the sorrow which had deepened her nature. She shook her head once or
twice as though to say, Surely, what suffering! and now this seemed to
strike Ranulph, to convict him of selfishness, for he suddenly stopped.
His face cleared, and, smiling with a little of his old-time
cheerfulness, he said:

"Yet one gets used to it and works on because one knows it will all come
right sometime. I'm of the kind that waits."

She looked up at him with her old wide-eyed steadfastness and replied:
"You are a good man, Ranulph." He stood gazing at her a moment without
remark, then he said:

"No, ba su, no! but it's like you to say I am." Then he added suddenly:
"I've told you the whole truth about myself and about my father. He did
a bad thing, and I've stood by him. At first, I nursed my troubles and
my shame. I used to think I couldn't live it out, that I had no right
to any happiness. But I've changed my mind about that-oui-gia! As I
hammered away at my ships month in month out, year in year out, the truth
came home to me at last. What right had I to sit down and brood over my
miseries? I didn't love my father, but I've done wrong for him, and I've
stuck to him. Well, I did love--and I do love--some one else, and I
should only be doing right to tell her, and to ask her to let me stand
with her against the world."

He was looking down at her with all his story in his face. She put out
her hand quickly as if in protest and said:

"Ranulph--ah no, Ranulph--"