But this served only to intensify his anger, and he thereupon turned its full force upon the lone woman. Driven to desperation, she stood at length at bay and hurled at him her remaining weapon. Again the social set was rent, and this time by the report that the black cloud of bigamy hung over Ames. It was 7 a fat season for the newspapers, and they made the most of it. As a result, several of them found themselves with libel suits on their hands. The Beaubien herself was confronted with a suit for defamation of character, and was obliged to testify before the judge whom Ames owned outright that she had but the latter’s word for the charge, and that, years since, in a moment of maudlin sentimentalism, he had confessed to her that, as far as he knew, the wife of his youth was still living. The suit went against her. Ames then took his heavy toll, and retired within himself to sulk and plan future assaults and reprisals.
The Beaubien, crushed, broken, sick at heart, gathered up the scant remains of her once large fortune, disposed of her effects, and withdrew to the outskirts of the city. She would have left the country, but for the fact that the tangled state of her finances necessitated her constant presence in New York while her lawyers strove to bring order out of chaos and placate her raging persecutor. To flee meant complete abandonment of her every financial resource to Ames. And so, with the assistance of Father Waite and Elizabeth Wall, who placed themselves at once under her command, she took a little house, far from the scenes of her troubles, and quietly removed thither with Carmen.
One day shortly thereafter a woman knocked timidly at her door. Carmen saw the caller and fled into her arms. “It’s Jude!” she cried joyously.
The woman had come to return the string of pearls which the girl had thrust into her hands on the night of the Charity Ball. Nobody knew she had them. She had not been able to bring herself to sell them. She had wanted––oh, she knew not what, excepting that she wanted to see again the girl whose image had haunted her since that eventful night when the strange child had wandered into her abandoned life. Yes, she would have given her testimony as to Carmen; but who would have believed her, a prostitute? And––but the radiant girl gathered her in her arms and would not let her go without a promise to return.
And return she did, many times. And each time there was a change in her. The Beaubien always forced upon her a little money and a promise to come back. It developed that Jude was cooking in a cheap down-town restaurant. “Why not for us, mother, if she will?” asked Carmen one day. And, though the sin-stained woman demurred and protested her unworthiness, yet the love that knew no evil drew her irresistibly, and she yielded at length, with her heart bursting.
Then, in her great joy, Carmen’s glad cry echoed through the little house: “Oh, mother dear, we’re free, we’re free!”
But the Beaubien was not free. Night after night her sleepless pillow was wet with bitter tears of remorse, when the accusing angel stood before her and relentlessly revealed each act of shameful meanness, of cruel selfishness, of sordid immorality in her wasted life. And, lastly, the weight of her awful guilt in bringing about the destruction of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles lay upon her soul like a mountain. Oh, if she had only foreseen even a little of it! Oh, that Carmen had come to her before––or not at all! And yet she could not wish that she had never known the girl. Far from it! The day of judgment was bound to come. She saw that now. And, but for the comforting presence of that sweet child, she had long since become a raving maniac. It was Carmen who, in those first long nights of gnawing, corroding remorse, wound her soft arms about the Beaubien’s neck, as she lay tossing in mental agony on her bed, and whispered the assurances of that infinite Love which said, “Behold, I make all things new!” It was Carmen who whispered to her of the everlasting arms beneath, and of the mercy reflected by him who, though on the cross, forgave mankind because of their pitiable ignorance. It is ignorance, always ignorance of what constitutes real good, that makes men seek it through wrong channels. The Beaubien had sought good––all the world does––but she had never known that God alone is good, and that men cannot find it until they reflect Him. And so she had “missed the mark.” Oh, sinful, mesmerized world, ye shall find Me––the true good––only when ye seek Me with all your heart! And yet, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” Only a God who is love could voice such a promise! And Carmen knew; and she hourly poured her great understanding of love into the empty heart of the stricken Beaubien.
Then at last came days of quiet, and planning for the future. The Beaubien would live––yes, but not for herself. Nay, that life had gone out forever, nor would mention of it pass her lips again. The Colombian revolution––her mendacious connivances with Ames––her sinful, impenitent life of gilded vice––aye, the door was now closed against that, absolutely and forever more. She had passed through the throes of a new birth; she had risen again from the bed of anguish; but she rose stripped of her worldly strength. Carmen was now the staff upon which she leaned.
And Carmen––what had been her thought when foul calumny laid its sooty touch upon her? What had been the working of her mind when that world which she had sought to illumine with the light of her own purity had cast her out? 9