hen my
father came back, then I had to play a false game. He had lied, and to
save him I either had to hold my peace or tell his story. Speaking was
lying or being silent was lying. Mind you, I'm not complaining, I'm not
saying it because I want any pity. No, I'm saying it because it's the
truth, and I want you to know the truth. You understand what it means to
feel right in your own mind--if you feel that way, the rest of life is
easy. Eh ben, what a thing it is to get up in the morning, build your
fire, make your breakfast, and sit down facing a man whose whole life's
a lie, and that man your own father! Some morning perhaps you forget,
and you go out into the sun, and it all seems good; and you take your
tools and go to work, and the sea comes washing up the shingle, and you
think that the shir-r-r-r of the water on the pebbles and the singing of
the saw and the clang of the hammer are the best music in the world. But
all at once you remember--and then you work harder, not because you love
work now for its own sake, but because it uses up your misery and makes
you tired; and being tired you can sleep, and in sleep you can forget.
Yet nearly all the time you're awake it fairly kills you, for you feel
some one always at your elbow whispering, 'you'll never be happy
again, you'll never be happy again!' And when you tell the truth
about anything, that some one at your elbow laughs and says: 'Nobody
believes--your whole life's a lie!' And if the worst man you know passes
you by, that some one at your elbow says: 'You can wear a mask, but
you're no better than he, no better, no--"'

While Ranulph spoke Guida's face showed a pity and a kindness as deep
as the sorrow which had deepened her nature. She shook her head once or
twice as though to say, Surely, what suffering! and now this seemed to
strike Ranulph, to convict him of selfishness, for he suddenly
stopped. His face cleared, and, smiling with a little of his old-time
cheerfulness, he said:

"Yet one gets used to it and works on because one knows it will all come
right sometime. I'm of the kind that waits."

She looked up at him with her old wide-eyed steadfastness and replied:
"You are a good man, Ranulph." He stood gazing at her a moment without
remark, then he said:

"No, ba su, no! but it's like you to say I am." Then he added suddenly:
"I've told you the whole truth about myself and about my father. He did
a bad thing, and I've stood by him. At first, I nursed