The girl smiled at the Beaubien without replying. “What about it, dearie?” the latter asked tenderly.
“She need not answer,” said Father Waite, “for we know. She but cast her bread upon the unfathomable ocean of love, and it returned to her, wondrously enriched.”
“If you are going to talk about me, I shall not stay,” declared Carmen, rising. “I’m going out to help Jude.” And she departed for the kitchen, but not without leaving a smile for each of them as she went. And they understood.
The Beaubien and Father Waite remained some moments in silence. Then the woman spoke. “I am learning,” she said. “She is the light that is guiding me. This little incident which you have just related is but a manifestation of the law of love by which she lives. She gave, unasked, and with no desire to be seen and advertised. It returned to her ten-fold. It is always so with her. There was no chance, no miracle, no luck about it. She herself did nothing. It was––it was––only the working of her beloved Christ-principle. Oh, Lewis! if we only knew––”
“We shall know, Madam!” declared the man vehemently. “Her secret is but the secret of Jesus himself, which was open to a world too dull to comprehend. Carmen shall teach us. And,” his eyes brightening, “to that end I have been formulating a great plan. That’s why I’ve asked Hitt to come here to-night. I have a scheme to propose. Remember, my dear friend, we are true searchers; and ‘all things work together for good to them that love God.’ Our love of truth and real good is so great that, like the consuming desire of the Jewish nation, it is bound to bring the Christ!”
For three months the Beaubien and Carmen had dwelt together in this lowly environment; and here they had found peace, the first that the tired woman had known since childhood. The sudden culmination of those mental forces which had ejected Carmen from society, crushed Ketchim and a score of others, and brought the deluded Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to a bitter end, had left the Beaubien with dulled sensibilities. Even Ames himself had been shocked into momentary abandonment of his relentless pursuit of humanity by the unanticipated dénoûement. But when he had sufficiently digested the newspaper accounts wherein were set forth in unsparing detail the base rumors of the girl’s parentage and of her removal from a brothel before her sudden elevation to social heights, he rose in terrible wrath and prepared to hunt down to the death the perpetrators of the foul calumny. Whence had come this tale, which even the girl could not refute? From Lafelle? He had sailed for Europe––though but a day before. Ketchim? The man was cringing like a craven murderer in his 6 cell, for none dared give him bail. Reed? Harris? Was it revenge for his own sharp move in regard to La Libertad? He would have given all he possessed to lay his heavy hands upon the guilty ones! The editors of the great newspapers, perhaps? Ames raged like a wounded lion in the office of every editor in the city. But they were perfectly safe, for the girl, although she told a straightforward story, could not say positively that the published statements concerning her were false. Yet, though few knew it, there were two city editors and several reporters who, in the days immediately following, found it convenient to resign their positions and leave the city before the awful wrath of the powerful man.
Then Ames turned upon his wife. And, after weeks of terror, that browbeaten woman, her hair whitening under the terrible persecution of her relentless master, fled secretly, with her terrified daughter, to England, whither the stupified Duke of Altern and his scandalized mother had betaken themselves immediately following the exposé. Thereupon Ames’s lawyer drew up a bill of divorce, alleging desertion, and laid it before the judge who fed from his master’s hand.
Meantime, the devouring wrath of Ames swept like a prairie fire over the dry, withering stalks of the smart set. He vowed he would take Carmen and flaunt her in the faces of the miserable character-assassins who had sought her ruin! He swore he would support her with his untold millions and force society to acknowledge her its queen! He had it in his power to wreck the husband of every arrogant, supercilious dame in the entire clique! He commenced at once with the unfortunate Gannette. The latter, already tottering, soon fell before the subtle machinations of Hodson and his able cohorts. Then, as a telling example to the rest, Ames pursued him to the doors of the Lunacy Commission, and rested not until that body had condemned his victim to a living death in a state asylum. Kane, Fitch, and Weston fled to cover, and concentrated their guns upon their common enemy. The Beaubien alone stood out against him for three months. Her existence was death in life; but from the hour that she first read the newspaper intelligence regarding Carmen and the unfortunate Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, she hid the girl so completely that Ames was effectually balked in his attempts at drastic vindication in her behalf.