gone a little distance I said to her, 'So, my Carmen, you
are quite ready to follow me, isn't that so?'

"She answered, 'Yes, I'll follow you, even to death--but I won't live
with you any more.'

"We had reached a lonely gorge. I stopped my horse.

"'Is this the place?' she said.

"And with a spring she reached the ground. She took off her mantilla and
threw it at her feet, and stood motionless, with one hand on her hip,
looking at me steadily.

"'You mean to kill me, I see that well,' said she. 'It is fate. But
you'll never make me give in.'

"I said to her: 'Be rational, I implore you; listen to me. All the
past is forgotten. Yet you know it is you who have been my ruin--it is
because of you that I am a robber and a murderer. Carmen, my Carmen, let
me save you, and save myself with you.'

"'Jose,' she answered, 'what you ask is impossible. I don't love you
any more. You love me still, and that is why you want to kill me. If
I liked, I might tell you some other lie, but I don't choose to give
myself the trouble. Everything is over between us two. You are my _rom_,
and you have the right to kill your _romi_, but Carmen will always be
free. A _calli_ she was born, and a _calli_ she'll die.'

"'Then, you love Lucas?' I asked.

"'Yes, I have loved him--as I loved you--for an instant--less than I
loved you, perhaps. But now I don't love anything, and I hate myself for
ever having loved you.'

"I cast myself at her feet, I seized her hands, I watered them with my
tears, I reminded her of all the happy moments we had spent together,
I offered to continue my brigand's life, if that would please her.
Everything, sir, everything--I offered her everything if she would only
love me again.

"She said:

"'Love you again? That's not possible! Live with you? I will not do it!'

"I was wild with fury. I drew my knife, I would have had her look
frightened, and sue for mercy--but that woman was a demon.

"I cried, 'For the last time I ask you. Will you stay with me?'

"'No! no! no!' she said, and she stamped her foot.

"Then she pulled a ring I had given her off her finger, and cast it into
the brushwood.

"I struck her twice over--I had taken Garcia's knife, because I had
broken my own. At the second thrust she fell without a sound. It seems
to me that I can still see her great black eyes staring at me. Then they
grew dim and the lids closed.

"For a good hour I lay there prostrate beside her corpse. Then I
recol