For exactly a year--a year to-day, a year this morning, so it was
already more than a year--she had ceased to be a slave, and she had had
everything she wanted, except one thing. Perhaps she had that too, yet she
was not sure: and she could hardly wait to be sure. Nobody but Nick could
make her so, and he ought to be in joyful haste to do it. He was not cold
blooded. One could not look at Nick and think him that, yet to her he
sometimes seemed indifferent. Carmen made herself believe that it was his
respect which held him back. How desperately she wanted to know! Yet there
was a strange pleasure in not knowing, such as she might never feel again,
when she was sure.
Suddenly, far off, there was a rustling in the bamboo forest. A figure
like a shadow, but darker than other shadows, moved in the distance.
Carmen's heart jumped. She took a step forward, then stopped. It was not
Nick Hilliard after all, but old Simeon Harp, the squirrel poisoner,
coming from the direction of Nick's ranch, bringing her a message, maybe.
She felt she could not possibly bear it if Nick were not coming, and she
hated him at the bare thought that he might send an excuse at the last
moment.
"What is it, Sim?" she called out sharply, as the queer, gnarled figure of
the old man hobbled nearer.
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