e's fancy.

Or some one else's fancy? There was Tarboe. Tarboe had taken from him
the place in the business which should be his; he had displaced him in
his father's affections... and now Junia!

He held out a hand to the girl. "I must go and see my mother."

His eyes abashed her. She realized there was trouble in the face of
the man who all her life had been strangely near and dear to her. With
impulsiveness, she said "You're in trouble, Carnac. Let me help you."

For one swift instant he almost yielded. Then he gripped her hand and
said: "No-no-no. It can't be done--not yet."

"Then let Denzil help you. Here he is," she remarked, and she glanced
affectionately at the greyish, tousled head of the habitant who was
working in the garden of her father's house.

Carnac was master of himself again. "Not a bad idea," he said. "Denzil!
Denzil!" he called.

The little man looked up. An instant later the figure of the girl
fluttered through the doorway of her home, and Carnac stopped beside
Denzil in the garden.

CHAPTER X. DENZIL TELLS HIS STORY

"You keep going, Denzil," remarked Carnac as he lighted his pipe and
came close to the old servant.

The face of the toiler lighted, the eyes gazed kindly, at Carnac. "What
else is there to do? We must go on. There's no standing still in the
world. We must go on--surelee."

"Even when it's hard going, eh?" asked Carnac, not to get an answer so
much as to express his own feelings. "Yes, that's right, m'sieu'; that's
how it is. We can't stand still even when it's hard going--but, no,
bagosh!"

He realized that around Carnac there was a shadow which took its toll
of light and life. He had the sound instinct of primitive man. Strangely
enough in his own eyes was the look in those of Carnac, a past, hovering
on the brink of revelation. His appearance was that of one who had
suffered; his knotted hands, dark with warm blood, had in them a story
of life's sorrows; his broad shoulders were stooped with the inertia of
long regret; his feet clung to the ground as though there was a great
weight above them. But a smile shimmered at his mouth, giving to his
careworn face something almost beautiful, lifting the darkness from his
powerful, shaggy forehead. Many men knew Denzil by sight, few knew
him in actual being. There was a legend that once he was about to be
married, but the girl had suddenly gone mad and drowned herself in the
river. No one thought it strange that a month