did, and then, breaking his solemn pledge, leave her--it
was not right in her eyes; and if not right in the eyes of her who loved
him, in whose would it be right?

To these definitions she had come at last.

It is an eventful moment, a crucial ordeal for a woman, when she forces
herself to see the naked truth concerning the man she has loved, yet the
man who has wronged her. She is born anew in that moment: it may be to
love on, to blind herself, and condone and defend, so lowering her own
moral tone; or to congeal in heart, become keener in intellect, scornful
and bitter with her own sex and merciless towards the other, indifferent
to blame and careless of praise, intolerant, judging all the world by
her own experience, incredulous of any true thing. Or again she may
become stronger, sadder, wiser; condoning nothing, minimising nothing,
deceiving herself in nothing, and still never forgiving at least one
thing--the destruction of an innocent faith and a noble credulity;
seeing clearly the whole wrong; with a strong intelligence measuring
perfectly the iniquity; but out of a largeness of nature and by virtue
of a high sense of duty, devoting her days to the salvation of a man's
honour, to the betterment of one weak or wicked nature.

Of these last would have been Guida.

"O Philip, Philip, you have been wicked to me!" she sobbed.

Her tears fell upon the stone hearth, and the fire dried them. Every
teardrop was one girlish feeling and emotion gone, one bright fancy, one
tender hope vanished. She was no longer a girl. There were troubles and
dangers ahead of her, but she must now face them dry-eyed and alone.

In his second letter Philip had told her to announce the marriage, and
said that he would write to her grandfather explaining all, and also to
the Rev. Lorenzo Dow. She had waited and watched for that letter to her
grandfather, but it had not come. As for Mr. Dow, he was a prisoner with
the French; and he had never given her the marriage certificate.

There was yet another factor in the affair. While the island was
agog over Mr. Dow's misfortune, there had been a bold robbery at St.
Michael's Rectory of the strong-box containing the communion plate, the
parish taxes for the year, and--what was of great moment to at least one
person--the parish register of deaths, baptisms, and marriages. Thus it
was that now no human being in Jersey could vouch that Guida had been
married.

Yet these things troubled her li