"I think you are chained--and the fire has been kindled," said the woman in a voice that fell to a whisper.

"Then your thought is wrong--all wrong! And wrong thought just _can't_ be externalized to me, for I know that 'There shall no mischief happen to the righteous,' that is, to the right-thinking. And I think right."

"I'm sure you do, child." The Beaubien got up and walked slowly around the room, as if to summon her strength. Then she returned to her chair.

"I'm going to tell you," she said firmly. "You are right, and I have been wrong. It concerns you. And you have help that I have not. I--I have lost a great deal of money."

Carmen laughed in relief. "Well, dear me! that's nothing."

The Beaubien smiled sadly. "I agree with you. Mr. Ames may have my money. I have discovered in the past few months that there are better things in life. But--" her lips tightened, and her eyes half closed--"he can _not_ have you!"

"Oh! He wants _me_?"

"Yes. Listen, child: I know not why it is, but you awaken something in every life into which you come. The woman I was a year ago and the woman I am to-day meet almost as strangers now. Why? The only answer I can give is, you. I don't know what you did to people in South America; I can only surmise. Yet of this I am certain, wherever you went you made a path of light. But the effect you have on people differs with differing natures. Just why this is, I do not know. It must have something to do with those mental laws of which I am so ignorant, and of which you know so much."

Carmen looked at her in wondering antic.i.p.ation. The Beaubien smiled down into the face upturned so lovingly, and went on:

"From what you have told me about your priest, Jose, I know that you were the light of his life. He loved you to the complete obliteration of every other interest. You have not said so; but I know it. How, indeed, could it be otherwise? On the other hand, that heartless Diego--his mad desire to get possession of you was only animal. Why should you, a child of heaven, arouse such opposite sentiments?"

"Dearest," said the girl, laying her head on the woman's knees, "that isn't what's worrying you."

"No--but I think of it so often. And, as for me, you have turned me inside-out."

Carmen laughed again merrily. "Well, I think this side wears better, don't you?"

"It is softer--it may not," returned the woman gently. "But I have no desire to change back." She bent and kissed the brown hair. "Mr. Ames and I have been--no, not friends. I had no higher ideals than he, and I played his game with him. Then you came. And at a time when he had involved me heavily financially. The Colombian revolution--his cotton deal--he must have foreseen, he is so uncanny--he must have known that to involve me meant control whenever he might need me! He needs me now, for I stand between him and you."

"You don't!" Carmen was on her feet. "G.o.d stands between me and every form of evil!" She sat down on the arm of the Beaubien's chair. "Is it because you will not let him have me that he threatens to ruin you financially?"

"Yes. He couldn't ruin me in reputation, for--" her voice again faded to a whisper, "I haven't any."

"That is not true!" cried the girl, throwing her arms about the woman's neck. "Your true self is just coming to light! Why, it is beautiful! And I love it so!"

The Beaubien suddenly burst into a flood of tears. The strain of weeks was at last manifesting. "Oh, I have been in the gutter!--he dragged me through the mire!--and I let him! I did it for money, money! I gave my soul for it! I schemed and plotted with him; I ruined and pillaged with him; I murdered reputations and blasted lives with him, that I might get money, dirty, blood-stained money! Oh, Carmen, I didn't know what I was doing, until you came! And now I'd hang on the cross if I could undo it! But it's too late! And he has you and me in his clutches, and he is crushing us!" She bent her head and sobbed violently.

Carmen bent over the weeping woman. "Be still, and _know_ that I am G.o.d." The Beaubien raised her head and smiled feebly through her tears.

"He governs all, dearest," whispered Carmen, as she drew the woman's head to her breast. "And He is _everywhere_."

"Let us go away!" cried the Beaubien, starting up.

"Flee from our problems?" returned the girl. "But they would follow.

No, we will stay and meet them, right here!"

The Beaubien's hand shook as she clasped Carmen's. "I can't turn to Kane, nor to Fitch, nor Weston. They are all afraid of him. I've ruined Gannette myself--for him! I've ruined Mrs. Hawley-Crowles--"

"Mrs. Hawley-Crowles!" exclaimed Carmen, rising.

"Oh, don't, don't!" sobbed the suffering woman, clinging to the girl.

"But--how did you do that?"

"I lent her money--took her notes--which I sold again to Mr. Ames."

"Well, you can buy them back, can't you? And return the money to her?"

"I can't! I've tried! He refuses to sell them!"

"Then give her your own money."

"Most that I have is mortgaged to him on the investments I made at his direction," wailed the woman.

"Well?"

"I will try--I am trying, desperately! I will save her, if I can!

But--there is Monsignor Lafelle!"

"Is he working with Mr. Ames?"

"He works with and against him. And I'm sure he holds something over you and me. But, I will send for him--I will renew my vows to his Church--anything to--"

"Listen, dearest," interrupted Carmen. "I will go to Mr. Ames myself.

If I am the cause of it all, I can--"

"You will not!" cried the Beaubien fiercely. "I--I would kill him!"

"Why, mother dearest!"

The desperate woman put her head in the girl's lap and sobbed bitterly.

"There is a way out, dearest," whispered Carmen. "I _know_ there is, no matter what seems to be or to happen, for 'underneath are the everlasting arms.' I am not afraid. Mrs. Hawley-Crowles told me this morning that Mrs. Ames intends to give a big reception next week. Of course we will go. And then I will see Mr. Ames and talk with him.

Don't fear, dearest. He will do it for me. And--it will be right, I know."

And Carmen sat with the repentant woman all that day, struggling with her to close the door upon her sordid past, and to open it wide to "that which is to come."

The days following were busy ones for many with whom our story is concerned. Every morning saw Carmen on her way to the Beaubien, to comfort and advise. Every afternoon found her yielding gently to the relentless demands of society, or to the tiresome calls of her thoroughly ardent wooer, the young Duke of Altern. Carmen would have helped him if she could. But she found so little upon which to build.

And she bore with him largely on account of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles, for whom she and the Beaubien were now daily laboring. The young man tacitly a.s.sumed proprietorship over the girl, and all society was agog with expectation of the public announcement of their engagement.

Mrs. Hawley-Crowles still came and went upon a tide of unruffled joy.

The cornucopia of Fortune lay full at her feet. Her broker, Ketchim, basked in the sunlight of her golden smiles--and quietly sold his own Simiti stock on the strength of her patronage. Society fawned and smirked at her approach, and envied her brilliant success, as it copied the cut of her elaborate gowns--all but the deposed Mrs. Ames and her unlovely daughter, who sulked and hated, until they received a call from Monsignor Lafelle. This was shortly after that gentleman's meeting with Carmen and Father Waite in the Beaubien mansion. And he left the Ames home with an ominous look on his face. "The girl is a menace," he muttered, "and she deserves her fate."

The Ames grand reception, promising to be the most brilliant event of the year, barring the famous _Bal de l'Opera_, was set for Thursday.

But neither Mrs. Hawley-Crowles nor Carmen had received invitations.

To the former it was evident that there was some mistake. "For it can't be possible that the hussy doesn't intend to invite us!" she argued. But Thursday morning came, and found Mrs. Hawley-Crowles drenched with tears of anxiety and vexation. "I'd call her up and ask, if I dared," she groaned. But her courage failed. And, to the amazement of the exclusive set, the brilliant function was held without the presence of its acknowledged leaders, Mrs. Hawley-Crowles and her ward, the Inca princess.