matter stand."

So they parted, and Carnac sullenly went back to his apartments. The
next day he went to see a lawyer, however. The lawyer opened his eyes at
the story. He had never heard anything like it.

"It doesn't sound as if you were sober when you did it. Were you, sir?
It was a mad prank, anyhow!"

"I had been drinking, but I wasn't drunk. I'd been telling them stories
and they used them as a means of tempting me to act in the absurd
marriage ceremony. Like a fool I consented. Like a fool--but I wasn't
drunk."

"No, but when you were in your right mind and sober you signed your
names as Mr. and Mrs. Carnac Grier in the register of a hotel. I will
try to win your case for you, but it won't be easy work. You see the
Judge himself told you the same thing. But it would be a triumph to
expose a thing of that kind, and I'd like to do it. It wouldn't be
cheap, though. You'd have to foot the bill. Are you rich?"

"No, but my people are," said Carnac. "I could manage the cash, but
suppose I lost!"

"Well, you'd have to support the woman. She could sue you for cruelty
and desertion, and the damages would be heavy."

Carnac shook his head, paid his fee and left the office.

He did not go near Luzanne. After a month he went to Paris for eight
months, and then back to Montreal.

CHAPTER III. CARNAC'S RETURN

Arrived in Montreal, there were attempts by Carnac to settle down to
ordinary life of quiet work at his art, but it was not effective, nor
had it been in Paris, though the excitement of working in the great
centre had stimulated him. He ever kept saying to himself, "Carnac, you
are a married man--a married man, by the tricks of rogues!" In Paris, he
could more easily obscure it, but in Montreal, a few hundred miles from
the place of his tragedy, pessimism seized him. He now repented he did
not fight it out at once. It would have been courageous and perhaps
successful. But whether successful or not, he would have put himself
right with his own conscience. That was the chief thing. He was
straightforward, and back again in Canada, Carnac flung reproaches at
himself.

He knew himself now to be in love with Junia Shale, and because he was
married he could not approach her. It galled him. He was not fond of
Fabian, for they had little in common, and he had no intimate friends.
Only his mother was always sympathetic to him, and he loved her. He saw
much of her, but little of anyone else. He belonged to no c