"Eh ben, here's mackerel for supper," he added as he mounted his horse.

The woman was Guida Landresse, the child was her child, and they lived in
the little house upon the cliff at Plemont. They were hastening thither
now.




CHAPTER XXX

A visitor was awaiting Guida and the child: a man who, first knocking at
the door, then looking in and seeing the room empty, save for the dog
lying asleep by the fire, had turned slowly away, and going to the cliff
edge, looked out over the sea. His movements were deliberate, his body
moved slowly; the whole appearance was of great strength and nervous
power. The face was preoccupied, the eyes were watchful, dark,
penetrating. They seemed not only to watch but to weigh, to meditate,
even to listen--as it were, to do the duty of all the senses at once.
In them worked the whole forces of his nature; they were crucibles
wherein every thought and emotion were fused. The jaw was set and
strong, yet it was not hard. The face contradicted itself. While not
gloomy it had lines like scars telling of past wounds. It was not
despairing, it was not morbid, and it was not resentful; it had the look
of one both credulous and indomitable. Belief was stamped upon it; not
expectation or ambition, but faith and fidelity. You would have said he
was a man of one set idea, though the head had a breadth sorting little
with narrowness of purpose. The body was too healthy to belong to a
fanatic, too powerful to be that of a dreamer alone, too firm for other
than a man of action.