that of course it wasn't amusing. Otherwise it would have been.
You see MY hair is black, almost!" Again, in a quick movement, her
fingers were crumpling the lustrous coils on the crown of her head.

"Why do you say 'almost'?" he asked.

"Because St. Pierre has often told me that when I am in the sun there
are red fires in it. And the sun was very bright that afternoon in the
sand, M'sieu David."

"I think I understand," he nodded. "And I'm rather glad, too. I like to
know that it was you who dragged me up into the shade after trying to
kill me. It proves you aren't quite so savage as--"

"Carmin Fanchet," she interrupted him softly. "You talked about her in
your sickness, M'sieu David. It made me terribly afraid of you--so much
so that at times I almost wondered if Bateese wasn't right. It made me
understand what would happen to me if I should let you go. What
terrible thing did she do to you? What could she have done more
terrible than I have done?"

"Is that why you have given your men orders to kill me if I try to
escape?" he asked. "Because I talked about this woman, Carmin Fanchet?"

"Yes, it is because of Carmin Fanchet that I am keeping you for St.
Pierre," she acknowledged. "If you had no mercy for her, you could have
none for me. What terrible thing did she do to you, M'sieu?"

"Nothing--to me," he said, feeling that she was putting him where the
earth was unsteady under his feet again. "But her brother was a
criminal of the worst sort. And I was convinced then, and am convinced
now, that his sister was a partner in his crimes. She was very
beautiful. And that, I think, was what saved her."

He was fingering his unlighted cigar as he spoke. When he looked up, he
was surprised at the swift change that had come into the face of St.
Pierre's wife. Her cheeks were flaming, and there were burning fires
screened behind the long lashes of her eyes. But her voice was
unchanged. It was without a quiver that betrayed the emotion which had
sent the hot flush into her face.

"Then--you judged her without absolute knowledge of fact? You judged
her--as you hinted in your fever--because she fought so desperately to
save a brother who had gone wrong?"

"I believe she was bad."

The long lashes fell lower, like fringes of velvet closing over the
fires in her eyes. "But you didn't know!"

"Not absolutely," he conceded. "But investigations--"

"Might have shown her to be one of the most wonderful women that ever