my troubles and
my shame. I used to think I couldn't live it out, that I had no right
to any happiness. But I've changed my mind about that-oui-gia! As I
hammered away at my ships month in month out, year in year out, the
truth came home to me at last. What right had I to sit down and brood
over my miseries? I didn't love my father, but I've done wrong for him,
and I've stuck to him. Well, I did love--and I do love--some one else,
and I should only be doing right to tell her, and to ask her to let me
stand with her against the world."

He was looking down at her with all his story in his face. She put out
her hand quickly as if in protest and said:

"Ranulph--ah no, Ranulph--"

"But yes, Guida," he replied with stubborn tenderness, "it is you I
mean--it is you I've always meant. You have always been a hundred times
more to me than my father, but I let you fight your fight alone. I've
waked up now to my mistake. But I tell you true that though I love you
better than anything in the world, if things had gone well with you
I'd never have come to you. I never came, because of my father, and I'd
never have come because you are too far above me always--too fine, too
noble for me. I only come now because we're both apart from the world
and lonely beyond telling; because we need each other. I have just one
thing to say: that we two should stand together. There's none ever can
be so near as those that have had hard troubles, that have had bitter
wrongs. And when there's love too, what can break the bond! You and I
are apart from the world, a black loneliness no one understands. Let us
be lonely no longer. Let us live our lives together. What shall we care
for the rest of the world if we know we mean to do good and no wrong? So
I've come to ask you to let me care for you and the child, to ask you
to make my home your home. My father hasn't long to live, and when he is
gone we could leave this island for ever. Will you come, Guida?"

She had never taken her eyes from his face, and as his story grew her
face lighted with emotion, the glow of a moment's content, of a fleeting
joy. In spite of all, this man loved her, he wanted to marry her--in
spite of all. Glad to know that such men lived--and with how dark
memories contrasting with this bright experience-she said to him once
again: "You are a good man, Ranulph."

Coming near to her, he said in a voice husky with feeling: "Will you be
my wife, Guida?"

She stood up, one han