He told himself that he would give a year of his
life to have her down at Barracks this minute. He would never
forget that three-quarters of an hour behind the rock, not if he
lived to be a hundred. And if he did live, she was going to pay,
even if she was lovelier than Venus and all the Graces combined.
He felt irritated with himself that he should have observed in
such a silly way the sable glow of her hair in the moonlight. And
her eyes. What the deuce did prettiness matter in the present
situation? 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!" But the rascally
Fanchet was hung by the neck until he was dead.
Carrigan drew himself up slowly until he was sitting erect. He
wondered what Jeanne Marie-Anne Boulain would say if he told her
about Carmin. But there was a big gulf between the names Fanchet
and Boulain.
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