The Money Master, Complete

ife in the sadness; but when the last glint of amethyst and gold died away behind Mont Violet, and the melancholy swish of the river against the osiered

ey manor stood out with ghostly vividness in the light of the rising moon. Yet there were times innumerable when they looked like cool retreats for those who wanted rest; when, in the summer solstice, they offered the

ighted observation of the philosopher. "And me but a young man yet-but a mere boy," he would add.

There he was, not far beyond forty, and eligible to become a member of Parliament, or even a count of the Holy Roman Empire! He had thought of both these honours, but there was so much to occupy him-he never had a moment to himself, except at night; and then there was planning and accounting to do, his foremen to see, or some knotty thing t

tion of every evening. Seldom with the later years had he asked her to sing, because he was so busy; and somehow his ear had not that keenness of sound once belonging to it. There was a time when he himself was wont to sing, when he taught his little Zoe the tunes of the Chansons Canadiennes; but

ngtemps qu

e ne t'o

ply protested against that, and had appealed to M. Fille, who was present at the pretty festivity. He had told the truth, as a Clerk of the Court should. He said that Jean Jacques' voice was not as he had so often

ne gold. But the Clerk of the Court was really unsophisticated, or he would have seen that Carmen played the guitar badly because she was not interested in Jean Jacques' singing. He would have known that she had come to that stage in her married life when the tenure is pitifully insecure. He would have seen that the crisis was near. If he had had any real observation he would have noticed that Carmen's eyes at once kindled, and that the guitar became a different thing, when M. Colombin, the young schoolmaster, one of the guests, caught up the refrain of A la Claire Fontaine, and in a soft ten

e her Carvillho Gonzales was shot, with love behind her and memory blazoned in the red of martyrdom. She sang now as she had not sung for some

nada, thy gar

thy stars, the

rs that fade

at the end

light in the e

in the soul

nada, oh, whe

gardens, there

loved, have

its eyes, its h

d in the dar

to thee fo

turn thy face

to the pain

nada, oh, whe

gardens, there

into other people's homes like detectives; they turned yellow and grew scrofulous from too much salt pork, green tea, native tobacco, and the heat of feather beds. The making of a rag carpet was an event, the birth of a baby

retired to the feather bed which she loathed, though he would have looked upon discarding it like the abdication of his social position. A fe

pleasant places of the imagination where life had freedom, where she could renew the impulses of youth. A true philosopher-a man of the world-would have known for what she was wai

which the Clerk of the Court saw from Mont Violet behind the Manor; and so it was that as Jean Jacques helped Carmen down from the red wagon on their return from Vilray, she gave him a smile which was meant to deceive; for though given to him it was really given to anothe

oticed that a man was sitting on a little knoll under a tree, n

h must be settled on the morrow. He had stolen out immediately after supper from neighbours

say, "Yes, to-morrow-for sure," and then he saw her kiss the master-carpenter-kiss him twice, t

nd paper under the spreading beechtree, they would not have been so

ake at last, man as