ars
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