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.