"For money! What money has he got? You don't know. None of us know.
Besides, he's a Protestant, and he's English, and that ends it. There
never has been an Englishman or a Protestant in the Barbille family, and
it shan't begin at the Manor Cartier." Jean Jacques' voice was rising in
proportion as he perceived her quiet determination. Here was something
of the woman who had left him seven years ago--left this comfortable home
of his to go to disgrace and exile, and God only knew what else! Here in
this very room--yes, here where they now were, father and daughter, stood
husband and wife that morning when he had his hand on the lever prepared
to destroy the man who had invaded his home; who had cast a blight upon
it, which remained after all the years; after he had done all a man could
do to keep the home and the woman too. The woman had gone; the home
remained with his daughter in it, and now again there was a fight for
home and the woman. Memory reproduced the picture of the mother standing
just where the daughter now stood, Carmen quiet and well in hand, and
himself all shaken with weakness, and with all power gone out of him--
even the power which rage and a murderous soul give.

But yet this was different. There was no such shame here as had fallen
on him seven years ago. But there was a shame after its kind; and if it
were not averted, there was the end of the home, of the prestige, the
pride and the hope of "M'sieu' Jean Jacques, philosophe."

"What shall not begin here at the Manor Cartier?" she asked with burning
cheek.

"The shame--it shall not begin here."

"What shame, father?"