ars 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 lo