She had felt something as soon as she
had entered the door that far-off day, though the house seemed empty. It
was an emptiness which was filled with a torturing presence or torturing
presenes. It had stilled her young heart. What was it? She had learned
the truth soon enough. Out of the sunset had come her father with a face
twisted with misery, and as she ran to him, he had caught her by both
shoulders, looked through her eyes to something far beyond, and hoarsely
said: "She is gone--gone from us! She has run away from home! Curse her
baptism--curse it, curse it!"
Zoe could never forget these last words she had ever heard her father
speak of Carmen. They were words which would make any Catholic shudder
to hear. It was a pity he had used them, for they made her think at last
that her mother had been treated with injustice. This, in spite of the
fact that in the days, now so far away, when her mother was with them she
had ever been nearer to her father, and that, after first childhood, she
and her mother were not so close as they had been, when she went to sleep
to the humming of a chanson of Cadiz.
Pages:
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45