her dancing dark eyes heralding great news.

"Don't get up, ma couzaine," she said, "please no. Sit just there, and
I'll sit beside you. Ah, but I have the most wonderfuls!"

Carterette was out of breath. She had hurried here from her home. As
she said herself, her two feet weren't in one shoe on the way, and that
with her news made her quiver with excitement.

At first, bursting with mystery, she could do no more than sit and look
in Guida's face. Carterette was quick of instinct in her way, but yet
she had not seen any marked change in her friend during the past few
months. She had been so busy thinking of her own particular secret that
she was not observant of others. At times she met Ranulph, and then she
was uplifted, to be at once cast down again; for she saw that his old
cheerfulness was gone, that a sombreness had settled on him. She
flattered herself, however, that she could lighten his gravity if she had
the right and the good opportunity; the more so that he no longer visited
the cottage in the Place du Vier Prison.

This drew her closer to Guida also, for, in truth, Carterette had no
loftiness of nature. Like most people, she was selfish enough to hold a
person a little dearer for not standing in her own especial light. Long
ago she had shrewdly guessed that Guida's interest lay elsewhere than
with Ranulph, and a few months back she had fastened upon Philip as the
object of her favour. That seemed no weighty matter, for many sailors
had made love to Carterette in her time, and knowing it was here to-day
and away to-morrow with them, her heart had remained untouched. Why then
should she think Guida would take the officer seriously where she herself
held the sailor lightly? But at the same time she felt sure that what