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