composure, and during the rest of the evening she was full of feverish
gaiety. Indeed her spirits and playful hospitality made the evening a
success in spite of the skeleton at the feast. Jean Jacques had also
roused himself, and, when the dance began, he joined in with spirit,
though his face was worn and haggard even when lighted by his smile. But
though the evening came to the conventional height of hilarity, there was
a note running through it which made even the youngest look at each
other, as though to say, "Now, what's going to happen next!"

Three people at any rate knew that something was going to happen. They
were Zoe, the Man from Outside and M. Fille. Zoe had had more than one
revelation that night, and she felt again as she did one day, seven years
before, when, coming home from over the hills, she had stepped into a
house where Horror brooded as palpably as though it sat beside the fire,
or hung above the family table. She had felt something as soon as she
had entered the door that far-off day, though the house seemed empty. It
was an emptiness which was filled with a torturing presence or torturing
presenes. It had stilled her young heart. What was it? She had learned
the truth soon enough. Out of the sunset had come her father with a face
twisted with misery, and as she ran to him, he had caught her by both
shoulders, looked through her eyes to something far beyond, and hoarsely
said: "She is gone--gone from us! She has run away from home! Curse her
baptism--curse it, curse it!"

Zoe could never forget these last words she had ever heard her father
speak of Carmen. They were words which would make any Catholic shudder
to hear. It was a pity he had used them, for they made her think at last
that her mother had been treated with injustice. This, in spite of the
fact that in the days, now so far away, when her mother was with them she
had ever been nearer to her father, and that, after first childhood, she