" + +"We didn't mean to take him till to-morrow," the officer added, "but out +on the river one of us saw this gladiator business here in the red-light +zone, and there wasn't any time to lose. . . . I don't know what your +business with him was," the long-moustached detective said to Jean +Jacques, "but whatever the grudge is, if you don't want to appear in +court in the morning, the walking's good out of town night or day--so +long!" + +He hustled his prisoner out. + +Jean Jacques did not want to appear in court, and as the walking was +officially good at dawn, he said good-bye to Virginie Poucette's sister +through the crack of a door, and was gone before she could restrain him. + +"Well, things happen that way," he said, as he turned back to look at +Shilah before it disappeared from view. + +"Ah, the poor, handsome vaurien!" the woman at the tavern kept saying to +her husband all that day; and she could not rest till she had written to +Virginie how Jean Jacques came to Shilah in the evening, and went with +the dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +JEAN JACQUES ENCAMPED + +The Young Doctor of Askatoon had a good heart, and he was exercising it +honourably one winter's day near three years after Jean Jacques had left +St. Saviour's. + +"There are many French Canadians working on the railway now, and a good +many habitant farmers live hereabouts, and they have plenty of children +--why not stay here and teach school? You are a Catholic, of course, +monsieur?" + +This is what the Young Doctor said to one who had been under his anxious +care for a few, vivid days. The little brown-bearded man with the grey- +brown hair nodded in reply, but his gaze was on the billowing waste of +snow, which stretched as far as eye could see to the pine-hills in the +far distance. He nodded assent, but it was plain to be seen that the +Young Doctor's suggestion was not in tune with his thought. His nod only +acknowledged the reasonableness of the proposal. In his eyes, however, +was the wanderlust which had possessed him for three long years, in which +he had been searching for what to him was more than Eldorado, for it was +hope and home. Hope was all he had left of the assets which had made him +so great a figure--as he once thought--in his native parish of St. +Saviour's. It was his fixed idea--une idee fixe, as he himself said. +Lands, mills, manor, lime-kilns, factories, store, all were gone, and his +wife Carmen also was gone. He had buried her with simple magnificence +in Montreal--Mme. Glozel had said to her neighbours afterwards that the +funeral cost over seventy-five dollars--and had set up a stone to her +memory on which was carved, "Chez nous autrefois, et chez Dieu +maintenant"--which was to say, "Our home once, and God's Home now." + +That done, with a sorrow which still had the peace of finality in his +mind, he had turned his face to the West. His long, long sojourning had +brought him to Shilah where a new chapter of his life was closed, and at +last to Askatoon, where another chapter still closed an epoch in his +life, and gave finality to all. There he had been taken down with +congestion of the lungs, and, fainting at the door of a drug-store, had +been taken possession of by the Young Doctor, who would not send him to +the hospital. He would not send him there because he found inside the +waistcoat of this cleanest tramp--if he was a tramp--that he had ever +seen, a book of philosophy, the daguerreotype photo of a beautiful +foreign-looking woman, and some verses in a child's handwriting. The +book of philosophy was underlined and interlined on every page, and every +margin had comment which showed a mind of the most singular simplicity, +searching wisdom, and hopeless confusion, all in one. + +The Young Doctor was a man of decision, and he had whisked the little +brown-grey sufferer to his own home, and tended him there like a brother +till the danger disappeared; and behold he was rewarded for his humanity +by as quaint an experience as he had ever known. He had not succeeded-- +though he tried hard--in getting at the history of his patient's life; +but he did succeed in reading the fascinating story of a mind; for Jean +Jacques, if not so voluble as of yore, had still moments when he seemed +to hypnotize himself, and his thoughts were alive in an atmosphere of +intellectual passion ill in accord with his condition. + +Presently the little brown man withdrew his eyes from the window of the +Young Doctor's office and the snowy waste beyond. They had a curious red +underglow which had first come to them an evening long ago, when they +caught from the sky the reflection of a burning mill. There was distance +and the far thing in that underglow of his eyes. It had to do with the +horizon, not with the place where his feet were. It said, "Out there, +beyond, is what I go to seek, what I must find, what will be home to me." + +"Well, I must be getting on," he said in a low voice to the Young Doctor, +ignoring the question which had been asked. + +"If you want work, there's work to be had here, as I said," responded the +Young Doctor. "You are a man of education--" + +"How do you know that?" asked Jean Jacques. + +"I hear you speak," answered the other, and then Jean Jacques drew +himself up and threw back his head. He had ever loved appreciation, not +to say flattery, and he had had very little of it lately. + +"I was at Laval," he remarked with a flash of pride. "No degree, but a +year there, and travel abroad--the Grand Tour, and in good style, with +plenty to do it with. Oh, certainly, no thought for sous, hardly for +francs! It was gold louis abroad and silver dollars at home--that was +the standard." + +"The dollars are much scarcer now, eh?" asked the Young Doctor +quizzically. + +"I should think I had just enough to pay you," said the other, bridling +up suddenly; for it seemed to him the Young Doctor had become ironical +and mocking; and though he had been mocked much in his day, there were +times when it was not easy to endure it. + +The truth is the Young Doctor was somewhat of an expert in human nature, +and he deeply wanted to know the history of this wandering habitant, +because he had a great compassionate liking for him. If he could get the +little man excited, he might be able to find out what he wanted. During +the days in which the wanderer had been in his house, he had been far +from silent, for he joked at his own suffering and kept the housekeeper +laughing at his whimsical remarks; while he won her heart by the +extraordinary cleanliness of his threadbare clothes, and the perfect +order of his scantily-furnished knapsack. It had the exactness of one +who was set upon a far course and would carry it out on scientific +calculation. He had been full of mocking quips and sallies at himself, +but from first to last he never talked. The things he said were nothing +more than surface sounds, as it were--the ejaculations of a mind, not its +language or its meanings. + +"He's had some strange history, this queer little man," said the +housekeeper to the Young Doctor; "and I'd like to know what it is. Why, +we don't even know his name." + +"So would I," rejoined the Young Doctor, "and I'll have a good try for +it." + +He had had his try more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps a +little torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rather +tactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look was +incredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to pay the +fee. + +"When you searched me you forgot to look in the right place," continued +Jean Jacques; and he drew from the lining of the hat he held in his hand +a little bundle of ten-dollar bills. "Here--take your pay from them," he +said, and held out the roll of bills. "I suppose it won't be more than +four dollars a day; and there's enough, I think. I can't pay you for +your kindness to me, and I don't want to. I'd like to owe you that; and +it's a good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness. He remembers it +when he gets older. It helps him to forgive himself more or less for +what he's sorry for in life. I've enough in this bunch to pay for board +and professional attendance, or else the price has gone up since I had a +doctor before." + +He laughed now, and the laugh was half-ironical, half-protesting. It +seemed to come from the well of a hidden past; and no past that is hidden +has ever been a happy past. + +The Young Doctor took the bills, looked at them as though they were +curios, and then returned them with the remark that they were of a kind +and denomination of no use to him. There was a twinkle in his eye as he +said it. Then he added: + +"I agree with you that it's a good thing for a man to lay up a little +credit of kindness here and there for his old age. Well, anything I did +for you was meant for kindness and nothing else. You weren't a bit of +trouble, and it was simply your good constitution and a warm room and a +few fly-blisters that pulled you through. It wasn't any skill of mine. +Go and thank my housekeeper if you like. She did it all." + +"I did my best to thank her," answered Jean Jacques. "I said she +reminded me of Virginie Palass Poucette, and I could say nothing better +than that, except one thing; and I'm not saying that to anybody." + +The Young Doctor had a thrill. Here was a very unusual man, with mystery +and tragedy, and yet something above both, in his eyes. + +"Who was Virginie Palass Poucette?" he asked. Jean Jacques threw out a +hand as though to say, "Attend--here is a great thing," and he began, +"Virginie Poucette--ah, there . . . !" + +Then he paused, for suddenly there spread out before him that past, now +so far away, in which he had lived--and died. Strange that when he had +mentioned Virginie's name to the housekeeper he had no such feeling as +possessed him now. It had been on the surface, and he had used her name +without any deep stir of the waters far down in his soul. But the Young +Doctor was fingering the doors of his inner life--all at once this +conviction came to him--and the past rushed upon him with all its +disarray and ignominy, its sorrow, joy, elation and loss. Not since he +had left the scene of his defeat, not since the farewell to his dead +Carmen, that sweet summer day when he had put the lovely, ruined being +away with her words, "Jean Jacques--ah, my beautiful Jean Jacques," +ringing in his ears, had he ever told anyone his story. He had had a +feeling that, as Carmen had been restored to him without his crying out, +or vexing others with his sad history, so would Zoe also come back to +him. Patience and silence was his motto. + +Yet how was it that here and now there came an overpowering feeling, that +he must tell this healer of sick bodies the story of an invalid soul? +This man with the piercing dark-blue eyes before him, who looked so +resolute, who had the air of one who could say, + +"This is the way to go," because he knew and was sure; he was not to be +denied. + +"Who was Virginie Poucette?" repeated the Young Doctor insistently, yet +ever so gently. "Was she such a prize among women? What did she do?" + +A flood of feeling passed over Jean Jacques' face. He looked at his hat +and his knapsack lying in a chair, with a desire to seize them and fly +from the inquisitor; then a sense of fatalism came upon him. As though +he had received an order from within his soul, he said helplessly: + +"Well, if it must be, it must." + +Then he swept the knapsack and his hat from the chair to the floor, and +sat down. + +"I will begin at the beginning," he said with his eyes fixed on those of +the Young Doctor, yet looking beyond him to far-off things. "I will +start from the time when I used to watch the gold Cock of Beaugard +turning on the mill, when I sat in the doorway of the Manor Cartier in my +pinafore. I don't know why I tell you, but maybe it was meant I should. +I obey conviction. While you are able to keep logic and conviction hand +in hand then everything is all right. I have found that out. Logic, +philosophy are the props of life, but still you must obey the impulse of +the soul--oh, absolutely! You must--" + +He stopped short. "But it will seem strange to you," he added after a +moment, in which the Young Doctor gestured to him to proceed, "to hear me +talk like this--a wayfarer--a vagabond you may think. But in other days +I was in places--" + +The Young Doctor interjected with abrupt friendliness that there was no +need to say he had been in high places. It would still be apparent, if +he were in rags. + +"Then, there, I will speak freely," rejoined Jean Jacques, and he took +the cherry-brandy which the other offered him, and drank it off with +gusto. + +"Ah, that--that," he said, "is like the cordials Mere Langlois used to +sell at Vilray. She and Virginie Poucette had a place together on the +market--none better than Mere Langlois except Virginie Poucette, and she +was like a drink of water in the desert. . . . Well, there, I will +begin. Now my father was--" + +It was lucky there were no calls for the Young Doctor that particular +early morning, else the course of Jean Jacques' life might have been +greatly different from what it became. He was able to tell his story +from the very first to the last. Had it been interrupted or unfinished +one name might not have been mentioned. When Jean Jacques used it, the +Young Doctor sat up and leaned forward eagerly, while a light came into +his face-a light of surprise, of revelation and understanding. + +When Jean Jacques came to that portion of his life when manifest tragedy +began--it began of course on the Antoine, but then it was not manifest-- +when his Carmen left him after the terrible scene with George Masson, he +paused and said: "I don't know why I tell you this, for it is not easy to +tell; but you saved my life, and you have a right to know what it is you +have saved, no matter how hard it is to put it all before you." + +It was at this point that he mentioned Zoe's name--he had hitherto only +spoken of her as "my daughter"; and here it was the Young Doctor showed +startled interest, and repeated the name after Jean Jacques. "Zoe! Zoe! +--ah!" he said, and became silent again. + +Jean Jacques had not noticed the Young Doctor's pregnant interruption, he +was so busy with his own memories of the past; and he brought the tale to +the day when he turned his face to the West to look for Zoe. Then he +paused. + +"And then?" the Young Doctor asked. "There is more--there is the search +for Zoe ever since." + +"What is there to say?" continued Jean Jacques. "I have searched till +now, and have not found." + +"How have you lived?" asked the other. + +"Keeping books in shops and factories, collecting accounts for +storekeepers, when they saw they could trust me, working at threshings +and harvests, teaching school here and there. Once I made fifty dollars +at a railway camp telling French Canadian tales and singing chansons +Canadiennes. I have been insurance agent, sold lightning-rods, and been +foreman of a gang building a mill--but I could not bear that. Every time +I looked up I could see the Cock of Beaugard where the roof should be. +And so on, so on, first one thing and then another till now--till I came +to Askatoon and fell down by the drug-store, and you played the good +Samaritan. So it goes, and I step on from here again, looking--looking." + +"Wait till spring," said the Young Doctor. "What is the good of going on +now! You can only tramp to the next town, and--" + +"And the next," interposed Jean Jacques. "But so it is my orders." He +put his hand on his heart, and gathered up his hat and knapsack. + +"But you haven't searched here at Askatoon." "Ah? . . . Ah-well, +surely that is so," answered Jean Jacques wistfully. "I had forgotten +that. Perhaps you can tell me, you who know all. Have you any news +about my Zoe for me? Do you know--was she ever here? Madame Gerard +Fynes would be her name. My name is Jean Jacques Barbille." + +"Madame Zoe was here, but she has gone," quietly answered the Young +Doctor. + +Jean Jacques dropped the hat and the knapsack. His eyes had a glad, yet +staring and frightened look, for the Young Doctor's face was not the +bearer of good tidings. + +"Zoe--my Zoe! You are sure? . . . When was she here?" he added +huskily. + +"A month ago." + +"When did she go?" Jean Jacques' voice was almost a whisper. + +"A month ago." + +"Where did she go?" asked Jean Jacques, holding himself steady, for he +had a strange dreadful premonition. + +"Out of all care at last," answered the Young Doctor, and took a step +towards the little man, who staggered, then recovered himself. + +"She--my Zoe is dead! How?" questioned Jean Jacques in a ghostly sort +of voice, but there was a steadiness and control unlike what he had shown +in other tragic moments. + +"It was a blizzard. She was bringing her husband's body in a sleigh to +the railway here. He had died of consumption. She and the driver of the +sleigh went down in the blizzard. Her body covered the child and saved +it. The driver was lost also." + +"Her child--Zoe's child?" quavered Jean Jacques. "A little girl--Zoe. +The name was on her clothes. There were letters. One to her father-- +to you. Your name is Jean Jacques Barbille, is it not? I have that +letter to you. We buried her and her husband in the graveyard yonder." +He pointed. "Everybody was there--even when they knew it was to be a +Catholic funeral." + +"Ah! she was buried a Catholic?" Jean Jacques' voice was not quite so +blurred now. + +"Yes. Her husband had become Catholic too. A priest who had met them in +the Peace River Country was here at the time." + +At that, with a moan, Jean Jacques collapsed. He shed no tears, but he +sat with his hands between his knees, whispering his child's name. + +The Young Doctor laid a hand on his shoulder gently, but presently went +out, shutting the door after him. As he left the room, however, he +turned and said, "Courage, Monsieur Jean Jacques! Courage!" + +When the Young Doctor came back a half-hour later he had in his hand the +letters found in Zoe's pocket. "Monsieur Jean Jacques," he said gently +to the bowed figure still sitting as he left him. + +Jean Jacques got up slowly and looked at him as though scarce +understanding where he was. + +"The child--the child--where is my Zoe's child? Where is Zoe's Zoe?" +he asked in agitation. His whole body seemed to palpitate. His eyes +were all red fire. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE? + +The Young Doctor did not answer Jean Jacques at once. As he looked at +this wayworn fugitive he knew that another, and perhaps the final crisis +of his life, was come to Jean Jacques Barbille, and the human pity in him +shrank from the possible end to it all. It was an old-world figure this, +with the face of a peasant troubadour and the carriage of an aboriginal-- +or an aristocrat. Indeed, the ruin, the lonely wandering which had been +Jean Jacques' portion, had given him that dignity which often comes to +those who defy destiny and the blows of angry fate. Once there had been +in his carriage something jaunty. This was merely life and energy and a +little vain confidence; now there was the look of courage which awaits +the worst the world can do. The life which, according to the world's +logic, should have made Jean Jacques a miserable figure, an ill-nourished +vagabond, had given him a physical grace never before possessed by him. +The face, however, showed the ravages which loss and sorrow had made. +It was lined and shadowed with dark reflection, yet the forehead had a +strange smoothness and serenity little in accord with the rest of the +countenance. It was like the snow-summit of a mountain below which are +the ragged escarpments of trees and rocks, making a look of storm and +warfare. + +"Where is she--the child of my Zoe?" Jean Jacques repeated with an +almost angry emphasis; as though the Young Doctor were hiding her from +him. + +"She is with the wife of Nolan Doyle, my partner in horse-breeding, not +very far from here. Norah Doyle was married five years, and she had no +child. This was a grief to her, even more than to Nolan, who, like +her, came of a stock that was prolific. It was Nolan who found your +daughter on the prairie--the driver dead, but she just alive when found. +To give her ease of mind, Nolan said he would make the child his own. +When he said that, she smiled and tried to speak, but it was too late, +and she was gone." + +In sudden agony Jean Jacques threw up his hands. "So young and so soon +to be gone!" he exclaimed. "But a child she was and had scarce tasted +the world. The mercy of God--what is it!" + +"You can't take time as the measure of life," rejoined the Young Doctor +with a compassionate gesture. "Perhaps she had her share of happiness-- +as much as most of us get, maybe, in a longer course." + +"Share! She was worth a hundred years of happiness!" bitterly retorted +Jean Jacques. + +"Perhaps she knew her child would have it?" gently remarked the Young +Doctor. + +"Ah, that--that ! . . . Do you think that possible, m'sieu'? Tell +me, do you think that was in her mind--to have loved, and been a mother, +and given her life for the child, and then the bosom of God. Answer that +to me, m'sieu'?" + +There was intense, poignant inquiry in Jean Jacques' face, and a light +seemed to play over it. The Young Doctor heeded the look and all that +was in the face. It was his mission to heal, and he knew that to heal +the mind was often more necessary than to heal the body. Here he would +try to heal the mind, if only in a little. + +"That might well have been in her thought," he answered. "I saw her +face. It had a wonderful look of peace, and a smile that would reconcile +anyone she loved to her going. I thought of that when I looked at her. +I recall it now. It was the smile of understanding." + +He had said the only thing which could have comforted Jean Jacques +at that moment. Perhaps it was meant to be that Zoe's child should +represent to him all that he had lost--home, fortune, place, Carmen and +Zoe. Perhaps she would be home again for him and all that home should +mean--be the promise of a day when home would again include that fled +from Carmen, and himself, and Carmen's child. Maybe it was sentiment in +him, maybe it was sentimentality--and maybe it was not. + +"Come, m'sieu'," Jean Jacques said impatiently: "let us go to the house +of that M'sieu' Doyle. But first, mark this: I have in the West here +some land--three hundred and twenty acres. It may yet be to me a home, +where I shall begin once more with my Zoe's child--with my Zoe of Zoe-- +the home-life I lost down by the Beau Cheval. . . . Let us go at +once." + +"Yes, at once," answered the Young Doctor. Yet his feet were laggard, +for he was not so sure that there would be another home for Jean Jacques +with his grandchild as its star. He was thinking of Norah, to whom a +waif of the prairie had made home what home should be for herself and +Nolan Doyle. + +"Read these letters first," he said, and he put the letters found on Zoe +in Jean Jacques' eager hands. + +A half-hour later, at the horse-breeding ranch, the Young Doctor +introduced Jean Jacques to Norah Doyle, and instantly left the house. +He had no wish to hear the interview which must take place between the +two. Nolan Doyle was not at home, but in the room where they were shown +to Norah was a cradle. Norah was rocking it with one foot while, +standing by the table, she busied herself with sewing. + +The introduction was of the briefest. "Monsieur Barbille wishes a word +with you, Mrs. Doyle," said the Young Doctor. "It's a matter that +doesn't need me. Monsieur has been in my care, as you know. . . . +Well, there, I hope Nolan is all right. Tell him I'd like to see him +to-morrow about the bay stallion and the roans. I've had an offer for +them. Good-bye--good-bye, Mrs. Doyle"--he was at the door--"I hope you +and Monsieur Barbille will decide what's best for the child without +difficulty." + +The door opened quickly and shut again, and Jean Jacques was alone with +the woman and the child. "What's best for the child!" + +That was what the Young Doctor had said. Norah stopped rocking the +cradle and stared at the closed door. What had this man before her, this +tramp habitant of whom she had heard, of course, to do with little Zoe in +the cradle--her little Zoe who had come just when she was most needed; +who had brought her man and herself close together again after an +estrangement which neither had seemed able to prevent. + +"What's best for the child!" How did the child in the cradle +concern this man? Then suddenly his name almost shrieked in her brain. +Barbille--that was the name on the letter found on the body of the woman +who died and left Zoe behind--M. Jean Jacques Barbille. + +Yes, that was the name. What was going to happen? Did the man intend to +try and take Zoe from her? + +"What is your name--all of it?" she asked sharply. She had a very fine +set of teeth, as Jean Jacques saw mechanically; and subconsciously he +said to himself that they seemed cruel, they were so white and regular-- +and cruel. The cruelty was evident to him as she bit in two the thread +for the waistcoat she was mending, and then plied her needle again. Also +the needle in her fingers might have been intended to sew up his shroud, +so angry did it appear at the moment. But her teeth had something almost +savage about them. If he had seen them when she was smiling, he would +have thought them merely beautiful and rare, atoning for her plain face +and flat breast--not so flat as it had been; for since the child had come +into her life, her figure, strangely enough, had rounded out, and lines +never before seen in her contour appeared. + +He braced himself for the contest he knew was at hand, and replied to +her. "My name is Jean Jacques Barbille. I was of the Manor Cartier, in +St. Saviour's parish, Quebec. The mother of the child Zoe, there, was +born at the Manor Cartier. I was her father. I am the grandfather of +this Zoe." He motioned towards the cradle. + +Then, with an impulse he could not check and did not seek to check--why +should he? was not the child his own by every right?--he went to the +cradle and looked down at the tiny face on its white pillow. There +could be no mistake about it; here was the face of his lost Zoe, with +something, too, of Carmen, and also the forehead of the Barbilles. As +though the child knew, it opened its eyes wide-big, brown eyes like those +of Carmen Dolores. + +"Ah, the beautiful, beloved thing!" he exclaimed in a low-voice, ere +Norah stepped between and almost pushed him back. An outstretched arm in +front of her prevented him from stooping to kiss the child. "Stand back. +The child must not be waked," she said. "It must sleep another hour. It +has its milk at twelve o'clock. Stand aside. I won't have my child +disturbed." + +"Have my child disturbed"--that was what she had said, and Jean Jacques +realized what he had to overbear. Here was the thing which must be +fought out at once. + +"The child is not yours, but mine," he declared. "Here is proof--the +letter found on my Zoe when she died--addressed to me. The doctor knew. +There is no mistake." + +He held out the letter for her to see. "As you can read here, my +daughter was on her way back to the Manor Cartier, to her old home at +St. Saviour's. She was on her way back when she died. If she had lived +I should have had them both; but one is left, according to the will of +God. And so I will take her--this flower of the prairie--and begin life +again." + +The face Norah turned on him had that look which is in the face of an +animal, when its young is being forced from it--fierce, hungering, +furtive, vicious. + +"The child is mine," she exclaimed--"mine and no other's. The prairie +gave it to me. It came to me out of the storm. 'Tis mine-mine only. +I was barren and wantin', and my man was slippin' from me, because there +was only two of us in our home. I was older than him, and yonder was a +girl with hair like a sheaf of wheat in the sun, and she kept lookin' at +him, and he kept goin' to her. 'Twas a man she wanted, 'twas a child he +wanted, and there they were wantin', and me atin' my heart out with +passion and pride and shame and sorrow. There was he wantin' a child, +and the girl wantin' a man, and I only wantin' what God should grant all +women that give themselves to a man's arms after the priest has blessed +them. And whin all was at the worst, and it looked as if he was away +with her--the girl yonder--then two things happened. A man--he was me +own brother and a millionaire if I do say it--he took her and married +her; and then, too, Heaven's will sent this child's mother to her last +end and the child itself to my Nolan's arms. To my husband's arms first +it came, you understand; and he give the child to me, as it should be, +and said he, 'We'll make believe it is our own.' But I said to him, +'There's no make-believe. 'Tis mine. 'Tis mine. It came to me out of +the storm from the hand of God.' And so it was and is; and all's well +here in the home, praise be to God. And listen to me: you'll not come +here to take the child away from me. It can't be done. I'll not have +it. Yes, you can let that sink down into you--I'll not have it." + +During her passionate and defiant appeal Jean Jacques was restless with +the old unrest of years ago, and his face twitched with emotion; but +before she had finished he had himself in some sort of control. + +"You--madame, you are only thinking of yourself in this. You are only +thinking what you want, what you and your man need. But it's not to be +looked at that way only, and--" + +"Well, then it isn't to be looked at that way only," she interrupted. +"As you say, it isn't Nolan and me alone to be considered. There's--" + +"There's me," he interrupted sharply. "The child is bone of my bone. +It is bone of all the Barbilles back to the time of Louis XI."--he had +said that long ago to Zoe first, and it was now becoming a fact in his +mind. "It is linked up in the chain of the history of the Barbilles. +It is one with the generations of noblesse and honour and virtue. +It is--" + +"It's one with Abel the son of Adam, if it comes to that, and so am I," +Norah bitingly interjected, while her eyes flashed fire, and she rocked +the cradle more swiftly than was good for the child's sleep. + +Jean Jacques flared up. "There were sons and daughters of the family of +Adam that had names, but there were plenty others you whistled to as you +would to a four-footer, and they'd come. The Barbilles had names--always +names of their own back to Adam. The child is a Barbille--Don't rock the +cradle so fast," he suddenly added with an irritable gesture, breaking +off from his argument. "Don't you know better than that when a child's +asleep? Do you want it to wake up and cry?" + +She flushed to the roots of her hair, for he had said something for which +she had no reply. She had undoubtedly disturbed the child. It stirred +in its sleep, then opened its eyes, and at once began to cry. + +"There," said Jean Jacques, "what did I tell you? Any one that had ever +had children would know better than that." + +Norah paid no attention to his mocking words, to the undoubted-truth of +his complaint. Stooping over, she gently lifted the child up. With +hungry tenderness she laid it against her breast and pressed its cheek to +her own, murmuring and crooning to it. + +"Acushla! Acushla! Ah, the pretty bird--mother's sweet--mother's +angel!" she said softly. + +She rocked backwards and forwards. Her eyes, though looking at Jean +Jacques as she crooned and coaxed and made lullaby, apparently did not +see him. She was as concentrated as though it were a matter of life and +death. She was like some ancient nurse of a sovereign-child, plainly +dressed, while the dainty white clothes of the babe in her arms--ah, +hadn't she raided the hoard she had begun when first married, in the hope +of a child of her own, to provide this orphan with clothes good enough +for a royal princess! + +The flow of the long, white dress of the waif on the dark blue of Norah's +gown, which so matched the deep sapphire of her eyes, caught Jean +Jacques' glance, allured his mind. It was the symbol of youth and +innocence and home. Suddenly he had a vision of the day when his own Zoe +had been given to the cradle for the first time, and he had done exactly +what Norah had done--rocked too fast and too hard, and waked his little +one; and Carmen had taken her up in her long white draperies, and had +rocked to and fro, just like this, singing a lullaby. That lullaby he +had himself sung often afterwards; and now, with his grandchild in +Norah's arms there before him--with this other Zoe--the refrain of it +kept lilting in his brain. In the pause ensuing, when Norah stooped to +put the pacified child again in its nest, he also stooped over the cradle +and began to hum the words of the lullaby: + + "Sing, little bird, of the whispering leaves, + Sing a song of the harvest sheaves; + Sing a song to my Fanchonette, + Sing a song to my Fanchonette! + Over her eyes, over her eyes, over her eyes of violet, + See the web that the weaver weaves, + The web of sleep that the weaver weaves-- + Weaves, weaves, weaves! + Over those eyes of violet, + Over those eyes of my Fanchonette, + Weaves, weaves, weaves-- + See the web that the weaver weaves!" + +For quite two minutes Jean Jacques and Norah Doyle stooped over the +cradle, looking at Zoe's rosy, healthy, pretty face, as though +unconscious of each other, and only conscious of the child. When Jean +Jacques had finished the long first verse of the chanson, and would have +begun another, Norah made a protesting gesture. + +"She's asleep, and there's no more need," she said. "Wasn't it a good +lullaby, madame?" Jean Jacques asked. + +"So, so," she replied, on her defence again. + +"It was good enough for her mother," he replied, pointing to the cradle. + +"It's French and fanciful," she retorted--"both music and words." + +"The child's French--what would you have?" asked Jean Jacques +indignantly. + +"The child's father was English, and she's goin' to be English, the +darlin', from now on and on and on. That's settled. There's manny an +English and Irish lullaby that'll be sung to her hence and onward; and +there's manny an English song she'll sing when she's got her voice, and +is big enough. Well, I think she'll sing like a canary." + +"Do the birds sing in English?" exclaimed Jean Jacques, with anger in +his face now. Was there ever any vanity like the vanity of these people +who had made the conquest of Quebec, when sixteen Barbilles lost their +lives, one of them being aide-de-camp to M. Vaudreuil, the governor! + +"All the canaries I ever heard sung in English," she returned stubbornly. + +"How do Frenchmen understand their singing, then?" irritably questioned +Jean Jacques. + +"Well, in translation only," she retorted, and with her sharp white teeth +she again bit the black thread of her needle, tied the end into a little +knot, and began to mend the waistcoat which she had laid down in the +first moments of the interview. + +"I want the child," Jean Jacques insisted abruptly. "I'll wait till she +wakes, and then I'll wrap her up and take her away." + +"Didn't you hear me say she was to be brought up English?" asked Norah, +with a slowness which clothed her fiercest impulses. + +"Name of God, do you think I'll let you have her!" returned Jean Jacques +with asperity and decision. "You say you are alone, you and your M'sieu' +Nolan. Well, I am alone--all alone in the world, and I need her--Mother +of God, I need her more than I ever needed anything in my life! You have +each other, but I have only myself, and it is not good company. Besides, +the child is mine, a Barbille of Barbilles, une legitime--a rightful +child of marriage. But if it was a love-child only it would still be +mine, being my daughter's child. Look you, it is no such thing. It is +of those who can claim inheritance back to Louis XI. She will be to me +the gift of God in return for the robbery of death." + +He leaned over the cradle, and his look was like that of one who had +found a treasure in the earth. + +Now she struck hard. Yet very subtly too did she attack him. "You--you +are thinking of yourself, m'sieu', only of yourself. Aren't you going to +think of the child at all? It isn't yourself that counts so much. +You've had your day, or the part of it that matters most. But her time +is not yet even begun. It's all--all--before her. You say you'll take +her away--well, to what? To what will you take her? What have you got +to give her? What--" + +"I have the three hundred and twenty acres out there"--he pointed +westward--"and I will make a home and begin again with her." + +"Three hundred and twenty acres--'out there'!" she exclaimed in scorn. +"Any one can have a farm here for the askin'. What is that? Is it a +home? What have you got to start a home with? Do you deny you are no +better than a tramp? Have you got a hundred dollars in the world? Have +you got a roof over your head? Have you got a trade? You'll take +her where--to what? Even if you had a home, what then? You would have +to get someone to look after her--some old crone, a wench maybe, who'd be +as fit to bring up a child as I would be to--" she paused and looked +round in helpless quest for a simile, when, in despair, she caught sight +of Jean Jacques' watch-chain--"as I would be to make a watch!" she +added. + +Instinctively Jean Jacques drew out the ancient timepiece he had worn on +the Grand Tour; which had gone down with the Antoine and come up with +himself. It gave him courage to make the fight for his own. + +"The good God would see that--" he began. + +"The good God doesn't interfere in bringing up babies," she retorted. +"That's the work for the fathers and mothers, or godfathers and +godmothers." + +"You are neither," exclaimed Jean Jacques. "You have no rights at all." + +"I have no rights--eh? I have no rights! Look at the child. Look at +the way she's clothed. Look at the cradle in which it lies. It cost +fifteen dollars; and the clothes--what they cost would keep a family half +a year. I have no rights, is it?--I who stepped in and took the child +without question, without bein' asked, and made it my own, and treated it +as if it was me own. No, by the love of God, I treated it far, far +better than if it had been me own. Because a child was denied me, the +hunger of the years made me love the child as a mother would on a desert +island with one child at her knees." + +"You can get another-one not your own, as this isn't," argued Jean +Jacques fiercely. + +She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly. She chose her +own course to convince. "Nolan loves this child as if it was his," she +declared, her eyes all afire, "but he mightn't love another--men are +queer creatures. Then where would I be? and what would the home be but +what it was before--as cold, as cold and bitter! It was the hand of God +brought the child to the door of two people who had no child and who +prayed for one. Do you deny it was the hand of God that brought your +daughter here away, that put the child in my arms? Not its mother, +am I not? But I love her better than twenty mothers could. It's the +hunger--the hunger--the hunger in me. She's made a woman of me. She has +a home where everything is hers--everything. To see Nolan play with her, +tossin' her up and down in his arms as if he'd done it all his life--as +natural as natural! To take her away from that--all the comfort here +where she can have annything she wants! With my old mother to care for +her, if so be I was away to market or whereabouts--one that brought up +six children, a millionaire among them, praise be to God as my mother +did--to take this delicate little thing away from here, what a sin and +crime 'twould be! She herself 'd never forgive you for it, if ever she +grew up--though that's not likely, things bein' as they are with you, and +you bein' what you are. Ah, there--there she is awake and smilin', and +kickin' up her pretty toes this minute! There she is, the lovely little +Zoe, with eyes like black pearls. . . . See now--see now which she'll +come to--to you or me, m'sieu'. There, put out your arms to her, and +I'll put out mine, and see which she'll take. I'll stand by that--I'll +stand by that. Let the child decide. Hold out your arms, and so will I" + +With an impassioned word Jean Jacques reached down his arms to the child, +which lay laughing up at them and kicking its pink toes into the air, and +Norah Doyle did the same, murmuring an Irish love-name for a child. Jean +Jacques was silent, but in his face was the longing of a soul sick for +home, of one who desires the end of a toilsome road. + +The laughing child crooned and spluttered and shook its head, as though +it was playing some happy game. It looked first at Norah, then at Jean +Jacques, then at Norah again, and then, with a little gurgle of pleasure, +stretched out its arms to her and half-raised itself from the pillow. +With a glad cry Norah gathered it to her bosom, and triumph shone in her +face. + +"Ah, there, you see!" she said, as she lifted her face from the blossom +at her breast. + +"There it is," said Jean Jacques with shaking voice. + +"You have nothing to give her--I have everything," she urged. "My rights +are that I would die for the child--oh, fifty times! . . . What are +you going to do, m'sieu'?" + +Jean Jacques slowly turned and picked up his hat. He moved with the +dignity of a hero who marches towards a wall to meet the bullets of a +firing-squad. + +"You are going?" Norah whispered, and in her eyes was a great relief and +the light of victory. The golden link binding Nolan and herself was in +her arms, over her heart. + +Jean Jacques did not speak a word in reply, though his lips moved. She +held out the little one to him for a good-bye, but he shook his head. If +he did that--if he once held her in his arms--he would not be able to +give her up. Gravely and solemnly, however, he stooped over and kissed +the lips of the child lying against Norah's breast. As he did so, with a +quick, mothering instinct Norah impulsively kissed his shaggy head, and +her eyes filled with tears. She smiled too, and Jean Jacques saw how +beautiful her teeth were--cruel no longer. + +He moved away slowly. At the door he turned, and looked back at the two +--a long, lingering look he gave. Then he faced away from them again. + +"Moi je suis philosophe," he said gently, and opened the door and stepped +out and away into the frozen world. + + + + +EPILOGUE + +Change might lay its hand on the parish of St. Saviour's, and it did so +on the beautiful sentient living thing, as on the thing material and man- +made; but there was no change in the sheltering friendship of Mont Violet +or the flow of the illustrious Beau Cheval. The autumns also changed not +at all. They cast their pensive canopies over the home-scene which Jean +Jacques loved so well, before he was exhaled from its bosom. + +One autumn when the hillsides were in those colours which none but a +rainbow of the moon ever had, so delicately sad, so tenderly assuring, +a traveller came back to St. Saviour's after a long journey. He came by +boat to the landing at the Manor Cartier, rather than by train to the +railway-station, from which there was a drive of several miles to Vilray. +At the landing he was met by a woman, as much a miniature of the days of +Orleanist France as himself. She wore lace mits which covered the hands +but not the fingers, and her gown showed the outline of a meek crinoline. + +"Ah, Fille--ah, dear Fille!" said the little fragment of an antique day, +as the Clerk of the Court--rather, he that had been for so many years +Clerk of the Court--stepped from the boat. "I can scarce believe that +you are here once more. Have you good news?" + +"It was to come back with good news that I went," her brother answered +smiling, his face lighted by an inner exaltation. + +"Dear, dear Fille!" She always called him that now, and not by his +Christian name, as though he was a peer. She had done so ever since the +Government had made him a magistrate, and Laval University had honoured +him with the degree of doctor of laws. + +She was leading him to the pony-carriage in which she had come to meet +him, when he said: + +"Do you think you could walk the distance, my dear? . . . It would be +like old times," he added gently. + +"I could walk twice as far to-day," she answered, and at once gave +directions for the young coachman to put "His Honour's" bag into the +carriage. In spite of Fille's reproofs she insisted in calling him that +to the servants. They had two servants now, thanks to the legacy left +them by the late Judge Carcasson. Presently M. Fille took her by the +hand. "Before we start--one look yonder," he murmured, pointing towards +the mill which had once belonged to Jean Jacques, now rebuilt and looking +almost as of old. "I promised Jean Jacques that I would come and salute +it in his name, before I did aught else, and so now I do salute it." + +He waved a hand and made a bow to the gold Cock of Beaugard, the pride of +all the vanished Barbilles. "Jean Jacques Barbille says that his head is +up like yours, M. le Coq, and he wishes you many, many winds to come," he +recited quite seriously, and as though it was not out of tune with the +modern world. + +The gold Cock of Beaugard seemed to understand, for it swung to the left, +and now a little to the right, and then stood still, as if looking at the +little pair of exiles from an ancient world--of which the only vestiges +remaining may be found in old Quebec. + +This ceremony over, they walked towards Mont Violet, averting their heads +as they passed the Manor Cartier, in a kind of tribute to its departed +master--as a Stuart Legitimist might pass the big palace at the end of +the Mall in London. In the wood-path, Fille took his sister's hand. + +"I will tell you what you are so trembling to hear," he said. "There +they are at peace, Jean Jacques and Virginie--that best of best women." + +"To think--married to Virginie Poucette--to think of that!" His sister's +voice fluttered as she spoke. "But entirely. There was nothing in the +way--and she meant to have him, the dear soul! I do not blame her, for +at bottom he is as good a man as lives. Our Judge called him 'That dear +fool, Jean Jacques, a man of men in his way, after all,' and our Judge +was always right--but yes, nearly always right." + +After a moment of contented meditation he resumed. "Well, when Virginie +sold her place here and went to live with her sister out at Shilah in the +West, she said, 'If Jean Jacques is alive, he will be on the land which +was Zoe's, which he bought for her. If he is alive--then!' So it was, +and by one of the strange accidents which chance or women like Virginie, +who have plenty of courage in their simpleness, arrange, they met on that +three hundred and sixty acres. It was like the genius of Jean Jacques to +have done that one right thing which would save him in the end--a thing +which came out of his love for his child--the emotion of an hour. +Indeed, that three hundred and sixty acres was his salvation after he +learned of Zoe's death, and the other little Zoe, his grandchild, was +denied to him--to close his heart against what seemed that last hope, was +it not courage? And so, and so he has the reward of his own soul--a home +at last once more." + +"With Virginie Poucette--Fille, Fille, how things come round!" exclaimed +the little lady in the tiny bonnet with the mauve strings. + +"More than Virginie came round," he replied almost oracularly. "Who, +think you, brought him the news that coal was found on his acres--who but +the husband of Virginie's sister! Then came Virginie. On the day Jean +Jacques saw her again, he said to her, 'What you would have given me at +such cost, now let me pay for with the rest of my life. It is the great +thought which was in your heart that I will pay for with the days left to +me.'" + +A flickering smile brightened the sensitive ascetic face, and humour was +in the eyes. "What do you think Virginie said to that? Her sister told +me. Virginie said to that, 'You will have more days left, Jean Jacques, +if you have a better cook. What do you like best for supper?' And Jean +Jacques laughed much at that. Years ago he would have made a speech at +it!" + +"Then he is no more a philosopher?" + +"Oh always, always, but in his heart, and not with his tongue. I cried, +and so did he, when we met and when we parted. I think I am getting old, +for indeed I could not help it: yet there was peace in his eyes--peace." + +"His eyes used to rustle so." + +"Rustle--that is the word. Now, that is what, he has learned in life-- +the way to peace. When I left him, it was with Virginie close beside +him, and when I said to him, 'Will you come back to us one day, Jean +Jacques?' he said, 'But no, Fille, my friend; it is too far. I see it-- +it is a million miles away--too great a journey to go with the feet, but +with the soul I will visit it. The soul is a great traveller. I see it +always--the clouds and the burnings and the pitfalls gone--out of sight-- +in memory as it was when I was a child. Well, there it is, everything +has changed, except the child-memory. I have had, and I have had not; +and there it is. I am not the same man--but yes, in my love just the +same, with all the rest--' He did not go on, so I said, 'If not the +same, then what are you, Jean Jacques?'" + +"Ah, Fille, in the old days he would have said that he was a philosopher" +--said his sister interrupting. "Yes, yes, one knows--he said it often +enough and had need enough to say it. Well, said he to me, 'Me, I am a' +--then he stopped, shook his head, and so I could scarcely hear him, +murmured, 'Me--I am a man who has been a long journey with a pack on his +back, and has got home again.' Then he took Virginie's hand in his." + +The old man's fingers touched the corner of his eye as though to find +something there; then continued. "'Ah, a pedlar!' said I to him, to hear +what he would answer. 'Follies to sell for sous of wisdom,' he answered. +Then he put his arm around Virginie, and she gave him his pipe." + +"I wish M. Carcasson knew," the little grey lady remarked. + +"But of course he knows," said the Clerk of the Court, with his face +turned to the sunset. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Courage which awaits the worst the world can do +Good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness +I can't pay you for your kindness to me, and I don't want to +No past that is hidden has ever been a happy past +She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly +That iceberg which most mourners carry in their breasts +The soul is a great traveller +You can't take time as the measure of life + + + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR "THE MONEY MASTER", COMPLETE: + +Air of certainty and universal comprehension +Always calling to something, for something outside ourselves +Being generous with other people's money +Came of a race who set great store by mothers and grandmothers +Confidence in a weak world gets unearned profit often +Courage which awaits the worst the world can do +Enjoy his own generosity +Good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness +Grove of pines to give a sense of warmth in winter +Grow more intense, more convinced, more thorough, as they talk +Had the slight flavour of the superior and the paternal +He had only made of his wife an incident in his life +He was in fact not a philosopher, but a sentimentalist +He was not always sorry when his teasing hurt +He admired, yet he wished to be admired +He hated irony in anyone else +I had to listen to him, and he had to pay me for listening +I can't pay you for your kindness to me, and I don't want to +I said I was not falling in love--I am in love +If you have a good thought, act on it +Inclined to resent his own insignificance +Lacks a balance-wheel. He has brains, but not enough +Law. It is expensive whether you win or lose +Lyrical in his enthusiasms +Man who tells the story in a new way, that is genius +Missed being a genius by an inch +No past that is hidden has ever been a happy past +No man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced +Not content to do even the smallest thing ill +Of those who hypnotize themselves, who glow with self-creation +Philosophers are often stupid in human affairs +Protest that it is right when it knows that it is wrong +She was not to be forced to answer his arguments directly +Spurting out little geysers of other people's cheap wisdom +That iceberg which most mourners carry in their breasts +The beginning of the end of things was come for him +The soul is a great traveller +Untamed by the normal restraints of a happy married life +You can't take time as the measure of life +You went north towards heaven and south towards hell + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MONEY MASTER, COMPLETE *** + +******* This file should be named gp10710.txt or gp10710.zip ******** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, gp10711.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gp10710a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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