That would have seemed so brutal to the woman.

It came to him to speak to Carmen, but he knew that he dared not do so.

He could not say to a woman that which must shame her before him, she who had kept her head so arrogantly high--not so much to him, however, as to the rest of the world.

He had not the courage; and yet he had fear lest some awful thing would at any moment now befall the Manor Cartier.

If it did, he would feel himself to blame had he done nothing to stay the peril.