ched them leap with perfect skill,
across the roaring flame of the bonfire. He saw the master bend
down, and once more peer into the white face of the girl. He
followed, very stealthily, the two, as they drew apart into a
shadowed place, where, nevertheless, the light from the bonfire
could reach and bring their faces into relief. He watched the girl
unfasten her mask and throw it on the grass. He drew a deep breath.
Her face was pitifully ugly. It was covered with the pits and dents
and scars that small-pox had left. The skin was coarse and rough and
of a yellowish white. Her eyes were dim and red and bleared. Her
eyebrows and lashes were gone. Her expression was like that of a
furtive, crouching creature who dreaded the lash.

And it came.

"Who are you, I'd like to know!" cried the master in a towering
rage, "that has dared to choose me only to cheat me. Do you know,
woman, that you are as ugly as sin!"

He seized her bonnet and dragged it off. Then he burst into a brutal
laugh.

"Almost bald, the old crone! I'll pay you out for this trick. Who
the devil are you? Quick, out with it, or else I'll call the other
fellows in to help me to find out!"

Perrin moved quite close behind the master, who was too angry to
notice him. The girl lifted her eyes to Dominic. She spoke quietly.

"I am Ellenor Cartier."

"I might have guessed it, fool that I am! And you are a greater to
think I would even look at you _now_! You must be quite mad. All I
ever cared for in you was your devilry, and your eyes that used to
set me all on fire with love. And now you look like a scared rabbit,
a white, pinched thing! And your eyes are hideous! And your hair is
gone! How dare you cheat me, you ugly creature!"

She had clasped her hands together; and gazed at him in
stupefaction.

Suddenly, he turned on his heel and cried in a loud, far-carrying
voice--

"Come here, you men, all of you, and help me to throw the witch,
Ellenor Cartier, into the bonfire! She's too devilish ugly to live."

The lower sort of the throng laughed uproariously, and turned to
stare at the poor girl. But cries of "Shame! shame!" rent the air.
Perrin stepped forward, and, with a well-planted blow and a skilful
twist of his leg, he threw Dominic to the ground.

"See to the drunken brute!" he cried.

Then he turned to the trembling girl.

"Come, Ellenor," he said, with tender reverence, "come with me, I
will take you home."

He led her to his mother, wh