rture--and so
far as Ranulph and the world knew she was wholly unworthy. Of late she
had sometimes wondered if, after all, she had had the right to do as
she had done in accepting the public shame, and in not proclaiming
the truth: if to act for one's own heart, feelings, and life alone, no
matter how perfect the honesty, is not a sort of noble cruelty, or cruel
nobility; an egotism which obeys but its own commandments, finding its
own straight and narrow path by first disbarring the feelings and lives
of others. Had she done what was best for the child? Misgiving upon this
point made her heart ache bitterly. Was life then but a series of trist
condonings at the best, of humiliating compromises at the worst?

She repeated her question to Ranulph now. "You haven't ambition any
longer?"

"I'm busy building ships," he answered evasively. "I build good ships,
they tell me, and I am strong and healthy. As for being connetable, I'd
rather help prisoners free than hale them before the Royal Court.
For somehow when you get at the bottom of most crimes--the small ones
leastways--you find they weren't quite meant. I expect--I expect," he
added gravely, "that half the crimes oughtn't to be punished at all; for
it's queer that things which hurt most can't be punished by law."

"Perhaps it evens up in the long end," answered Guida, turning away from
him to the fire, and feeling her heart beat faster as she saw how the
child nestled in Ranulph's arms--her child which had no father. "You
see," she added, "if some are punished who oughtn't to be, there are
others who ought to be that aren't, and the worst of it is, we care so
little for real justice that we often wouldn't punish if we could. I
have come to feel that. Sometimes if you do exactly what's right, you
hurt some one you don't wish to hurt, and if you don't do exactly what's
right, perhaps that some one else hurts you. So, often, we would rather
be hurt than hurt."

With the last words she turned from the fire and involuntarily faced
him. Their eyes met. In hers were only the pity of life, the sadness,
the cruelty of misfortune, and friendliness for him. In his eyes was
purpose definite, strong.

He went over and put the child in its high chair. Then coming a little
nearer to Guida, he said:

"There's only one thing in life that really hurts--playing false."

Her heart suddenly stopped beating. What was Ranulph going to say? After
all these years was he going to speak