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