ruined chapel, in no good humour with himself or
with the world, for exploring these barren rocks seemed a useless whim
of the Admiralty, and he could not conceive of any incident rising from
the monotony of duty to lighten the darkness of this very brilliant
day. His was not the nature to enjoy the stony detail of his profession.
Excitement and adventure were as the breath of life to him, and since
he had played his little part at the Jersey battle in a bandbox eleven
years before, he had touched hands with accidents of flood and field in
many countries.

He had been wrecked on the island of Trinidad in a tornado, losing his
captain and his ship; had seen active service in America and in India;
won distinction off the coast of Arabia in an engagement with Spanish
cruisers; and was now waiting for his papers as commander of a ship
of his own, and fretted because the road of fame and promotion was so
toilsome. Rumours of war with France had set his blood dancing a little,
but for him most things were robbed of half their pleasure because they
did not come at once.

This was a moody day with him, for he had looked to spend it
differently. As he walked up the shingle his thoughts were hanging
about a cottage in the Place du Vier Prison. He had hoped to loiter in
a doorway there, and to empty his sailor's heart in well-practised
admiration before the altar of village beauty. The sight of Guida's face
the day before had given a poignant pulse to his emotions, unlike the
broken rhythm of past comedies of sentiment and melodramas of passion.
According to all logic of custom, the acuteness of yesterday's
impression should have been followed up by today's attack; yet here he
was, like another Robinson Crusoe, "kicking up the shingle of a cursed
Patmos"--so he grumbled aloud. Patmos was not so wild a shot after all,
for no sooner had he spoken the word than, looking up, he saw in the
doorway of the ruined chapel the gracious figure of a girl: and a book
of revelations was opened and begun.

At first he did not recognise Guida. There was only a picture before him
which, by some fantastic transmission, merged into his reveries. What he
saw was an ancient building--just such a humble pile of stone and rough
mortar as one might see on some lone cliff of the AEgean or on abandoned
isles of the equatorial sea. The gloom of a windowless vault was behind
the girl, but the filtered sunshine of late September fell on her head.
It brigh