THE BATTLE OF THE STRONG

[A ROMANCE OF TWO KINGDOMS]

By Gilbert Parker


Volume 3.


CHAPTER XVI

The night and morning after Guida's marriage came and went. The day drew
on to the hour fixed for the going of the Narcissus. Guida had worked
all forenoon with a feverish unrest, not trusting herself, though the
temptation was sore, to go where she might see Philip's vessel lying in
the tide-way. She had resolved that only at the moment fixed for sailing
would she go to the shore; yet from her kitchen door she could see a wide
acreage of blue water and a perfect sky; and out there was Noirmont
Point, round which her husband's ship would go, and be lost to her vision
thereafter.

The day wore on. She got her grandfather's dinner, saw him bestowed in
the great arm-chair for his afternoon sleep, and, when her household work
was done, settled herself at the spinning wheel.

The old man loved to have her spin and sing as he drowsed. To-day his
eyes had followed her everywhere. He could not have told why it was, but
somehow all at once he seemed to deeply realise her--her beauty, the joy
of this innocent living intelligence moving through his home. She had