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For any one of a dozen reasons Carmin Fanchet might be on the raft going down the river, and it was also quite within reason that Marie-Anne might have some apprehension of a woman as beautiful as Carmin, and possibly intuition had begun to impinge upon her a disturbing fear of a something that might happen.
He would never forget the last time he had seen Carmin Fanchet's eyes great, black, glorious pools of gratitude as they looked at grizzled old McVane; blazing fires of venomous hatred when they turned on him. And he had said to McVane, "The man pays, the woman goes justice indeed is blind!" McVane, not being a stickler on regulations when it came to Carrigan, had made no answer.
For there was Carmin Fanchet, a fitting companion for a man like Black Roger, and there was Marie-Anne, who, if it had been a joke, would not have played her part so well. Suddenly his mind was filled only with her. Had she been his friend, using all her influence to protect him, because her heart was sick of the environment of which she was a part? His own heart jumped at the thought.
And that would hurt me, M'sieu David, because I love you like a brother, and in the end I know you are going to grip the hand of Black Roger Audemard, and get down on your knees to Carmin Fanchet. And as for Marie-Anne " Again he interrupted himself, and went out of the cabin, laughing. And there was no mistake in the metallic click of the lock outside the door.
The sister of Fanchet, the mail robber, was beautiful, but her beauty had failed to save Fanchet. The Law had taken him in spite of the tears in Carmin Fanchet's big black eyes, and in that particular instance he was the Law. And Carmin Fanchet was pretty deucedly pretty. Even the Old Man's heart had been stirred by her loveliness. "A shame!" he had said to Carrigan. "A shame!"
Would she reveal EVERYTHING to St. Pierre her husband? He was powerless to combat the voice that told him no. Carmin Fanchet had fought him openly as an enemy and had not employed her beauty as a weapon. Marie-Anne had put in his way a great temptation.
And in his head a voice seemed to cry out to him, "What did Carmin Fanchet ever do to you?" He rose suddenly to his feet and stood at the back of his chair, his hands gripping the top of it. "Maybe you are right," he said. "Maybe I was wrong. I remember now that when I got Fanchet I manacled him, and she sat beside him all through that first night.
And in this cabin on the raft, forgetful of her degradation and her grief, was the vilest wretch he had ever known St. Pierre Boulain. And with him, giving herself into his arms, caressing him with her lips and hair, was the sister of the man he had helped to hang CARMIN FANCHET! The shock of the amazing discovery which Carrigan had made was as complete as it was unexpected.
"That is not Freedom as I understand it," piped the little man, and one believed him, but could not refrain from murmuring with the poet: C'est que la Liberte n'est pas une comtesse Du noble Faubourg St. Germain, Une femme qu'un cri fait tomber en faiblesse, Qui met du blanc et du carmin; C'est une forte femme.
With the dull stab of a thing that of late had been growing inside him, he wondered what had happened to Carmin Fanchet in the years that had gone since he had brought about the hanging of her brother. Last night and the night before, strange dreams of her had come to him in restless slumber.
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