"But yes, Guida," he replied with stubborn tenderness, "it is you I mean
--it is you I've always meant. You have always been a hundred times more
to me than my father, but I let you fight your fight alone. I've waked
up now to my mistake. But I tell you true that though I love you better
than anything in the world, if things had gone well with you I'd never
have come to you. I never came, because of my father, and I'd never have
come because you are too far above me always--too fine, too noble for me.
I only come now because we're both apart from the world and lonely beyond
telling; because we need each other. I have just one thing to say: that
we two should stand together. There's none ever can be so near as those
that have had hard troubles, that have had bitter wrongs. And when
there's love too, what can break the bond! You and I are apart from the
world, a black loneliness no one understands. Let us be lonely no
longer. Let us live our lives together. What shall we care for the rest
of the world if we know we mean to do good and no wrong? So I've come to
ask you to let me care for you and the child, to ask you to make my home
your home. My father hasn't long to live, and when he is gone we could
leave this island for ever. Will you come, Guida?"

She had never taken her eyes from his face, and as his story grew her
face lighted with emotion, the glow of a moment's content, of a fleeting
joy. In spite of all, this man loved her, he wanted to marry her--in
spite of all. Glad to know that such men lived--and with how dark
memories contrasting with this bright experience-she said to him once
again: "You are a good man, Ranulph."

Coming near to her, he said in a voice husky with feeling: "Will you be
my wife, Guida?"

She stood up, one hand resting on the arm of the great chair, the other