"
Not daring to look at the face of the woman, he softly disappeared into
the other room, and shut the door without a sound.
"Too good for this world," remarked the master-carpenter when the door
closed tight. He said it after the disappearing figure and not to
Carmen. "I don't suppose he ever kissed a real grown-up woman in his
life. It would have shattered his frail little carcass if, if"--he
turned to his companion--"if you had kissed him, Carmen. He's made of
tissue-paper,--not tissue--and apple-jelly. Yes, but a stiff little
backbone, too, or he'd not have faced me down."
Masson talked as though he were trying to gain time. "He said three
minutes," she returned with a look of death in her face. As George
Masson had talked with the Clerk of the Court, she had come to see, in so
far as agitation would permit, that he was not the same as when he left
her by the river the evening before.
"There's no time to waste," she continued. "You spoke of farewells--
twice you spoke, and three times he spoke of farewells between us.
Farewells--farewells--George--!"
With sudden emotion she held out her arms, and her face flushed with
passion and longing.
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