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+The Project Gutenberg EBook The Battle Of The Strong, by G. Parker, v2
+#58 in our series by Gilbert Parker
+
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+Title: The Battle Of The Strong [A Romance of Two Kingdoms], Volume 2.
+
+Author: Gilbert Parker
+
+Release Date: August, 2004  [EBook #6231]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 10, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
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+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BATTLE OF THE STRONG, PARKER, V2 ***
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG
+
+[A ROMANCE OF TWO KINGDOMS]
+
+By Gilbert Parker
+
+Volume 2.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+As Ranulph had surmised, the ship was the Narcissus, and its first
+lieutenant was Philip d'Avranche.  The night before, orders had reached
+the vessel from the Admiralty that soundings were to be taken at the
+Ecrehos.  The captain had at once made inquiries for a pilot, and Jean
+Touzel was commended to him.  A messenger sent to Jean found that he had
+already gone to the Ecrehos.  The captain had then set sail, and now,
+under Jean's skilful pilotage, the Narcissus twisted and crept through
+the teeth of the rocks at the entrance, and slowly into the cove, reefs
+on either side gaping and girding at her, her keel all but scraping the
+serrated granite beneath.  She anchored, and boats put off to take
+soundings and explore the shores.  Philip was rowed in by Jean Touzel.
+
+Stepping out upon the beach of Mattre 'Ile, Philip slowly made his way
+over the shingle to the ruined chapel, in no good humour with himself or
+with the world, for exploring these barren rocks seemed a useless whim of
+the Admiralty, and he could not conceive of any incident rising from the
+monotony of duty to lighten the darkness of this very brilliant day.
+His was not the nature to enjoy the stony detail of his profession.
+Excitement and adventure were as the breath of life to him, and since he
+had played his little part at the Jersey battle in a bandbox eleven years
+before, he had touched hands with accidents of flood and field in many
+countries.
+
+He had been wrecked on the island of Trinidad in a tornado, losing his
+captain and his ship; had seen active service in America and in India;
+won distinction off the coast of Arabia in an engagement with Spanish
+cruisers; and was now waiting for his papers as commander of a ship of
+his own, and fretted because the road of fame and promotion was so
+toilsome.  Rumours of war with France had set his blood dancing a little,
+but for him most things were robbed of half their pleasure because they
+did not come at once.
+
+This was a moody day with him, for he had looked to spend it differently.
+As he walked up the shingle his thoughts were hanging about a cottage in
+the Place du Vier Prison.  He had hoped to loiter in a doorway there, and
+to empty his sailor's heart in well-practised admiration before the altar
+of village beauty.  The sight of Guida's face the day before had given a
+poignant pulse to his emotions, unlike the broken rhythm of past comedies
+of sentiment and melodramas of passion.  According to all logic of
+custom, the acuteness of yesterday's impression should have been followed
+up by today's attack; yet here he was, like another Robinson Crusoe,
+"kicking up the shingle of a cursed Patmos"--so he grumbled aloud.
+Patmos was not so wild a shot after all, for no sooner had he spoken the
+word than, looking up, he saw in the doorway of the ruined chapel the
+gracious figure of a girl: and a book of revelations was opened and
+begun.
+
+At first he did not recognise Guida.  There was only a picture before him
+which, by some fantastic transmission, merged into his reveries.  What he
+saw was an ancient building--just such a humble pile of stone and rough
+mortar as one might see on some lone cliff of the AEgean or on abandoned
+isles of the equatorial sea.  The gloom of a windowless vault was behind
+the girl, but the filtered sunshine of late September fell on her head.
+It brightened the white kerchief, and the bodice and skirt of a faint
+pink, throwing the face into a pleasing shadow where the hand curved over
+the forehead.  She stood like some Diana of a ruined temple looking out
+into the staring day.
+
+At once his pulses beat faster, for to him a woman was ever the fountain
+of adventure, and an unmanageable heart sent him headlong to the oasis
+where he might loiter at the spring of feminine vanity, or truth, or
+impenitent gaiety, as the case might be.  In proportion as his spirits
+had sunk into sour reflection, they now shot up rocket-high at the sight
+of a girl's joyous pose of body and the colour and form of the picture
+she made.  In him the shrewdness of a strong intelligence was mingled
+with wild impulse.  In most, rashness would be the outcome of such a
+marriage of characteristics; but clear-sightedness, decision, and a
+little unscrupulousness had carried into success many daring actions of
+his life.  This very quality of resolute daring saved him from disaster.
+
+Impulse quickened his footsteps now.  It quickened them to a run when the
+hand was dropped from the girl's forehead, and he saw again the face
+whose image and influence had banished sleep from his eyes the night
+before.
+
+"Guida!" broke from his lips.
+
+The man was transfigured.  Brightness leaped into his look, and the
+greyness of his moody eye became as blue as the sea.  The professional
+straightness of his figure relaxed into the elastic grace of an athlete.
+He was a pipe to be played on: an actor with the ambitious brain of a
+diplomatist; as weak as water, and as strong as steel; soft-hearted to
+foolishness or unyielding at will.
+
+Now, if the devil had sent a wise imp to have watch and ward of this man
+and this maid, and report to him upon the meeting of their ways, the
+moment Philip took Guida's hand, and her eyes met his, monsieur the
+reporter of Hades might have clapped-to his book and gone back to his
+dark master with the message and the record: "The hour of Destiny is
+struck."
+
+When the tide of life beats high in two mortals, and they meet in the
+moment of its apogee, when all the nature is sweeping on without command,
+guilelessly, yet thoughtlessly, the mere lilt of existence lulling to
+sleep wisdom and tried experience--speculation points all one way.  Many
+indeed have been caught away by such a conjunction of tides, and they
+mostly pay the price.
+
+But paying is part of the game of life: it is the joy of buying that we
+crave.  Go down into the dark markets of the town.  See the long, narrow,
+sordid streets lined with the cheap commodities of the poor.  Mark how
+there is a sort of spangled gaiety, a reckless swing, a grinning
+exultation in the grimy, sordid caravanserai.  The cheap colours of the
+shoddy open-air clothing-house, the blank faded green of the coster's
+cart; the dark bluish-red of the butcher's stall--they all take on a
+value not their own in the garish lights flaring down the markets of the
+dusk.  Pause to the shrill music of the street musician, hear the
+tuneless voice of the grimy troubadour of the alley-ways; and then hark
+to the one note that commands them all--the call which lightens up faces
+sodden with base vices, eyes bleared with long looking into the dark
+caverns of crime:
+
+"Buy--buy--buy--buy--buy!"
+
+That is the tune the piper pipes.  We would buy, and behold, we must pay.
+Then the lights go out, the voices stop, and only the dark tumultuous
+streets surround us, and the grime of life is ours again.  Whereupon we
+go heavily to hard beds of despair, having eaten the cake we bought, and
+now must pay for unto Penalty, the dark inordinate creditor.  And anon
+the morning comes, and then, at last, the evening when the triste bazaars
+open again, and the strong of heart and nerve move not from their
+doorways, but sit still in the dusk to watch the grim world go by.  But
+mostly they hurry out to the bazaars once more, answering to the fevered
+call:
+
+"Buy--buy--buy--buy--buy!"
+
+And again they pay the price: and so on to the last foreclosure and the
+immitigable end.
+
+One of the two standing in the door of the ruined chapel on the Ecrehos
+had the nature of those who buy but once and pay the price but once; the
+other was of those who keep open accounts in the markets of life.  The
+one was the woman and the other was the man.
+
+There was nothing conventional in their greeting.  "You remembered me!"
+he said eagerly, in English, thinking of yesterday.
+
+"I shouldn't deserve to be here if I had forgotten," she answered
+meaningly.  "Perhaps you forget the sword of the Turk?" she added.
+
+He laughed a little, his cheek flushed with pleasure.  "I shouldn't
+deserve to be here if I remembered--in the way you mean," he answered.
+
+Her face was full of pleasure.  "The worst of it is," she said, "I never
+can pay my debt.  I have owed it for eleven years, and if I should live
+to be ninety I should still owe it."
+
+His heart was beating hard and he became daring.  "So, thou shalt save my
+life," he said, speaking in French. "We shall be quits then, thou and I."
+
+The familiar French thou startled her.  To hide the instant's confusion
+she turned her head away, using a hand to gather in her hair, which the
+wind was lifting lightly.
+
+"That wouldn't quite make us quits," she rejoined; "your life is
+important, mine isn't.  You"--she nodded towards the Narcissus--"you
+command men."
+
+"So dost thou," he answered, persisting in the endearing pronoun.
+
+He meant it to be endearing.  As he had sailed up and down the world,
+a hundred ports had offered him a hundred adventures, all light in the
+scales of purpose, but not all bad.  He had gossiped and idled and
+coquetted with beauty before; but this was different, because the nature
+of the girl was different from all others he had met.  It had mostly been
+lightly come and lightly go with himself, as with the women it had been
+easily won and easily loosed.  Conscience had not smitten him hard,
+because beauty, as he had known it, though often fair and of good report,
+had bloomed for others before he came.  But here was a nature fresh and
+unspoiled from the hand of the potter Life.
+
+As her head slightly turned from him again, he involuntarily noticed the
+pulse beating in her neck, the rise and fall of her bosom.  Life--here
+was life unpoisoned by one drop of ill thought or light experience.
+
+"Thou dost command men too," he repeated.
+
+She stepped forward a little from the doorway and beyond him, answering
+back at him:
+
+"Oh, no, I only knit, and keep a garden, and command a little home,
+that's all.  .  .  .  Won't you let me show you the island?" she added
+quickly, pointing to a hillock beyond, and moving towards it.  He
+followed, speaking over her shoulder:
+
+"That's what you seem to do," he answered, "not what you do."  Then he
+added rhetorically: "I've seen a man polishing the buckle of his shoe,
+and he was planning to take a city or manoeuvre a fleet."
+
+She noticed that he had dropped the thou, and, much as its use had
+embarrassed her, the gap left when the boldness was withdrawn became
+filled with regret, for, though no one had dared to say it to her before,
+somehow it seemed not rude on Philip's lips.  Philip?  Yes, Philip she
+had called him in her childhood, and the name had been carried on into
+her girlhood--he had always been Philip to her.
+
+"No, girls don't think like that, and they don't do big things," she
+replied.  "When I polish the pans"--she laughed--"and when I scour my
+buckles, I just think of pans and buckles."  She tossed up her fingers
+lightly, with a perfect charm of archness.
+
+He was very close to her now.  "But girls have dreams, they have
+memories."
+
+"If women hadn't memory," she answered, "they wouldn't have much, would
+they?  We can't take cities and manoeuvre fleets."  She laughed a little
+ironically.  "I wonder that we think at all or have anything to think
+about, except the kitchen and the garden, and baking and scouring and
+spinning"--she paused slightly, her voice lowered a little--"and the sea,
+and the work that men do round us.  .  .  .  Do you ever go into a
+market?" she added suddenly.
+
+Somehow she could talk easily and naturally to him.  There had been no
+leading up to confidence.  She felt a sudden impulse to tell him all her
+thoughts.  To know things, to understand, was a passion with her.  It
+seemed to obliterate in her all that was conventional, it removed her far
+from sensitive egotism.  Already she had begun "to take notice" in the
+world, and that is like being born again.  As it grows, life ceases to be
+cliche; and when the taking notice is supreme we call it genius; and
+genius is simple and believing: it has no pride, it is naive, it is
+childlike.
+
+Philip seemed to wear no mark of convention, and Guida spoke her thoughts
+freely to him.  "To go into a market seems to me so wonderful," she
+continued.  "There are the cattle, the fruits, the vegetables, the
+flowers, the fish, the wood; the linen from the loom, the clothes that
+women's fingers have knitted.  But it isn't just those things that you
+see, it's all that's behind them--the houses, the fields, and the boats
+at sea, and the men and women working and working, and sleeping and
+eating, and breaking their hearts with misery, and wondering what is to
+be the end of it all; yet praying a little, it may be, and dreaming a
+little--perhaps a very little."  She sighed, and continued: "That's as
+far as I get with thinking.  What else can one do in this little island?
+Why, on the globe Maitre Damian has at St. Aubin's, Jersey is no bigger
+than the head of a pin.  And what should one think of here?"
+
+Her eyes were on the sea.  Its mystery was in them, the distance, the ebb
+and flow, the light of wonder and of adventure too.  "You--you've been
+everywhere," she went on.  "Do you remember you sent me once from Malta a
+tiny silver cross?  That was years ago, soon after the Battle of Jersey,
+when I was a little bit of a girl.  Well, after I got big enough I used
+to find Malta and other places on Maitre Damian's globe.  I've lived
+always there, on that spot"--she pointed towards Jersey--"on that spot
+one could walk round in a day.  What do I know!  You've been everywhere
+--everywhere.  When you look back you've got a thousand pictures in your
+mind.  You've seen great cities, temples, palaces, great armies, fleets;
+you've done things: you've fought and you've commanded, though you're so
+young, and you've learned about men and about many countries.  Look at
+what you know, and then, if you only think, you'll laugh at what I know."
+
+For a moment he was puzzled what to answer.  The revelation of the girl's
+nature had come so quickly upon him.  He had looked for freshness,
+sweetness, intelligence, and warmth of temperament, but it seemed to him
+that here were flashes of power.  Yet she was only seventeen.  She had
+been taught to see things with her own eyes and not another's, and she
+spoke of them as she saw them; that was all.  Yet never but to her mother
+had Guida said so much to any human being as within these past few
+moments to Philip d'Avranche.
+
+The conditions were almost maliciously favourable, and d'Avranche was
+simple and easy as a boy, with his sailor's bonhomie and his naturally
+facile spirit.  A fateful adaptability was his greatest weapon in life,
+and his greatest danger.  He saw that Guida herself was unconscious of
+the revelation she was making, and he showed no surprise, but he caught
+the note of her simplicity, and responded in kind.  He flattered her
+deftly--not that she was pressed unduly, he was too wise for that.  He
+took her seriously; and this was not all dissimulation, for her every
+word had glamour, and he now exalted her intellect unduly.  He had never
+met girl or woman who talked just as she did; and straightway, with the
+wild eloquence of his nature, he thought he had discovered a new heaven
+and a new earth.  A spell was upon him.  He knew what he wanted when he
+saw it.  He had always made up his mind suddenly, always acted on the
+intelligent impulse of the moment.  He felt things, he did not study
+them--it was almost a woman's instinct.  He came by a leap to the goal of
+purpose, not by the toilsome steps of reason.  On the instant his
+headlong spirit declared his purpose: this was the one being for him in
+all the world: at this altar he would light a lamp of devotion, and keep
+it burning forever.
+
+"This is my day," he said to himself.  "I always knew that love would
+come down on me like a storm."  Then, aloud, he said to her: "I wish I
+knew what you know; but I can't, because my mind is different, my life
+has been different.  When you go into the world and see a great deal, and
+loosen a little the strings of your principles, and watch how sins and
+virtues contradict themselves, you see things after a while in a kind of
+mist.  But you, Guida, you see them clearly because your heart is clear.
+You never make a mistake, you are always right because your mind is
+right."
+
+She interrupted him, a little troubled and a good deal amazed: "Oh, you
+mustn't, mustn't speak like that.  It's not so.  How can one see and
+learn unless one sees and knows the world?  Surely one can't think wisely
+if one doesn't see widely?"
+
+He changed his tactics instantly.  The world--that was the thing?  Well,
+then, she should see the world, through him, with him.
+
+"Yes, yes, you're right," he answered.  "You can't know things unless you
+see widely.  You must see the world.  This island, what is it?  I was
+born here, don't I know!  It's a foothold in the world, but it's no more;
+it's not afield to walk in, why, it's not even a garden.  No, it's the
+little patch of green we play in in front of a house, behind the
+railings, before we go out into the world and learn how to live."
+
+They had now reached the highest point on the island, where a flagstaff
+stood.  Guida was looking far beyond Jersey to the horizon line.  There
+was little haze, the sky was inviolably blue.  Far off against the
+horizon lay the low black rocks of the Minquiers.  They seemed to her, on
+the instant, like stepping-stones.  Beyond would be other stepping-
+stones, and others and others still again, and they would all mark the
+way and lead to what Philip called the world.  The world!  She felt a
+sudden little twist of regret at her heart.  Here she was like a cow
+grazing within the circle of its tether--like a lax caterpillar on its
+blade of grass.  Yet it had all seemed so good to her in the past; broken
+only by little bursts of wonder and wish concerning that outside world.
+
+"Do we ever learn how to live?" she asked.  "Don't we just go on from
+one thing to another, picking our way, but never knowing quite what to
+do, because we don't know what's ahead?  I believe we never do learn how
+to live," she added, half-smiling, yet a little pensive too; "but I am so
+very ignorant, and--"
+
+She stopped, for suddenly it flashed upon her: here she was baring her
+childish heart--he would think it childish, she was sure he would--
+everything she thought, to a man she had never known till to-day.  No,
+no, she was wrong; she had known him, but it was only as Philip, the boy
+who had saved her life.  And the Philip of her memory was only a picture,
+not a being; something to think about,  not something to speak with, to
+whom she might show her heart.  She flushed hotly and turned her shoulder
+on him.  Her eyes followed a lizard creeping up the stones.  As long
+as she lived she remembered that lizard, its colour changing in the sun.
+She remembered the hot stones, and how warm the flag-staff was when she
+stretched out her hand to it mechanically.  But the swift, noiseless
+lizard running in and out of the stones, it was ever afterwards like a
+coat-of-arms upon the shield of her life.
+
+Philip came close to her.  At first he spoke over her shoulder, then he
+faced her.  His words forced her eyes up to his, and he held them.
+
+"Yes, yes, we learn how to live," he said.  "It's only when we travel
+alone that we don't see before us.  I will teach you how to live--we will
+learn the way together!  Guida!  Guida!"--he reached out his hands to
+wards her--"don't start so!  Listen to me.  I feel for you what I have
+felt for no other being in all my life.  It came upon me yesterday when
+I saw you in the window at the Vier Prison.  I didn't understand it.  All
+night I walked the deck thinking of you.  To-day as soon as I saw your
+face, as soon as I touched your hand, I knew what it was, and--"
+
+He attempted to take her hand now.  "Oh, no, no!" she exclaimed, and
+drew back as if terrified.
+
+"You need not fear me," he burst out.  "For now I know that I have but
+two things to live for: for my work"--he pointed to the Narcissus--"and
+for you.  You are frightened of me?  Why, I want to have the right to
+protect you, to drive away all fear from your life.  You shall be the
+garden and I shall be the wall; you the nest and I the rock; you the
+breath of life and I the body that breathes it.  Guida, my Guida, I love
+you!"
+
+She drew back, leaning against the stones, her eyes riveted upon his, and
+she spoke scarcely above a whisper.
+
+"It is not true--it is not true.  You've known me only for one day--only
+for one hour.  How can you say it!"  There was a tumult in her breast;
+her eyes shone and glistened; wonder, embarrassed yet happy wonder,
+looked at him from her face, which was touched with an appealing,
+as of the heart that dares not believe and yet must believe or suffer.
+
+"It is madness," she added.  "It is not true--how can it be true!"
+
+Yet it all had the look of reality--the voice had the right ring, the
+face had truth, the bearing was gallant; the force and power of the man
+overwhelmed her.
+
+She reached out her hand tremblingly as though to push him back.  "It
+cannot be true," she said.  "To think--in one day!"
+
+"It is true," he answered, "true as that I stand here.  One day--it is
+not one day.  I knew you years ago.  The seed was sown then, the flower
+springs up to-day, that is all.  You think I can't know that it is love I
+feel for you?  It is admiration; it is faith; it is desire too; but it is
+love.  When you see a flower in a garden, do you not know at once if you
+like it or no?  Don't you know the moment you look on a landscape, on a
+splendid building, whether it is beautiful to you?  If, then, with these
+things one knows--these that haven't any speech, no life like yours or
+mine--how much more when it is a girl with a face like yours, when it is
+a mind noble like yours, when it is a touch that thrills, and a voice
+that drowns the heart in music!  Guida, believe that I speak the truth.
+I know, I swear, that you are the one passion, the one love of my life.
+All others would be as nothing, so long as you live, and I live to look
+upon you, to be beside you."
+
+"Beside me!" she broke in, with an incredulous irony fain to be
+contradicted, "a girl in a village, poor, knowing nothing, seeing no
+farther"--she looked out towards Jersey--"seeing no farther than the
+little cottage in the little country where I was born."
+
+"But you shall see more," he said, "you shall see all, feel all, if you
+will but listen to me.  Don't deny me what is life and breathing and hope
+to me.  I'll show you the world; I'll take you where you may see and
+know.  We will learn it all together.  I shall succeed in life.  I shall
+go far.  I've needed one thing to make me do my best for some one's sake
+beside my own; you will make me do it for your sake.  Your ancestors were
+great people in France; and you know that mine, centuries ago, were great
+also--that the d'Avranches were a noble family in France.  You and I will
+win our place as high as the best of them.  In this war that's coming
+between England and France is my chance.  Nelson said to me the other
+day--you have heard of him, of young Captain Nelson, the man they're
+pointing to in the fleet as the one man of them all?--he said to me: 'We
+shall have our chance now, d'Avranche.'  And we shall.  I have wanted it
+till to-day for my own selfish ambition--now I want it for you.  When I
+landed on this islet a half-hour ago, I hated it, I hated my ship, I
+hated my duty, I hated everything, because I wanted to go where you were,
+to be with you.  It was Destiny that brought us both to this place at one
+moment.  You can't escape Destiny.  It was to be that I should love you,
+Guida."
+
+He reached out to take her hands, but she put them behind her against the
+stones, and drew back.  The lizard suddenly shot out from a hole and
+crossed over her fingers.  She started, shivered at the cold touch, and
+caught the hand away.  A sense of foreboding awaked in her, and her eyes
+followed the lizard's swift travel with a strange fascination.  But she
+lifted them to Philip's, and the fear and premonition passed.
+
+"Oh, my brain is in a whirl!" she said.  "I do not understand.  I know
+so little.  No one has ever spoken to me as you have done.  You would not
+dare"--she leaned forward a little, looking into his face with that
+unwavering gaze which was the best sign of her straight-forward mind--
+"you would not dare to deceive--you would not dare.  I have--no mother,"
+she added with simple pathos.
+
+The moisture came into his eyes.  He must have been stone not to be
+touched by the appealing, by the tender inquisition, of that look.
+
+"Guida," he said impetuously, "if I deceive you, may every fruit of life
+turn to dust and ashes in my mouth!  If ever I deceive you, may I die a
+black, dishonourable death, abandoned and alone!  I should deserve that
+if I deceived you, Guida."
+
+For the first time since he had spoken she smiled, yet her eyes filled
+with tears too.
+
+"You will let me tell you that I love you, Guida--it is all I ask now:
+that you will listen to me?"
+
+She sighed, but did not answer.  She kept looking at him, looking as
+though she would read his inmost soul.  Her face was very young, though
+the eyes were so wise in their simplicity.
+
+"You will give me my chance--you will listen to me, Guida, and try to
+understand--and be glad?" he asked, leaning closer to her and holding
+out his hands.
+
+She drew herself up slightly as with an air of relief and resolve.  She
+put a hand in his.
+
+"I will try to understand--and be glad," she answered.
+
+"Won't you call me Philip?" he said.
+
+The same slight, mischievous smile crossed her lips now as eleven years
+ago in the Rue d'Egypte, and recalling that moment, she replied:
+
+"Yes, sir--Philip!"
+
+At that instant the figure of a man appeared on the shingle beneath,
+looking up towards them.  They did not see him.  Guida's hand was still
+in Philip's.
+
+The man looked at them for a moment, then started and turned away.  It
+was Ranulph Delagarde.
+
+They heard his feet upon the shingle now.  They turned and looked; and
+Guida withdrew her hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+There are moments when a kind of curtain seems dropped over the brain,
+covering it, smothering it, while yet the body and its nerves are
+tingling with sensation.  It is like the fire-curtain of a theatre let
+down between the stage and the audience, a merciful intervention between
+the mind and the disaster which would consume it.
+
+As the years had gone on Maitre Ranulph's nature had grown more powerful,
+and his outdoor occupation had enlarged and steadied his physical forces.
+His trouble now was in proportion to the force of his character.  The
+sight of Guida and Philip hand in hand, the tender attitude, the light in
+their faces, was overwhelming and unaccountable.  Yesterday these two
+were strangers--to-day it was plain to be seen they were lovers, and
+lovers who had reached a point of confidence and revelation.  Nothing in
+the situation tallied with Ranulph's ideas of Guida and his knowledge of
+life.  He had, as one might say, been eye to eye with this girl for
+fifteen years: he had told his love for her in a thousand little ways,
+as the ant builds its heap to a pyramid that becomes a thousand times
+greater than itself.  He had followed her footsteps, he had fetched and
+carried, he had served afar off, he had ministered within the gates.  He
+had, unknown to her, watched like the keeper of the house over all who
+came and went, neither envious nor over-zealous, neither intrusive nor
+neglectful; leaving here a word and there an act to prove himself, above
+all, the friend whom she could trust, and, in all, the lover whom she
+might wake to know and reward.  He had waited with patience, hoping
+stubbornly that she might come to put her hand in his one day.
+
+Long ago he would have left the island to widen his knowledge, earn
+experience in his craft, or follow a career in the army--he had been an
+expert gunner when he served in the artillery four years ago--and hammer
+out fame upon the anvils of fortune in England or in France; but he had
+stayed here that he might be near her.  His love had been simple, it had
+been direct, and wise in its consistent reserve.  He had been self-
+obliterating.  His love desired only to make her happy: most lovers
+desire that they themselves shall be made happy.  Because of the crime
+his father committed years ago--because of the shame of that hidden
+crime--he had tried the more to make himself a good citizen, and had
+formed the modest ambition of making one human being happy.  Always
+keeping this near him in past years, a supreme cheerfulness of heart had
+welled up out of his early sufferings and his innate honesty.  Hope had
+beckoned him on from year to year, until it seemed at last that the time
+had almost come when he might speak, might tell her all--his father's
+crime and the manner of his father's death; of his own devoted purpose in
+trying to expiate that crime by his own uprightness; and of his love for
+her.
+
+Now, all in a minute, his horizon was blackened.  This adventurous
+gallant, this squire of dames, had done in a day what he had worked, step
+by step, to do through all these years.  This skipping seafarer, with his
+powder and lace, his cocked hat and gold-handled sword, had whistled at
+the gates which he had guarded and by which he had prayed, and all in a
+minute every defence had been thrown down, and Guida--his own Guida--had
+welcomed the invader with shameless eagerness.
+
+He crossed the islet slowly.  It seemed to him--and for a moment it was
+the only thing of which he was conscious--that the heels of his boots
+shrieked in the shingle, and with every step he was raising an immense
+weight.  He paused behind the chapel.  After a little the smother lifted
+slowly from his brain.
+
+"I'll believe in her still," he said aloud.  "It's all his cursed tongue.
+As a boy he could make every other boy do what he wanted because his
+tongue knows how to twist words.  She's been used to honest people; he's
+talked a new language to her--tricks caught in his travels.  But she
+shall know the truth.  She shall find out what sort of a man he is.
+I'll make her see under his pretty foolings."
+
+He turned, and leaned against the wall of the chapel.  "Guida, Guida," he
+said, speaking as if she were there before him, "you won't--you won't go
+to him, and spoil your life, and mine too.  Guida, ma couzaine, you'll
+stay here, in the land of your birth.  You'll make your home here--here
+with me, ma chere couzaine.  Ah, but then you shall be my wife in spite
+of him, in spite of a thousand Philip d'Avranches!"
+
+He drew himself up firmly, for a great resolve was made.  His path was
+clear.  It was a fair fight, he thought; the odds were not so much
+against him after all, for his birth was as good as Philip d'Avranche's,
+his energy was greater, and he was as capable and as clever in his own
+way.
+
+He walked quickly down the shingle towards the wreck on the other side of
+the islet.  As he passed the hut where the sick man lay, he heard a
+querulous voice.  It was not that of the Reverend Lorenzo Dow.
+
+Where had he heard that voice before?  A shiver of fear ran through him.
+Every sense and emotion in him was arrested.  His life seemed to reel
+backward.  Curtain after curtain of the past unfolded.
+
+He hurried to the door of the hut and looked in.
+
+A man with long white hair and straggling grey beard turned to him a
+haggard face, on which were written suffering, outlawry, and evil.
+
+"Great God--my father!" Ranulph said.
+
+He drew back slowly like a man who gazes upon some horrible fascinating
+thing, and then turned heavily towards the sea, his face set, his senses
+paralysed.
+
+"My father not dead!  My father--the traitor!" he groaned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Philip d'Avranche sauntered slowly through the Vier Marchi, nodding right
+and left to people who greeted him.  It was Saturday and market day in
+Jersey.  The square was crowded with people.  All was a cheerful babel;
+there was movement, colour everywhere.  Here were the high and the
+humble, hardi vlon and hardi biaou--the ugly and the beautiful, the
+dwarfed and the tall, the dandy and the dowdy, the miser and the
+spendthrift; young ladies gay in silks, laces, and scarfs from Spain, and
+gentlemen with powdered wigs from Paris; sailors with red tunics from the
+Mediterranean, and fishermen with blue and purple blouses from Brazil;
+man-o'-war's-men with Greek petticoats, Turkish fezzes, and Portuguese
+espadras.  Jersey housewives, in bedgones and white caps, with molleton
+dresses rolled up to the knees, pushed their way through the crowd, jars
+of black butter, or jugs of cinnamon brandy on their heads.  From La
+Pyramide--the hospitable base of the statue of King George II--fishwives
+called the merits of their conger-eels and ormers; and the clatter of a
+thousand sabots made the Vier Marchi sound like a ship-builder's yard.
+
+In this square Philip had loitered and played as a child.  Down there,
+leaning against a pillar of the Corn Market piazza was Elie Mattingley,
+the grizzly-haired seller of foreign silks and droll odds and ends, who
+had given him a silver flageolet when he was a little lad.  There were
+the same swaggering manners, the big gold rings in his ears; there was
+the same red sash about the waist, the loose unbuttoned shirt, the
+truculent knifebelt; there were the same keen brown eyes looking you
+through and through, and the mouth with a middle tooth in both jaws gone.
+Elie Mattingley, pirate, smuggler, and sometime master of a privateer,
+had had dealings with people high and low in the island, and they had not
+always, nor often, been conducted in the open Vier Marchi.
+
+Fifteen years ago he used to have his little daughter Carterette always
+beside him when he sold his wares.  Philip wondered what had become of
+her.  He glanced round.  .  .  .  Ah, there she was, not far from her
+father, over in front of the guard-house, selling, at a little counter
+with a canopy of yellow silk (brought by her father from that distant
+land called Piracy), mogues of hot soupe a la graisse, simnels, curds,
+coffee, and Jersey wonders, which last she made on the spot by dipping
+the little rings of dough in a bashin of lard on a charcoal fire at her
+side.
+
+Carterette was short and spare, with soft yet snapping eyes as black as
+night--or her hair; with a warm, dusky skin, a tongue which clattered
+pleasantly, and very often wisely.  She had a hand as small and plump as
+a baby's, and a pretty foot which, to the disgust of some mothers and
+maidens of greater degree, was encased in a red French slipper, instead
+of the wooden sabot stuffed with straw, while her ankles were nicely
+dressed in soft black stockings, in place of the woolen native hose, as
+became her station.
+
+Philip watched Carterette now for a moment, a dozen laughing memories
+coming back to him; for he had teased her and played with her when she
+was a child, had even called her his little sweetheart.  Looking at her
+he wondered what her fate would be: To marry one of these fishermen or
+carters?  No, she would look beyond that.  Perhaps it would be one of
+those adventurers in bearskin cap and buckskin vest, home from Gaspe,
+where they had toiled in the great fisheries, some as common fishermen,
+some as mates and maybe one or two as masters.  No, she would look beyond
+that.  Perhaps she would be carried off by one of those well-to-do,
+black-bearded young farmers in the red knitted queminzolle, blue
+breeches, and black cocked hat, with his kegs of cider and bunches of
+parsley.
+
+That was more likely, for among the people there was every prejudice in
+her favour.  She was Jersey born, her father was reputed to have laid by
+a goodly sum of money--not all got in this Vier Marchi; and that he was
+a smuggler and pirate roused a sentiment in their bosoms nearer to envy
+than aught else.  Go away naked and come back clothed, empty and come
+back filled, simple and come back with a wink of knowledge, penniless and
+come back with the price of numerous vergees of land, and you might
+answer the island catechism without fear.  Be lambs in Jersey, but harry
+the rest of the world with a lion's tooth, was the eleventh commandment
+in the Vier Marchi.
+
+Yes, thought Philip idly now, as he left the square, the girl would
+probably marry a rich farmer, and when he came again he should find her
+stout of body, and maybe shrewish of face, crying up the virtues of her
+black butter and her knitted stockings, having made the yellow silk
+canopy above her there into a gorgeous quilt for the nuptial bed.
+
+Yet the young farmers who hovered near her now, buying a glass of cider
+or a mogue of soup, received but scant notice.  She laughed with them,
+treated them lightly, and went about her business again with a toss
+of the head.  Not once did she show a moment's real interest, not until a
+fine upstanding fellow came round the corner from the Rue des Vignes, and
+passed her booth.
+
+She was dipping a doughnut into the boiling lard, but she paused with it
+suspended.  The little dark face took on a warm glow, the eyes glistened.
+
+"Maitre Ranulph!" called the girl softly.  Then as the tall fellow
+turned to her and lifted his cap she added briskly: "Where away so fast
+with face hard as hatchet?"
+
+"Garcon Cart'rette!" he said abstractedly--he had always called her
+that.
+
+He was about to move on.  She frowned in vexation, yet she saw that he
+was pale and heavy-eyed, and she beckoned him to come to her.
+
+"What's gone wrong, big wood-worm?" she said, eyeing him closely, and
+striving anxiously to read his face.  He looked at her sharply, but the
+softness in her black eyes somehow reassured him, and he said quite
+kindly:
+
+"Nannin, 'tite garcon, nothing's matter."
+
+"I thought you'd be blithe as a sparrow with your father back from the
+grave!"  Then as Ranulph's face seemed to darken, she added: "He's not
+worse--he's not worse?"
+
+"No, no, he's well enough now," he said, forcing a smile.
+
+She was not satisfied, but she went on talking, intent to find the cause
+of his abstraction.  "Only to think," she said--"only to think that he
+wasn't killed at all at the Battle of Jersey, and was a prisoner in
+France, and comes back here--and we all thought him dead, didn't we?"
+
+"I left him for dead that morning on the Grouville road," he answered.
+Then, as if with a great effort, and after the manner of one who has
+learned a part, he went on: "As the French ran away mad, paw of one on
+tail of other, they found him trying to drag himself along.  They nabbed
+him, and carried him aboard their boats to pilot them out from the Rocque
+Platte, and over to France.  Then because they hadn't gobbled us up here,
+what did the French Gover'ment do?  They clapped a lot of 'em in irons
+and sent 'em away to South America, and my father with 'em.  That's why
+we heard neither click nor clack of him all this time.  He broke free a
+year ago.  Then he fell sick.  When he got well he set sail for Jersey,
+was wrecked off the Ecrehos, and everybody knows the rest.  Diantre, he's
+had a hard time!"
+
+The girl had listened intently.  She had heard all these things in flying
+rumours, and she had believed the rumours; but now that Maitre Ranulph
+told her--Ranulph, whose word she would have taken quicker than the oath
+of a Jurat--she doubted.  With the doubt her face flushed as though she
+herself had been caught in a lie, had done a mean thing.  Somehow her
+heart was aching for him, she knew not why.
+
+All this time she had held the doughnut poised; she seemed to have
+forgotten her work.  Suddenly the wooden fork holding the cake was taken
+from her fingers by the daft Dormy Jamais who had crept near.
+
+"Des monz a fou," said he, "to spoil good eating so!  What says fishing-
+man: When sails flap, owner may whistle for cargo.  Tut, tut, goose
+Carterette!"
+
+Carterette took no note, but said to Ranulph:
+
+"Of course he had to pilot the Frenchmen back, or they'd have killed him,
+and it'd done no good to refuse.  He was the first man that fought the
+French on the day of the battle, wasn't he?  I've always heard that."
+Unconsciously she was building up a defence for Olivier Delagarde.  She
+was, as it were, anticipating insinuation from other quarters.  She was
+playing Ranulph's game, because she instinctively felt that behind this
+story there was gloom in his mind and mystery in the tale itself.  She
+noticed too that he shrank from her words.  She was not very quick of
+intellect, so she had to feel her way fumblingly.  She must have time
+to think, but she said tentatively:
+
+"I suppose it's no secret?  I can tell any one at all what happened to
+your father?" she asked.
+
+"Oh so--sure so!" he said rather eagerly.  "Tell every one about it.  He
+doesn't mind."
+
+Maitre Ranulph deceived but badly.  Bold and convincing in all honest
+things, he was, as yet, unconvincing in this grave deception.  All these
+years he had kept silence, enduring what he thought a buried shame; but
+that shame had risen from the dead, a living agony.  His father had
+betrayed the island to the French: if the truth were known to-day they
+would hang him for a traitor on the Mont es Pendus.  No mercy and scant
+shrift would be shown him.
+
+Whatever came, he must drink this bitter cup to the dregs.  He could
+never betray his own father.  He must consume with inward disgust while
+Olivier Delagarde shamelessly babbled his monstrous lies to all who would
+listen.  And he must tell these lies too, conceal, deceive, and live in
+hourly fear of discovery.  He must sit opposite his father day by day at
+table, talk with him, care for him, shrinking inwardly at every knock at
+the door lest it should be an officer come to carry the pitiful traitor
+off to prison.
+
+And, more than all, he must give up for ever the thought of Guida.  Here
+was the acid that ate home, the black hopelessness, the machine of fate
+clamping his heart.  Never again could he rise in the morning with a song
+on his lips; never again his happy meditations go lilting with the
+clanging blows of the adze and the singing of the saws.
+
+All these things had vanished when he looked into a tent-door on the
+Ecrehos.  Now, in spite of himself, whenever he thought upon Guida's
+face, this other fateful figure, this Medusan head of a traitor,
+shot in between.
+
+Since his return his father had not been strong enough to go abroad; but
+to-day he meant to walk to the Vier Marchi.  At first Ranulph had decided
+to go as usual to his ship-yard at St. Aubin's, but at last in anxious
+fear he too had come to the Vier Marchi.  There was a horrible
+fascination in being where his father was, in listening to his
+falsehoods, in watching the turns and twists of his gross hypocrisies.
+
+But yet at times he was moved by a strange pity, for Olivier Delagarde
+was, in truth, far older than his years: a thin, shuffling, pallid
+invalid, with a face of mingled sanctity and viciousness.  If the old man
+lied, and had not been in prison all these years, he must have had misery
+far worse, for neither vice nor poverty alone could so shatter a human
+being.  The son's pity seemed to look down from a great height upon the
+contemptible figure with the beautiful white hair and the abominable
+mouth.  This compassion kept him from becoming hard, but it would also
+preserve him to hourly sacrifice--Prometheus chained to his rock.  In the
+short fortnight that had gone since the day upon the Ecrehos, he had
+changed as much as do most people in ten years.  Since then he had seen
+neither Philip nor Guida.
+
+To Carterette he seemed not the man she had known.  With her woman's
+instinct she knew that he loved Guida, but she also knew that nothing
+which might have happened between them could have brought this look of
+shame and shrinking into his face.  As these thoughts flashed through her
+mind her heart grew warmer.  Suppose Ranulph was in some trouble--well,
+now might be her great chance.  She might show him that he could not live
+without her friendship, and then perhaps, by-and-bye, that he could not
+live without her love.
+
+Ranulph was about to move on.  She stopped him.  "When you need me,
+Maitre Ranulph, you know where to find me," she said scarce above a
+whisper.  He looked at her sharply, almost fiercely, but again the
+tenderness of her eyes, the directness of her gaze, convinced him.  She
+might be, as she was, variable with other people; with himself she was
+invincibly straightforward.
+
+"P'raps you don't trust me?" she added, for she read his changing
+expression.
+
+"I'd trust you quick enough," he said.
+
+"Then do it now--you're having some bad trouble," she rejoined.
+
+He leaned over her stall and said to her steadily and with a little
+moroseness:
+
+"See you, ma garche, if I was in trouble I'd bear it by myself.  I'd ask
+no one to help me.  I'm a man, and I can stand alone.  Don't go telling
+folks I look as if I was in trouble.  I'm going to launch to-morrow the
+biggest ship ever sent from a Jersey building yard--that doesn't look
+like trouble, does it?  Turn about is fair play, garcon Cart'rette: so
+when you're in trouble come to me.  You're not a man, and it's a man's
+place to help a woman, all the more when she's a fine and good little
+stand-by like you."
+
+He forced a smile, turned upon his heel, and threaded his way through the
+square, keeping a look-out for his father.  This he could do easily, for
+he was the tallest man in the Vier Marchi by at least three inches.
+
+Carterette, oblivious of all else, stood gazing after him.  She was only
+recalled to herself by Dormy Jamais.  He was diligently cooking her
+Jersey wonders, now and then turning his eyes up at her--eyes which were
+like spots of greyish, yellowish light in a face of putty and flour;
+without eyelashes, without eyebrows, a little like a fish's, something
+like a monkey's.  They were never still.  They were set in the face like
+little round glow worms in a mould of clay.  They burned on night and
+day--no man had ever seen Dormy Jamais asleep.
+
+Carterette did not resent his officiousness.  He had a kind of kennel in
+her father's boat-house, and he was devoted to her.  More than all else,
+Dormy Jamaas was clean.  His clothes were mostly rags, but they were
+comely, compact rags.  When he washed them no one seemed to know, but no
+languid young gentleman lounging where the sun was warmest in the Vier
+Marchi was better laundered.
+
+As Carterette turned round to him he was twirling a cake on the wooden
+fork, and trolling:
+
+                   "Caderoussel he has a coat,
+                    All lined with paper brown;
+                    And only when it freezes hard
+                    He wears it in the town.
+                    What do you think of Caderoussel?
+                    Ah, then, but list to me:
+                    Caderoussel is a bon e'fant--"
+
+"Come, come, dirty-fingers," she said.  "Leave my work alone, and stop
+your chatter."
+
+The daft one held up his fingers, but to do so had to thrust a cake into
+his mouth.
+
+"They're as clean as a ha'pendy," he said, mumbling through the cake.
+Then he emptied his mouth of it, and was about to place it with the
+others.
+
+"Black beganne," she cried; "how dare you!  V'la--into your pocket with
+it!"
+
+He did as he was bid, humming to himself again:
+
+                   "M'sieu' de la Palisse is dead,
+                    Dead of a maladie;
+                    Quart' of an hour before his death
+                    He could breathe like you and mel
+                    Ah bah, the poor M'sieu'
+                    De la Palisse is dead!"
+
+"Shut up!  Man doux d'la vie, you chatter like a monkey!"
+
+"That poor Maitre Ranulph," said Dormy, "once he was lively as a basket
+of mice; but now--"
+
+"Well, now, achocre?" she said irritably, stamping her foot.
+
+"Now the cat's out of the bag--oui-gia!"
+
+"You're as cunning as a Norman--you've got things in your noddee!" she
+cried with angry impatience.
+
+He nodded, grinning.  "As thick as haws," he answered.
+
+She heard behind her a laugh of foolish good-nature, which made her angry
+too, for it seemed to be making fun of her.  She wheeled to see M. Savary
+dit Detricand leaning with both elbows on the little counter, his chin in
+his hand, grinning provokingly,
+
+"Oh, it's you!" she said snappishly; "I hope you're pleased."
+
+"Don't be cross," he answered, his head swinging unsteadily.  "I wasn't
+laughing at you, heaven-born Jersienne.  I wasn't, 'pon honour!  I was
+laughing at a thing I saw five minutes ago."  He nodded in gurgling
+enjoyment now.  "You mustn't mind me, seraphine," he added, "I'd a hot
+night, and I'm warm as a thrush now.  But I saw a thing five minutes
+ago!"--he rolled on the stall.  "'Sh!" he added in a loud mock whisper,
+"here he comes now.  Milles diables, but here's a tongue for you, and
+here's a royal gentleman speaking truth like a travelling dentist!"
+
+Carterette followed his gesture and saw coming out of the Route es
+Couochons, where the brave Peirson issued to his death eleven years
+before, Maitre Ranulph's father.
+
+He walked with the air of a man courting observation.  He imagined
+himself a hero; he had told his lie so many times now that he almost
+believed it himself.
+
+He was soon surrounded.  Disliked when he lived in Jersey before the
+invasion years ago, that seemed forgotten now; for word had gone abroad
+that he was a patriot raised from the dead, an honour to his country.
+Many pressed forward to shake hands with him.
+
+"Help of heaven, is that you, m'sieu'?" asked one.  "You owed me five
+chelins, but I wiped it out, O my good!" cried another generously.
+
+"Shaken," cried a tall tarter holding out his hand.  He had lived in
+England, and now easily made English verbs into French.
+
+One after another called on him to tell his story; some tried to hurry
+him to La Pyramide, but others placed a cider-keg near, and almost lifted
+him on to it.
+
+"Go on, go on, tell us the story," they cried.  To the devil with the
+Frenchies!"
+
+"Here--here's a dish of Adam's ale," cried an old woman, handing him a
+bowl of water.
+
+They cheered him lustily.  The pallor of his face changed to a warmth.
+He had the fatuousness of those who deceive with impunity.  With
+confidence he unreeled the dark line out to the end.  When he had told
+his story, still hungry for applause, he repeated the account of how the
+tatterdemalion brigade of Frenchmen came down upon him out of the night,
+and how he should have killed Rullecour himself had it not been for an
+officer who struck him down from behind.
+
+During the recital Ranulph had drawn near.  He watched the enthusiasm
+with which the crowd received every little detail of the egregious
+history.  Everybody believed the old man, who was safe, no matter what
+happened to himself, Ranulph Delagarde, ex-artilleryman, ship-builder--
+and son of a criminal.  At any rate the worst was over now, the first
+public statement of the lifelong lie.  He drew a sigh of relief and
+misery in one.  At that instant he caught sight of the flushed face of
+Detricand, who broke into a laugh of tipsy mirth when Olivier Delagarde
+told how the French officer had stricken him down as he was about
+finishing off Rullecour.
+
+All at once the whole thing rushed upon Ranulph.  What a fool he had
+been!  He had met this officer of Rullecour's these ten years past, and
+never once had the Frenchman, by so much as a hint, suggested that he
+knew the truth about his father.  Here and now the contemptuous mirth
+upon the Frenchman's face told the whole story.  The danger and horror of
+the situation descended on him.  Instantly he started towards Detricand.
+
+At that moment his father caught sight of Detricand also, saw the laugh,
+the sneer, and recognised him.  Halting short in his speech he turned
+pale and trembled, staring as at a ghost.  He had never counted on this.
+His breath almost stopped as he saw Ranulph approach Detricand.
+
+Now the end was come.  His fabric of lies would be torn down; he would be
+tried and hanged on the Mont es Pendus, or even be torn to pieces by this
+crowd.  Yet he could not have moved a foot from where he was if he had
+been given a million pounds.
+
+The sight of Ranulph's face revealed to Detricand the true meaning of
+this farce and how easily it might become a tragedy.  He read the story
+of the son's torture, of his sacrifice; and his decision was instantly
+made: he would befriend him.  Looking straight into his eyes, his own
+said he had resolved to know nothing whatever about this criminal on
+the cider-cask.  The two men telegraphed to each other a perfect
+understanding, and then Detricand turned on his heel, and walked
+away into the crowd.
+
+The sudden change in the old man's appearance had not been lost on the
+spectators, but they set it down to weakness or a sudden sickness.  One
+ran for a glass of brandy, another for cider, and an old woman handed up
+to him a mogue of cinnamon drops.
+
+The old man tremblingly drank the brandy.  When he looked again Detricand
+had disappeared.  A dark, sinister expression crossed his face, an evil
+thought pulled down the corners of his mouth as he stepped from the cask.
+His son went to him and taking his arm, said: "Come, you've done enough
+for to-day."
+
+The old man made no reply, but submissively walked away into the Coin &
+Anes.  Once however he turned and looked the way Detricand had gone,
+muttering.
+
+The peasants cheered him as he passed.  Presently, free of the crowd and
+entering the Rue d'Egypte, he said to Ranulph:
+
+"I'm going alone; I don't need you."
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Ranulph.
+
+"Home," answered the old man gloomily.
+
+Ranulph stopped.  "All right; better not come out again to-day."
+
+"You're not going to let that Frenchman hurt me?" suddenly asked
+Delagarde with morose anxiety.  "You're going to stop that?  They'd put
+me in prison."
+
+Ranulph stooped over his father, his eyes alive with anger, his face
+blurred with disgust.
+
+"Go home," said he, "and never mention this again while you live, or I'll
+take you to prison myself."  Ranulph watched his father disappear down
+the Rue d'Egypte, then he retraced his steps to the Vier Marchi.  With a
+new-formed determination he quickened his walk, ruling his face to a sort
+of forced gaiety, lest any one should think his moodiness strange.  One
+person after another accosted him.  He listened eagerly, to see if
+anything were said which might show suspicion of his father.  But the
+gossip was all in old Delagarde's favour.  From group to group he went,
+answering greetings cheerily and steeling himself to the whole disgusting
+business.
+
+Presently he saw the Chevalier du Champsavoys with the Sieur de Mauprat.
+This was the first public appearance of the chevalier since the sad
+business at the Vier Prison a fortnight before.  The simple folk had
+forgotten their insane treatment of him then, and they saluted him now
+with a chirping: "Es-tu biaou, chevalier?" and "Es-tu gentiment,
+m'sieu'?" to which he responded with amiable forgiveness.  To his idea
+they were only naughty children, their minds reasoning no more clearly
+than they saw the streets through the tiny little squares of bottle-glass
+in the windows of their homes.
+
+All at once they came face to face with Detricand.  The chevalier stopped
+short with pleased yet wistful surprise.  His brow knitted when he saw
+that his compatriot had been drinking again, and his eyes had a pained
+look as he said eagerly:
+
+"Have you heard from the Comte de Tournay, monsieur?  I have not seen you
+these days past.  You said you would not disappoint me."
+
+Detricand drew from his pocket a letter and handed it over, saying: "This
+comes from the comte."
+
+The old gentleman took the letter, nervously opened it, and read it
+slowly, saying each sentence over twice as though to get the full
+meaning.
+
+"Ah," he exclaimed, "he is going back to France to fight for the King!"
+
+Then he looked at Detricand sadly, benevolently.  "Mon cher," said he,
+"if I could but persuade you to abjure the wine-cup and follow his
+example!"
+
+Detricand drew himself up with a jerk.  "You can persuade me, chevalier,"
+said he.  "This is my last bout.  I had sworn to have it with--with a
+soldier I knew, and I've kept my word.  But it's the last, the very last
+in my life, on the honour of--the Detricands.  And I am going with the
+Comte de Tournay to fight for the King."
+
+The little chevalier's lips trembled, and taking the young man by the
+collar of his coat, he stood tiptoed, and kissed him on both cheeks.
+
+"Will you accept something from me?" asked M. de Mauprat, joining in his
+friend's enthusiasm.  He took from his pocket a timepiece he had worn for
+fifty years.  "It is a little gift to my France, which I shall see no
+more," he added.  "May no time be ill spent that it records for you,
+monsieur."
+
+Detricand laughed in his careless way, but the face, seamed with
+dissipation, took on a new and better look, as with a hand-grasp of
+gratitude he put the timepiece in his pocket.
+
+"I'll do my best," he said simply.  "I'll be with de la Rochejaquelein
+and the army of the Vendee to-morrow night."
+
+Then he shook hands with both little gentlemen and moved away towards the
+Rue des Tres Pigeons.  Presently some one touched his arm.  He looked
+round.  It was Ranulph.
+
+"I stood near," said Ranulph; "I chanced to hear what you said to them.
+You've been a friend to me today--and these eleven years past.  You knew
+about my father, all the time."
+
+Before replying Detricand glanced round to see that no one was listening.
+
+"Look you, monsieur, a man must keep some decencies in his life, or cut
+his own throat.  What a ruffian I'd be to do you or your father harm!
+I'm silent, of course.  Let your mind rest about me.  But there's the
+baker Carcaud--"
+
+"The baker?" asked Ranulph dumfounded.  "I thought he was tied to a rock
+and left to drown, by Rullecour's orders."
+
+"I had him set free after Rullecour had gone on to the town.  He got away
+to France."
+
+Ranulph's anxiety deepened.  "He might come back, and then if anything
+happened to him--"
+
+"He'd try and make things happen to others, eh? But there's little danger
+of his coming back.  They know he's a traitor, and he knows he'd be hung.
+If he's alive he'll stay where he is.  Cheer up!  Take my word, Olivier
+Delagarde has only himself to fear."  He put out his hand.  "Good-bye.
+If ever I can do anything for you, if you ever want to find me, come or
+send to--no, I'll write it," he suddenly added, and scribbling something
+on a piece of paper he handed it over.
+
+They parted with another handshake, Detricand making his way into the Rue
+d'Egypte, and towards the Place du Vier Prison.
+
+Ranulph stood looking dazedly at the crowd before him, misery, revolt,
+and bitterness in his heart.  This French adventurer, Detricand, after
+years of riotous living, could pick up the threads of life again with a
+laugh and no shame, while he felt himself going down, down, down, with no
+hope of ever rising again.
+
+As he stood buried in his reflections the town crier entered the Vier
+Marchi, and, going to La Pyramide, took his place upon the steps, and in
+a loud voice began reading a proclamation.
+
+It was to the effect that the great Fishing Company trading to Gaspe
+needed twenty Jersiais to go out and replace a number of the company's
+officers and men who had been drowned in a gale off the rock called
+Perch.  To these twenty, if they went at once, good pay would be given.
+But they must be men of intelligence and vigour, of well-known character.
+
+The critical moment in Maitre Ranulph's life came now.  Here he was
+penned up in a little island, chained to a criminal having the fame of a
+martyr.  It was not to be borne.  Why not leave it all behind?  Why not
+let his father shift for himself, abide his own fate?  Why not leave him
+the home, what money he had laid by, and go-go-go where he could forget,
+go where he could breathe.  Surely self-preservation, that was the first
+law; surely no known code of human practice called upon him to share the
+daily crimes of any living soul--it was a daily repetition of his crime
+for this traitor to carry on the atrocious lie of patriotism.
+
+He would go.  It was his right.
+
+Taking a few steps towards the officer of the company standing by the
+crier, he was about to speak.  Some one touched him.
+
+He turned and saw Carterette.  She had divined his intention, and though
+she was in the dark as to the motive, she saw that he meant to go to
+Gaspe.  Her heart seemed to contract till the pain of it hurt her; then,
+as a new thought flashed into her mind, it was freed again and began
+pounding hard against her breast.  She must prevent him from leaving
+Jersey, from leaving her.  What she might feel personally would have no
+effect upon him; she would appeal to him from a different stand-point.
+
+"You must not go," she said.  "You must not leave your father alone,
+Maitre Ranulph."
+
+For a minute he did not reply.  Through his dark wretchedness one thought
+pierced its way: this girl was his good friend.
+
+"Then I'll take him with me," he said.
+
+"He would die in the awful cold," she answered.  "Nannin-gia, you must
+stay."
+
+"Eh ben, I will think!" he said presently, with an air of heavy
+resignation, and, turning, walked away.  Her eyes followed him.  As she
+went back to her booth she smiled: he had come one step her way.  He
+would not go.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+When Detricand left the Vier Marchi he made his way along the Rue
+d'Egypte to the house of M. de Mauprat.  The front door was open, and a
+nice savour of boiling fruit came from within.  He knocked, and instantly
+Guida appeared, her sleeves rolled back to her elbows, her fingers
+stained with the rich red of the blackberries on the fire.
+
+A curious shade of disappointment came into her face when she saw who it
+was.  It was clear to Detricand that she expected some one else; it was
+also clear that his coming gave no especial pleasure to her, though she
+looked at him with interest.  She had thought of him more than once since
+that day when the famous letter from France to the chevalier was read.
+She had instinctively compared him, this roystering, notorious fellow,
+with Philip d'Avranche, Philip the brave, the ambitious, the conquering.
+She was sure that Philip had never over-drunk himself in his life; and
+now, looking into the face of Detricand, she could tell that he had been
+drinking again.  One thing was apparent, however: he was better dressed
+than she ever remembered seeing him, better pulled together, and bearing
+himself with an air of purpose.
+
+"I've fetched back your handkerchief--you tied up my head with it, you
+know," he said, taking it from his pocket.  "I'm going away, and I wanted
+to thank you."
+
+"Will you not come in, monsieur?" she said.
+
+He readily entered the kitchen, still holding the handkerchief in his
+hand, but he did not give it to her.  "Where will you sit?" she said,
+looking round.  "I'm very busy.  You mustn't mind my working," she added,
+going to the brass bashin at the fire.  "This preserve will spoil if I
+don't watch it."
+
+He seated himself on the veille, and nodded his head.  "I like this," he
+said.  "I'm fond of kitchens.  I always was.  When I was fifteen I was
+sent away from home because I liked the stables and the kitchen too well.
+Also I fell in love with the cook."
+
+Guida flushed, frowned, her lips tightened, then presently a look of
+amusement broke over her face, and she burst out laughing.
+
+"Why do you tell me these things?" she said.  "Excuse me, monsieur, but
+why do you always tell unpleasant things about yourself?  People think
+ill of you, and otherwise they might think--better."
+
+"I don't want them to think better till I am better," he answered.  "The
+only way I can prevent myself becoming a sneak is by blabbing my faults.
+Now, I was drunk last night--very, very drunk."
+
+A look of disgust came into her face.
+
+"Why do you relate this sort of thing to me, monsieur?  Do--do I remind
+you of the cook at home, or of an oyster-girl in Jersey?"
+
+She was flushing, but her voice was clear and vibrant, the look of the
+eyes direct and fearless.  How dared he hold her handkerchief like that!
+
+"I tell you them," he answered slowly, looking at the handkerchief in his
+hand, then raising his eyes to hers with whimsical gravity, "because I
+want you to ask me never to drink again."
+
+She looked at him scarce comprehending, yet feeling a deep compliment
+somewhere, for this man was a gentleman by birth, and his manner was
+respectful, and had always been respectful to her.
+
+"Why do you want me to ask you that?" she said.  "Because I'm going to
+France to join the war of the Vendee, and--"
+
+"With the Comte de Tournay?" she interrupted.  He nodded his head.  "And
+if I thought I was keeping a promise to--to you, I'd not break it.  Will
+you ask me to promise?" he persisted, watching her intently.
+
+"Why, of course," she answered kindly, almost gently; the compliment was
+so real, he could not be all bad.
+
+"Then say my name, and ask me," he said.
+
+"Monsieur--"
+
+"Leave out the monsieur," he interrupted.
+
+"Yves Savary dit Detricand, will you promise me, Guida Landresse--"
+
+"De Landresse," he interposed courteously.
+
+"--Guida Landresse de Landresse, that you will never again drink wine to
+excess, and that you will never do anything that"--she paused confused.
+"That you would not wish me to do," he said in a low voice.
+
+"That I should not wish you to do," she repeated in a half-embarrassed
+way.
+
+"On my honour I promise," he said slowly.
+
+A strange feeling came over her.  She had suddenly, in some indirect,
+allusive way, become interested in a man's life.  Yet she had done
+nothing, and in truth she cared nothing.  They stood looking at each
+other, she slightly embarrassed, he hopeful and eager, when suddenly a
+step sounded without, a voice called "Guida!" and as Guida coloured and
+Detricand turned towards the door, Philip d'Avranche entered impetuously.
+
+He stopped short on seeing Detricand.  They knew each other slightly, and
+they bowed.  Philip frowned.  He saw that something had occurred between
+the two.  Detricand on his part realised the significance of that
+familiar "Guida!" called from outside.  He took up his cap.
+
+"It is greeting and good-bye, I am just off for France," he said.
+
+Philip eyed him coldly, and not a little maliciously, for he knew
+Detricand's reputation well, the signs of a hard life were thick on him,
+and he did not like to think of Guida being alone with him.
+
+"France should offer a wide field for your talents just now," he answered
+drily; "they seem wasted here."  Detricand's eye flashed, but he answered
+coolly: "It wasn't talent that brought me here, but a boy's folly; it's
+not talent that's kept me from starving here, I'm afraid, but the
+ingenuity of the desperate."
+
+"Why stay here?  The world was wide, and France but a step away.  You
+would not have needed talents there.  You would no doubt have been
+rewarded by the Court which sent you and Rullecour to ravage Jersey--"
+
+"The proper order is Rullecour and me, monsieur."  Detricand seemed
+suddenly to have got back a manner to which he had been long a stranger.
+His temper became imperturbable, and this was not lost on Philip; his
+manner had a balanced serenity, while Philip himself had no such perfect
+control; which made him the more impatient.  Presently Detricand added in
+a composed and nonchalant tone:
+
+"I've no doubt there were those at Court who'd have clothed me in purple
+and fine linen, and given me wine and milk, but it was my whim to work in
+the galleys here, as it were."
+
+"Then I trust you've enjoyed your Botany Bay," answered Philip mockingly.
+"You've been your own jailer, you could lay the strokes on heavy or
+light."  He moved to the veille, and sat down.  Guida busied herself at
+the fireplace, but listened intently.
+
+"I've certainly been my own enemy, whether the strokes were heavy or
+light," replied Detricand, lifting a shoulder ironically.
+
+"And a friend to Jersey at the same time, eh?" was the sneering reply.
+
+Detricand was in the humour to tell the truth even to this man who hated
+him.  He was giving himself the luxury of auricular confession.  But
+Philip did not see that when once such a man has stood in his own
+pillory, sat in his own stocks, voluntarily paid the piper, he will take
+no after insult.
+
+Detricand still would not be tempted out of his composure.  "No," he
+answered, "I've been an enemy to Jersey too, both by act and example; but
+people here have been kind enough to forget the act, and the example I
+set is not unique."
+
+"You've never thought that you've outstayed your welcome, eh?"
+
+"As to that, every country is free to whoever wills, if one cares to pay
+the entrance fee and can endure the entertainment.  One hasn't to
+apologise for living in a country.  You probably get no better treatment
+than you deserve, and no worse.  One thing balances another."
+
+The man's cool impeachment and defence of himself irritated Philip, the
+more so because Guida was present, and this gentlemanly vagrant had him
+at advantage.
+
+"You paid no entrance fee here; you stole in through a hole in the wall.
+You should have been hanged."
+
+"Monsieur d'Avranche!" said Guida reproachfully, turning round from the
+fire.
+
+Detricand's answer came biting and dry.  "You are an officer of your
+King, as was I.  You should know that hanging the invaders of Jersey
+would have been butchery.  We were soldiers of France; we had the
+distinction of being prisoners of war, monsieur."
+
+This shot went home.  Philip had been touched in that nerve called
+military honour.  He got to his feet.  "You are right," he answered with
+reluctant frankness.  "Our grudge is not individual, it is against
+France, and we'll pay it soon with good interest, monsieur."
+
+"The individual grudge will not be lost sight of in the general, I hope?"
+rejoined Detricand with cool suggestion, his clear, persistent grey eye
+looking straight into Philip's.
+
+"I shall do you that honour," said Philip with mistaken disdain.
+
+Detricand bowed low.  "You will always find me in the suite of the Prince
+of Vaufontaine, monsieur, and ready to be so distinguished by you."
+Turning to Guida, he added: "Mademoiselle will perhaps do me the honour
+to notice me again one day?" then, with a mocking nod to Philip, he left
+the house.
+
+Guida and Philip stood looking after him in silence for a minute.
+Suddenly Guida said to herself: "My handkerchief--why did he take my
+handkerchief?  He put it in his pocket again."
+
+Philip turned on her impatiently.
+
+"What was that adventurer saying to you, Guida?  In the suite of the
+Prince of Vaufontaine, my faith!  What did he come here for?"
+
+Guida looked at him in surprise.  She scarcely grasped the significance
+of the question.  Before she had time to consider, he pressed it again,
+and without hesitation she told him all that had happened--it was so very
+little, of course--between Detricand and herself.  She omitted nothing
+save that Detricand had carried off the handkerchief, and she could not
+have told, if she had been asked, why she did not speak of it.
+
+Philip raged inwardly.  He saw the meaning of the whole situation from
+Detricand's stand-point, but he was wise enough from his own stand-point
+to keep it to himself; and so both of them reserved something, she from
+no motive that she knew, he from an ulterior one.  He was angry too:
+angry at Detricand, angry at Guida for her very innocence, and because
+she had caught and held even the slight line of association Detricand
+had thrown.
+
+In any case, Detricand was going to-morrow, and to-day-to-day should
+decide all between Guida and himself.  Used to bold moves, in this affair
+of love he was living up to his custom; and the encounter with Detricand
+here added the last touch to his resolution, nerved him to follow his
+strong impulse to set all upon one hazard.  A month ago he had told Guida
+that he loved her; to-day there should be a still more daring venture.
+A thing not captured by a forlorn hope seemed not worth having.  The girl
+had seized his emotions from the first moment, and had held them.  To him
+she was the most original creature he had ever met, the most natural, the
+most humorous of temper, the most sincere.  She had no duplicity, no
+guile, no arts.
+
+He said to himself that he knew his own mind always.  He believed in
+inspirations, and he would back his knowledge, his inspiration, by an
+irretrievable move.  Yesterday had come an important message from his
+commander.  That had decided him.  To-day Guida should hear a message
+beyond all others in importance.
+
+"Won't you come into the garden?" he said presently.
+
+"A moment--a moment," she answered him lightly, for the frown had passed
+from his face, and he was his old buoyant self again.  "I'm to make an
+end to this bashin of berries first," she added.  So saying, she waved
+him away with a little air of tyranny; and he perched himself boyishly on
+the big chair in the corner, and with idle impatience began playing with
+the flax on the spinning-wheel near by.  Then he took to humming a ditty
+the Jersey housewife used to sing as she spun, while Guida disposed of
+the sweet-smelling fruit.  Suddenly she stopped and stamped her foot.
+
+"No, no, that's not right, stupid sailor-man," she said, and she sang a
+verse at him over the last details of her work:
+
+              "Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
+                 The moon wheels full, and the tide flows high,
+               And your wedding-gown you must put it on
+                 Ere the night hath no moon in the sky--
+                        Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"
+
+She paused.  He was entranced.  He had never heard her sing, and the
+full, beautiful notes of her contralto voice thrilled him like organ
+music.  His look devoured her, her song captured him.
+
+"Please go on," he said, "I never heard it that way."  She was
+embarrassed yet delighted by his praise, and she threw into the next
+verse a deep weirdness:
+
+              "Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
+                 Your gown shall be stitched ere the old moon fade:
+               The age of a moon shall your hands spin on,
+                 Or a wife in her shroud shall be laid--
+                           Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"
+
+"Yes, yes, that's it!" he exclaimed with gay ardour.  "That's it.  Sing
+on.  There are two more verses."
+
+"I'll only sing one," she answered, with a little air of wilfulness.
+
+              "Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
+                 The Little Good Folk the spell they have cast;
+               By your work well done while the moon hath shone,
+                 Ye shall cleave unto joy at last--
+                        Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"
+
+As she sang the last verse she seemed in a dream, and her rich voice,
+rising with the spirit of the concluding lines, poured out the notes like
+a bird drunk with the air of spring.
+
+"Guida," he cried, springing to his feet, "when you sing like that it
+seems to me I live in a world that has nothing to do with the sordid
+business of life, with my dull trade--with getting the weather-gauge or
+sailing in triple line.  You're a planet all by yourself, Mistress Guida!
+Are you ready to come into the garden?"
+
+"Yes, yes, in a minute," she answered.  "You go out to the big apple-
+tree, and I'll come in a minute."  The apple-tree was in the farthest
+corner of the large garden.  Near it was the summer-house where Guida
+and her mother used to sit and read, Guida on the three-legged stool,
+her mother on the low, wide seat covered with ferns.  This spot Guida
+used to "flourish" with flowers.  The vines, too, crept through the
+rough latticework, and all together made the place a bower, secluded and
+serene.  The water of the little stream outside the hedge made music too.
+
+Philip placed himself on the bench beneath the appletree.  What a change
+was all this, he thought to himself, from the staring hot stones of
+Malta, the squalor of Constantinople, the frigid cliffs of Spitzbergen,
+the noisome tropical forests of the Indies!  This was Arcady.  It was
+peace, it was content.  His life was sure to be varied and perhaps
+stormy--here would be the true change, the spirit of all this.  Of course
+he would have two sides to his life like most men: that lived before the
+world, and that of the home.  He would have the fight for fame.  He would
+have to use, not duplicity, but diplomacy, to play a kind of game; but
+this other side to his life, the side of love and home, should be simple,
+direct--all genuine and strong and true.  In this way he would have a
+wonderful career.
+
+He heard Guida's footstep now, and standing up he parted the apple boughs
+for her entrance.  She was dressed all in white, without a touch of
+colour save in the wild rose at her throat and the pretty red shoes with
+the broad buckles which the Chevalier had given her.  Her face, too, had
+colour--the soft, warm tint of the peach-blossom--and her auburn hair was
+like an aureole.
+
+Philip's eyes gleamed.  He stretched out both his hands in greeting and
+tenderness.  "Guida--sweetheart!" he said.
+
+She laughed up at him mischievously, and put her hands behind her back.
+
+"Ma fe, you are so very forward," she said, seating herself on the bench.
+"And you must not call me Guida, and you've no right to call me
+sweetheart."
+
+"I know I've no right to call you anything, but to myself I always call
+you Guida, and sweetheart too, and I've liked to think that you would
+care to know my thoughts," he answered.
+
+"Yes, I wish I knew your thoughts," she responded, looking up at him
+intently; "I should like to know every thought in your mind.  .  .  .
+Do you know--you don't mind my saying just what I think?--I find myself
+feeling that there's something in you that I never touch; I mean, that a
+friend ought to touch, if it's a real friendship.  You appear to be so
+frank, and I know you are frank and good and true, and yet I seem always
+to be hunting for something in your mind, and it slips away from me
+always--always.  I suppose it's because we're two different beings,
+and no two beings can ever know each other in this world, not altogether.
+We're what the Chevalier calls 'separate entities.'  I seem to understand
+his odd, wise talk better lately.  He said the other day: 'Lonely we come
+into the world, and lonely we go out of it.'  That's what I mean.  It
+makes me shudder sometimes, that part of us which lives alone for ever.
+We go running on as happy as can be, like Biribi there in the garden, and
+all at once we stop short at a hedge, just as he does there--a hedge just
+too tall to look over and with no foothold for climbing.  That's what I
+want so much; I want to look over the Hedge."
+
+When she spoke like this to Philip, as she sometimes did, she seemed
+quite unconscious that he was a listener, it was rather as if he were
+part of her and thinking the same thoughts.  To Philip she seemed
+wonderful.  He had never bothered his head in that way about abstract
+things when he was her age, and he could not understand it in her.  What
+was more, he could not have thought as she did if he had tried.  She had
+that sort of mind which accepts no stereotyped reflection or idea; she
+worked things out for herself.  Her words were her own, and not
+another's.  She was not imitative, nor yet was she bizarre; she was
+individual, simple, inquiring.
+
+"That's the thing that hurts most in life," she added presently; "that
+trying to find and not being able to--voila, what a child I am to babble
+so!" she broke off with a little laugh, which had, however, a plaintive
+note.  There was a touch of undeveloped pathos in her character, for she
+had been left alone too young, been given responsibility too soon.
+
+He felt he must say something, and in a sympathetic tone he replied:
+
+"Yes, Guida, but after a while we stop trying to follow and see and find,
+and we walk in the old paths and take things as they are."
+
+"Have you stopped?" she said to him wistfully.  "Oh, no, not
+altogether," he replied, dropping his tones to tenderness, "for I've been
+trying to peep over a hedge this afternoon, and I haven't done it yet."
+"Have you?" she rejoined, then paused, for the look in his eyes
+embarrassed her.  .  .  .  "Why do you look at me like that?" she added
+tremulously.
+
+"Guida," he said earnestly, leaning towards her, "a month ago I asked you
+if you would listen to me when I told you of my love, and you said you
+would.  Well, sometimes when we have met since, I have told you the same
+story, and you've kept your promise and listened.  Guida, I want to go on
+telling you the same story for a long time--even till you or I die."
+
+"Do you--ah, then, do you?" she asked simply.  "Do you really wish
+that?"
+
+"It is the greatest wish of my life, and always will be," he added,
+taking her unresisting hands.
+
+"I like to hear you say it," she answered simply, "and it cannot be
+wrong, can it?  Is there any wrong in my listening to you?  Yet why
+do I feel that it is not quite right?--sometimes I do feel that."
+
+"One thing will make all right," he said eagerly; "one thing.  I love
+you, Guida, love you devotedly.  Do you--tell me if you love me?  Do not
+fear to tell me, dearest, for then will come the thing that makes all
+right."
+
+"I do not know," she responded, her heart beating fast, her eyes drooping
+before him; "but when you go from me, I am not happy till I see you
+again.  When you are gone, I want to be alone that I may remember all you
+have said, and say it over to myself again.  When I hear you speak I want
+to shut my eyes, I am so happy; and every word of mine seems clumsy when
+you talk to me; and I feel of how little account I am beside you.  Is
+that love, Philip--Philip, do you think that is love?"
+
+They were standing now.  The fruit that hung above Guida's head was not
+fairer and sweeter than she.  Philip drew her to him, and her eyes lifted
+to his.
+
+"Is that love, Philip?" she repeated.  "Tell me, for I do not know--it
+has all come so soon.  You are wiser; do not deceive me; you understand,
+and I do not.  Philip, do not let me deceive myself."
+
+"As the Judgment of Life is before us, I believe you love me, Guida--
+though I don't deserve it," he answered with tender seriousness.
+
+"And it is right that you should love me; that we should love each other,
+Philip?"
+
+"It will be right soon," he said, "right for ever.  Guida mine, I want
+you to marry me."
+
+His arm tightened round her waist, as though he half feared she would fly
+from him.  He was right; she made a motion backward, but he held her
+firmly, tenderly.  "Marry--marry you, Philip!" she exclaimed in
+trembling dismay.
+
+"Marry--yes, marry me, Guida.  That will make all right; that will bind
+us together for ever.  Have you never thought of that?"
+
+"Oh, never, never!" she answered.  It was true, she had never thought of
+that; there had not been time.  Too much had come all at once.  "Why
+should I?  I cannot--cannot.  Oh, it could not be--not at least for a
+long, long time, not for years and years, Philip."
+
+"Guida," he answered gravely and persistently, "I want you to marry me--
+to-morrow."
+
+She was overwhelmed.  She could scarcely speak.  "To-morrow--to-morrow,
+Philip?  You are laughing at me.  I could not--how could I marry you
+to-morrow?"
+
+"Guida, dearest,"--he took her hands more tightly now--"you must indeed.
+The day after to-morrow my ship is going to Portsmouth for two months.
+Then we return again here, but I will not go now unless I go as your
+husband!"
+
+"Oh, no, I could not--it is impossible, Philip!  It is madness--it is
+wrong.  My grandfather--"
+
+"Your grandfather need not know, sweetheart."
+
+"How can you say such wicked things, Philip?"
+
+"My dearest, it is not necessary for him to know.  I don't want any one
+to know until I come back from Portsmouth.  Then I shall have a ship of
+my own--commander of the Araminta I shall be then.  I have word from the
+Admiralty to that effect.  But I dare not let them know that I am married
+until I get commissioned to my ship.  The Admiralty has set its face
+against lieutenants marrying."
+
+"Then do not marry, Philip.  You ought not, you see."
+
+Her pleading was like the beating of helpless wings against the bars of a
+golden cage.
+
+"But I must marry you, Guida.  A sailor's life is uncertain, and what I
+want I want now.  When I come back from Portsmouth every one shall know,
+but if you love me--and I know you do--you must marry me to-morrow.
+Until I come back no one shall know about it except the clergyman, Mr.
+Dow of St. Michael's--I have seen him--and Shoreham, a brother officer of
+mine.  Ah, you must, Guida, you must!  Whatever is worth doing is better
+worth doing in the time one's own heart says.  I want it more, a thousand
+times more, than I ever wanted anything in my life."
+
+She looked at him in a troubled sort of way.  Somehow she felt wiser than
+he at that moment, wiser and stronger, though she scarcely defined the
+feeling to herself, though she knew that in the end her brain would yield
+to her heart in this.
+
+"Would it make you so much happier, Philip?" she said more kindly than
+joyfully, more in grave acquiescence than delighted belief.
+
+"Yes, on my honour--supremely happy."
+
+"You are afraid that otherwise, by some chance, you might lose me?" she
+said it tenderly, yet with a little pain.
+
+"Yes, yes, that is it, Guida dearest," he replied.  "I suppose women are
+different altogether from men," she answered.  "I could have waited ever
+so long, believing that you would come again, and that I should never
+lose you.  But men are different; I see, yes, I see that, Philip."
+
+"We are more impetuous.  We know, we sailors, that now-to-day-is our
+time; that to-morrow may be Fate's, and Fate is a fickle jade: she
+beckons you up with one hand to-day, and waves you down with the other
+to-morrow."
+
+"Philip," she said, scarcely above a whisper, and putting her hands
+on his arms, as her head sank towards him, "I must be honest with you--
+I must be that or nothing at all.  I do not feel as you do about it; I
+can't.  I would much--much--rather everybody knew.  And I feel it almost
+wrong that they do not."  She paused a minute, her brow clouded slightly,
+then cleared again, and she went on bravely: "Philip, if--if I should,
+you must promise me that you will leave me as soon as ever we are
+married, and that you will not try to see me until you come again from
+Portsmouth.  I am sure that is right, for the deception will not be so
+great.  I should be better able then to tell the poor grandpethe.  Will
+you promise me, Philip-dear?  It--it is so hard for me.  Ah, can't you
+understand?"
+
+This hopeless everlasting cry of a woman's soul!
+
+He clasped her close.  "Yes, Guida, my beloved, I understand, and I
+promise you--I do promise you."  Her head dropped on his breast, her arms
+ran round his neck.  He raised her face; her eyes were closed; they were
+dropping tears.  He tenderly kissed the tears away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+              "Oh, give to me my gui-l'annee,
+                 I pray you, Monseigneur;
+               The king's princess doth ride to-day,
+                 And I ride forth with her.
+               Oh!  I will ride the maid beside
+                 Till we come to the sea,
+               Till my good ship receive my bride,
+                 And she sail far with me.
+                 Oh, donnez-moi ma gui-l'annee,
+                   Monseigneur, je vous prie!"
+
+The singer was perched on a huge broad stone, which, lying athwart other
+tall perpendicular stones, made a kind of hut, approached by a pathway of
+upright narrow pillars, irregular and crude.  Vast must have been the
+labour of man's hands to lift the massive table of rock upon the
+supporting shafts--relics of an age when they were the only architecture,
+the only national monuments; when savage ancestors in lion skins, with
+stone weapons, led by white-robed Druid priests, came solemnly here and
+left the mistletoe wreath upon these Houses of Death for their adored
+warriors.
+
+Even the words sung by Shoreham on the rock carried on the ancient story,
+the sacred legend that he who wore in his breast this mistletoe got from
+the Druids' altar, bearing his bride forth by sea or land, should suffer
+no mischance; and for the bride herself, the morgen-gifn should fail not,
+but should attest richly the perfect bliss of the nuptial hours.
+
+The light was almost gone from the day, though the last crimson petals
+had scarce dropped from the rose of sunset.  Upon the sea beneath there
+was not a ripple; it was a lake of molten silver, shading into a leaden
+silence far away.  The tide was high, and the ragged rocks of the Banc
+des Violets in the south and the Corbiore in the west were all but
+hidden.
+
+Below the mound where the tuneful youth loitered was a path, leading down
+through the fields and into the highway.  In this path walked lingeringly
+a man and a maid.  Despite the peaceful, almost dormant life about them,
+the great event of their lives had just occurred, that which is at once a
+vast adventure and a simple testament of nature: they had been joined in
+marriage privately in the parish church of St. Michael's near by.  As
+Shoreham's voice came down the cotil, the two looked up, then passed on
+out of view.
+
+But still the voice followed them, and the man looked down at the maid,
+repeating the refrain of the song:
+
+                   "Oh, give to me my gui-l'annee,
+                    Monseigneur, je vous prie!"
+
+The maid looked up at the man tenderly, almost devoutly.
+
+"I have no Druid's mistletoe from the Chapel of St. George, but I will
+give you--stoop down, Philip," she added softly, "I will give you the
+first kiss I have ever given to any man."
+
+He stooped.  She kissed him on the forehead, then upon the lips.
+
+"Guida, my wife," Philip said, and drew her to his breast.
+
+"My Philip," she answered softly.  "Won't you say, 'Philip, my husband'?"
+
+She shyly did as he asked in a voice no louder than a bee's.  She was
+only seventeen.
+
+Presently she looked up at him with a look a little abashed, a little
+anxious, yet tender withal.
+
+"Philip," she said, "I wonder what we will think of this day a year from
+now--no, don't frown, Philip," she added.  "You look at things so
+differently from me.  To-day is everything to you; to-morrow is very much
+to me.  It isn't that I am afraid, it is that thoughts of possibilities
+will come whether or no.  If I couldn't tell you everything I feel I
+should be most unhappy.  You see, I want to be able to do that, to tell
+you everything."
+
+"Of course, of course," he said, not quite comprehending her, for his
+thoughts were always more material.  He was revelling in the beauty of
+the girl before him, in her perfect outward self, in her unique
+personality.  The more subtle, the deeper part of her, the searching soul
+never to be content with superficial reasons and the obvious cause, these
+he did not know--was he ever to know?  It was the law of her nature that
+she was never to deceive herself, to pretend anything, nor to forgive
+pretence.  To see things, to look beyond the Hedge, that was to be a
+passion with her; already it was nearly that.
+
+"Of course," Philip continued, "you must tell me everything, and I'll
+understand.  And as for what we'll think of this in another year, why,
+doesn't it hold to reason that we'll think it the best day of our lives--
+as it is, Guida?"  He smiled at her, and touched her shining hair.  "Evil
+can't come out of good, can it?  And this is good, as good as anything in
+the world can be.  .  .  .  There, look into my eyes that way--just that
+way."
+
+"Are you happy--very, very happy, Philip?" she asked, lingering on the
+words.
+
+"Perfectly happy, Guida," he answered; and in truth he seemed so, his
+eyes were so bright, his face so eloquent, his bearing so buoyant.
+
+"And you think we have done quite right, Philip?" she urged.
+
+"Of course, of course we have.  We are honourably disposing of our own
+fates.  We love each other, we are married as surely as others are
+married.  Where is the wrong?  We have told no one, simply because for a
+couple of months it is best not to do so.  The parson wouldn't have
+married us if there'd been anything wrong."
+
+"Oh, it isn't what the clergyman might think that I mean; it's what we
+ourselves think down, down deep in our hearts.  If you, Philip--if you
+say it is all right, I will believe that it is right, for you would never
+want your wife to have one single wrong thing like a dark spot on her
+life with you--would you?  If it is all right to you, it must be all
+right for me, don't you see?"
+
+He did see that, and it made him grave for an instant, it made him not
+quite so sure.
+
+"If your mother were alive," he answered, "of course she should have
+known; but it isn't necessary for your grandfather to know.  He talks; he
+couldn't keep it to himself even for a month.  But we have been regularly
+married, we have a witness--Shoreham over there "he pointed towards the
+Druid's cromlech where the young man was perched--" and it only concerns
+us now--only you and me."
+
+"Yet if anything happened to you during the next two months, Philip, and
+you did not come back!"
+
+"My dearest, dearest Guida," he answered, taking her hands in his,
+and laughing boyishly, "in that case you will announce the marriage.
+Shoreham and the clergyman are witnesses; besides, there's the
+certificate which Mr. Dow will give you to-morrow; and, above all,
+there's the formal record on the parish register.  There, sweetest
+interrogation mark in the world, there is the law and the gospel!
+Come, come, let us be gay, let this be the happiest hour we've yet
+had in all our lives."
+
+"How can I be altogether gay, Philip, when we part now, and I shall not
+see you for two whole long months?"
+
+"Mayn't I come to you for just a minute to-morrow morning, before I go?"
+
+"No, no, no, you must not, indeed you must not.  Remember your promise,
+remember that you are not to see me again until you come back from
+Portsmouth.  Even this is not quite what we agreed, for you are still
+with me, and we've been married nearly half an hour!"
+
+"Perhaps we were married a thousand years ago--I don't know," he
+answered, drawing her to him.  "It's all a magnificent dream so far."
+
+"You must go, you must keep your word.  Don't break the first promise
+you ever made me, Philip."
+
+She did not say it very reproachfully, for his look was ardent and
+worshipful, and she could not be even a little austere in her new joy.
+
+"I am going," he answered.  "We will go back to the town, I by the road,
+you by the shore, so no one will see us, and--"
+
+"Philip," said Guida suddenly, "is it quite the same being married
+without banns?"
+
+His laugh had again a youthful ring of delight.  "Of course, just the
+same, my doubting fay," said he.  "Don't be frightened about anything.
+Now promise me that--will you promise me?"
+
+She looked at him a moment steadily, her eyes lingering on his face with
+great tenderness, and then she said:
+
+"Yes, Philip, I will not trouble or question any longer.  I will only
+believe that everything is all right.  Say good-bye to me, Philip.
+I am happy now, but if--if you stay any longer--ah, please, please go,
+Philip!"
+
+A moment afterwards Philip and Shoreham were entering the high road,
+waving their handkerchiefs to her as they went.
+
+She had gone back to the Druid's cromlech where Philip's friend had sat,
+and with smiling lips and swimming eyes she watched the young men until
+they were lost to view.
+
+Her eyes wandered over the sea.  How immense it was, how mysterious, how
+it begot in one feelings both of love and of awe!  At this moment she was
+not in sympathy with its wonderful calm.  There had been times when she
+seemed of it, part of it, absorbed by it, till it flowed over her soul
+and wrapped her in a deep content.  Now all was different.  Mystery and
+the million happenings of life lay hidden in that far silver haze.  On
+the brink of such a sea her mind seemed to be hovering now.  Nothing was
+defined, nothing was clear.  She was too agitated to think; life, being,
+was one wide, vague sensation, partly delight, partly trepidation.
+Everything had a bright tremulousness.  This mystery was no dark cloud,
+it was a shaking, glittering mist, and yet there rose from it an air
+which made her pulse beat hard, her breath come with joyous lightness.
+She was growing to a new consciousness; a new glass, through which to
+see life, was quickly being adjusted to her inner sight.
+
+Many a time, with her mother, she had sat upon the shore at St. Aubin's
+Bay, and looked out where white sails fluttered like the wings of
+restless doves.  Nearer, maybe just beneath her, there had risen the keen
+singing of the saw, and she could see the white flash of the adze as it
+shaped the beams; the skeleton of a noble ship being covered with its
+flesh of wood, and veined with iron; the tall masts quivering to their
+places as the workmen hauled at the pulleys, singing snatches of patois
+rhymes.  She had seen more than one ship launched, and a strange shiver
+of pleasure and of pain had gone through her; for as the water caught the
+graceful figure of the vessel, and the wind bellied out the sails, it
+seemed to her as if some ship of her own hopes were going out between the
+reefs to the open sea.  What would her ship bring back again to her?  Or
+would anything ever come back?
+
+The books of adventure, poetry, history, and mythology she had read with
+her mother had quickened her mind, sharpened her intuition, had made her
+temperament still more sensitive--and her heart less peaceful.  In her
+was almost every note of human feeling: home and duty, song and gaiety,
+daring and neighbourly kindness, love of sky and sea and air and
+orchards, of the good-smelling earth and wholesome animal life, and all
+the incidents, tragic, comic, or commonplace, of human existence.
+
+How wonderful love was, she thought!  How wonderful that so many millions
+who had loved had come and gone, and yet of all they felt they had spoken
+no word that laid bare the exact feeling to her or to any other.  The
+barbarians who raised these very stones she sat on, they had loved and
+hated, and everything they had dared or suffered was recorded--but where?
+And who could know exactly what they felt?
+
+She realised the almost keenest pain of life, that universal agony, the
+trying to speak, to reveal; and the proof, the hourly proof even the
+wisest and most gifted have, that what they feel they can never quite
+express, by sound, or by colour, or by the graven stone, or by the spoken
+word.  .  .  .  But life was good, ah yes!  and all that might be
+revealed to her she would pray for; and Philip--her Philip--would help
+her to the revelation.
+
+Her Philip!  Her heart gave a great throb, for the knowledge that she was
+a wife came home to her with a pleasant shock.  Her name was no longer
+Guida Landresse de Landresse, but Guida d'Avranche.  She had gone from
+one tribe to another, she had been adopted, changed.  A new life was
+begun.
+
+She rose, slowly made her way down to the sea, and proceeded along the
+sands and shore-paths to the town.  Presently a large vessel, with new
+sails, beautiful white hull, and gracious form, came slowly round a
+point.  She shaded her eyes to look at it.
+
+"Why, it's the boat Maitre Ranulph was to launch to-day," she said.  Then
+she stopped suddenly.  "Poor Ranulph--poor Ro!" she added gently.  She
+knew that he cared for her--loved her.  Where had he been these weeks
+past?  She had not seen him once since that great day when they had
+visited the Ecrehos.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+The house of Elie Mattingley the smuggler stood in the Rue d'Egypte, not
+far east of the Vier Prison.  It had belonged to a jurat of repute, who
+parted with it to Mattingley not long before he died.  There was no doubt
+as to the validity of the transfer, for the deed was duly registered au
+greffe, and it said: "In consideration of one livre turnois," etc.
+Possibly it was a libel against the departed jurat that he and Mattingley
+had had dealings unrecognised by customs law, crystallising at last into
+this legacy to the famous pirate-smuggler.
+
+Unlike any other in the street, this house had a high stone wall in
+front, enclosing a small square paved with flat stones.  In one corner
+was an ivy-covered well, with an antique iron gate, and the bucket,
+hanging on a hook inside the fern-grown hood, was an old wine-keg--
+appropriate emblem for a smuggler's house.  In one corner, girdled by
+about five square feet of green earth, grew a pear tree, bearing large
+juicy pears, reserved for the use of a distinguished lodger, the
+Chevalier du Champsavoys de Beaumanoir.
+
+In the summer the Chevalier always had his breakfast under this tree.
+Occasionally one other person breakfasted with him, even Savary dit
+Detricand, whom however he met less frequently than many people of the
+town, though they lived in the same house.  Detricand was but a fitful
+lodger, absent at times for a month or so, and running up bills for food
+and wine, of which payment was never summarily demanded by Mattingley,
+for some day or other he always paid.  When he did, he never questioned
+the bill, and, what was most important, whether he was sober or "warm as
+a thrush," he always treated Carterette with respect, though she was not
+unsparing with her tongue under slight temptation.
+
+Despite their differences and the girl's tempers, when the day came for
+Detricand to leave for France, Carterette was unhappy.  Several things
+had come at once: his going,--on whom should she lavish her good advice
+and biting candour now?--yesterday's business in the Vier Marchi with
+Olivier Delagarde, and the bitter change in Ranulph.  Sorrowful
+reflections and as sorrowful curiosity devoured her.
+
+All day she tortured herself.  The late afternoon came, and she could
+bear it no longer--she would visit Guida.  She was about to start, when
+the door in the garden wall opened and Olivier Delagarde entered.  As he
+doffed his hat to her she thought she had never seen anything more
+beautiful than the smooth forehead, white hair, and long beard of the
+returned patriot.  That was the first impression; but a closer scrutiny
+detected the furtive, watery eye, the unwholesome, drooping mouth, the
+vicious teeth, blackened and irregular.  There was, too, something
+sinister in the yellow stockings, luridly contrasting with the black
+knickerbockers and rusty blue coat.
+
+At first Carterette was inclined to run towards the prophet-like figure
+--it was Ranulph's father; next she drew back with dislike--his smile was
+leering malice under the guise of amiable mirth.  But he was old, and he
+looked feeble, so her mind instantly changed again, and she offered him a
+seat on a bench beside the arched doorway with the superscription:
+
+              "Nor Poverty nor Riches, but Daily Bread
+               Under Mine Own Fig Tree."
+
+After the custom of the country, Carterette at once offered him
+refreshment, and brought him brandy--good old brandy was always to be got
+at the house of Elie Mattingley!  As he drank she noticed a peculiar,
+uncanny twitching of the fingers and eyelids.  The old man's eyes were
+continually shifting from place to place.  He asked Carterette many
+questions.  He had known the house years before--did the deep stream
+still run beneath it?  Was the round hole still in the floor of the back
+room, from which water used to be drawn in old days?  Carterette replied
+that it was M. Detricand's bedroom now, and you could plainly hear the
+stream running beneath the house.  Did not the noise of the water worry
+poor M. Detricand then?  And so it still went straight on to the sea--
+and, of course, much swifter after such a heavy rain as they had had the
+day before.
+
+Carterette took him into every room in the house save her own and the
+Chevalier's.  In the kitchen and in Detricand's bedroom Olivier
+Delagarde's eyes were very busy.  He saw that the kitchen opened on the
+garden, which had a gate in the rear wall.  He also saw that the lozenge-
+paned windows swung like doors, and were not securely fastened; and he
+tried the trap-door in Detricand's bedroom to see the water flowing
+beneath, just as it did when he was young--Yes, there it was running
+swiftly away to the sea!  Then he babbled all the way to the door that
+led into the street; for now he would stay no longer.
+
+When he had gone, Carterette sat wondering why it was that Ranulph's
+father should inspire her with such dislike.  She knew that at this
+moment no man in Jersey was so popular as Olivier Delagarde.  The longer
+she thought the more puzzled she became.  No sooner had she got one
+theory than another forced her to move on.  In the language of her
+people, she did not know on which foot to dance.
+
+As she sat and thought, Detricand entered, loaded with parcels and
+bundles.  These were mostly gifts for her father and herself; and for
+du Champsavoys there was a fine delft shaving-dish, shaped like a
+quartermoon to fit the neck.  They were distributed, and by the time
+supper was over, it was quite dark.  Then Detricand said his farewells,
+for it was ten o'clock, and he must be away at three, when his boat was
+to steal across to Brittany, and land him near to the outposts of the
+Royalist army under de la Rochejaquelein.  There were letters to write
+and packing yet to do.  He set to work gaily.
+
+At last everything was done, and he was stooping over a bag to fasten it.
+The candle was in the window.  Suddenly a hand--a long, skinny hand--
+reached softly out from behind a large press, and swallowed and crushed
+out the flame.  Detricand raised his head quickly, astonished.  There was
+no wind blowing--the candle had not even flickered when burning.  But
+then, again, he had not heard a sound; perhaps that was because his foot
+was scraping the floor at the moment the light went out.  He looked out
+of the window, but there was only starlight, and he could not see
+distinctly.  Turning round he went to the door of the outer hall-way,
+opened it, and stepped into the garden.  As he did so, a figure slipped
+from behind the press in the bedroom, swiftly raised the trap-door in the
+flooring, then, shadowed by the door leading into the hall-way, waited
+for him.
+
+Presently his footstep was heard.  He entered the hall, stood in the
+doorway of the bedroom for a moment, while he searched in his pockets for
+a light, then stepped inside.
+
+Suddenly his attention was arrested.  There was the sound of flowing
+water beneath his feet.  This could always be heard in his room, but now
+how loud it was!  Realising that the trap-door must be open, he listened
+for a second and was instantly conscious of some one in the room.  He
+made a step towards the door, but it suddenly closed softly.  He moved
+swiftly to the window, for the presence was near the door.
+
+What did it mean?  Who was it?  Was there one, or more?  Was murder
+intended?  The silence, the weirdness, stopped his tongue--besides, what
+was the good of crying out?  Whatever was to happen would happen at once.
+He struck a light, and held it up.  As he did so some one or something
+rushed at him.  What a fool he had been--the light had revealed his
+position!  But at the same moment came the instinct to throw himself to
+one side; which he did as the rush came.  In that one flash he had seen
+--a man's white beard.
+
+Next instant there was a sharp sting in his right shoulder.  The knife
+had missed his breast--the sudden swerving had saved him.  Even as it
+struck, he threw himself on his assailant.  Then came a struggle.  The
+long fingers of the man with the white beard clove to the knife like a
+dead soldier's to the handle of a sword.  Twice Detricand's hand was
+gashed slightly, and then he pinioned the wrist of his enemy, and tripped
+him up.  The miscreant fell half across the opening in the floor.  One
+foot, hanging down, almost touched the running water.
+
+Detricand had his foe at his mercy.  There was the first inclination to
+drop him into the stream, but that was put away as quickly as it came.
+He gave the wretch a sudden twist, pulling him clear of the hole, and
+wrenched the knife from his fingers at the same moment.
+
+"Now, monsieur," said he, feeling for a light, "now we'll have a look at
+you."
+
+The figure lay quiet beneath him.  The nervous strength was gone, the
+body was limp, the breathing was laboured.  The light flared.  Detricand
+held it down, and there was revealed the haggard, malicious face of
+Olivier Delagarde.
+
+"So, monsieur the traitor," said Detricand--" so you'd be a murderer too
+--eh?"
+
+The old man mumbled an oath.
+
+"Hand of the devil," continued Detricand, "was there ever a greater beast
+than you!  I held my tongue about you these eleven years past, I held it
+yesterday and saved your paltry life, and you'd repay me by stabbing me
+in the dark--in a fine old-fashioned way too, with your trap-doors, and
+blown-out candle, and Italian tricks--"
+
+He held the candle down near the white beard as though he would singe it.
+
+"Come, sit up against the wall there and let me look at you."
+
+Cringing, the old man drew himself over to the wall.  Detricand, seating
+himself in a chair, held the candle up before him.
+
+After a moment he said: "What I want to know is, how could a low-flying
+cormorant like you beget a gull of the cliffs like Maitre Ranulph?"
+
+The old man did not answer, but sat blinking with malignant yet fearful
+eyes at Detricand, who continued: "What did you come back for?  Why
+didn't you stay dead?  Ranulph had a name as clean as a piece of paper
+from the mill, and he can't write it now without turning sick, because
+it's the same name as yours.  You're the choice blackamoor of creation,
+aren't you?  Now what have you got to say?"
+
+"Let me go," whined the old man with the white beard.  "Let me go,
+monsieur.  Don't send me to prison."
+
+Detricand stirred him with his foot, as one might a pile of dirt.
+
+"Listen," said he.  "In the Vier Marchi they're cutting off the ear of a
+man and nailing it to a post, because he ill-used a cow.  What do you
+suppose they'd do to you, if I took you down there and told them it was
+through you Rullecour landed, and that you'd have seen them all murdered
+--eh, maitre cormorant?"
+
+The old man crawled towards Detricand on his knees.  "Let me go, let me
+go," he whined.  "I was mad; I didn't know what I was doing; I've not
+been right in the head since I was in the Guiana prison."
+
+At that moment it struck Detricand that the old man must have had some
+awful experience in prison, for now his eyes had the most painful terror,
+the most abject fear.  He had never seen so craven a sight.
+
+"What were you in prison for in Guiana, and what did they do to you
+there?" asked Detricand sternly.  Again the old man shivered horribly,
+and tears streamed down his cheeks, as he whined piteously: "Oh no, no,
+no--for the mercy of Christ, no!"  He threw up his hands as if to ward
+off a blow.
+
+Detricand saw that this was not acting, that it was a supreme terror, an
+awful momentary aberration; for the traitor's eyes were wildly staring,
+the mouth was drawn in agony, the hands were now rigidly clutching an
+imaginary something, the body stiffened where it crouched.
+
+Detricand understood now.  The old man had been tied to a triangle and
+whipped--how horribly who might know?  His mood towards the miserable
+creature changed: he spoke to him in a firm, quiet tone.
+
+"There, there, you're not going to be hurt.  Be quiet now, and you shall
+not be touched."
+
+Then he stooped over, and quickly undoing the old man's waistcoat, he
+pulled down the coat and shirt and looked at his back.  As far as he
+could see it was scarred as though by a red-hot iron, and the healed
+welts were like whipcords on the shrivelled skin.  The old man whimpered
+yet, but he was growing quieter.  Detricand lifted him up, and buttoning
+the shirt and straightening the coat again, he said:
+
+"Now, you're to go home and sleep the sleep of the unjust, and you're to
+keep the sixth commandment, and you're to tell no more lies.  You've made
+a shameful mess of your son's life, and you're to die now as soon as you
+can without attracting notice.  You're to pray for an accident to take
+you out of the world: a wind to blow you over a cliff, a roof to fall on
+you, a boat to go down with you, a hole in the ground to swallow you up,
+a fever or a plague to end you in a day."
+
+He opened the door to let him go; but suddenly catching his arms held him
+in a close grip.  "Hark!" he said in a mysterious whisper.
+
+There was only the weird sound of the running water through the open
+trap-door of the floor.  He knew how superstitious was every Jerseyman,
+from highest to lowest, and he would work upon that weakness now.
+
+"You hear that water running to the sea?" he said solemnly.  "You tried
+to kill and drown me to-night.  You've heard how when one man has drowned
+another an invisible stream follows the murderer wherever he goes, and he
+hears it, hour after hour, month after month, year after year, until
+suddenly one day it comes on him in a huge flood, and he is found,
+whether in the road, or in his bed, or at the table, or in the field,
+drowned, and dead?"
+
+The old man shivered violently.
+
+"You know Manon Moignard the witch?  Well, if you don't do what I say--
+and I shall find out, mind you--she shall bewitch the flood on you.  Be
+still .  .  .  listen!  That's the sound you'll hear every day of your
+life, if you break the promise you've got to make to me now."
+
+He spoke the promise with ghostly deliberation, and the old man, all the
+desperado gone out of him, repeated it in a husky voice.  Whereupon
+Detricand led him into the garden, saw him safe out on the road and
+watched him disappear.  Then rubbing his fingers, as though to rid them
+of pollution, with an exclamation of disgust he went back to the house.
+
+By another evening--that is, at the hour when Guida arrived home after
+her secret marriage with Philip d'Avranche--he saw the lights of the army
+of de la Rochejaquelein in the valley of the Vendee.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Adaptability was his greatest weapon in life
+He felt things, he did not study them
+If women hadn't memory, she answered, they wouldn't have much
+Lilt of existence lulling to sleep wisdom and tried experience
+Lonely we come into the world, and lonely we go out of it
+Never to be content with superficial reasons and the obvious
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BATTLE OF THE STRONG, PARKER, V2 ***
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