o her eyes. "Your faith has made me happy, Ro--I am selfish, you
see. Your love in itself could not make me happy, for I have no right to
listen, because--"

She paused. It seemed too hard to say: the door of her heart enclosing
her secret opened so slowly, so slowly. A struggle was going on in her.
Every feeling, every force of her nature was alive. Once, twice, thrice
she tried to speak and could not. At last with bursting heart and eyes
swimming with tears she said solemnly:

"I can never marry you, Ranulph, and I have no right to listen to your
words of love, because--because I am a wife."

Then she gave a great sigh of relief; like some penitent who has for
a lifetime hidden a sin or a sorrow and suddenly finds the joy of a
confessional which relieves the sick heart, takes away the hand of
loneliness that clamps it, and gives it freedom again; lifting the poor
slave from the rack of secrecy, the cruelest inquisition of life and
time. She repeated the words once more, a little louder, a little
clearer. She had vindicated herself to God, now she vindicated herself
to man--though to but one.

"I can never marry you; because I am a wife," she said again. There
was a slight pause, and then the final word was said: "I am the wife of
Philip d'Avranche."

Ranulph did not speak. He stood still and rigid, looking with eyes that
scarcely saw.

"I had not intended telling any one until the time should come"--once
more her hand reached out and tremblingly stroked the head of the
child--"but your faith has forced it from me. I couldn't let you go
from me now, ignorant of the truth, you whose trust is beyond telling.
Ranulph, I want you to know that I am at least no worse than you thought
me."

The look in his face was one of triumph, mingled with despair, hatred,
and purpose--hatred of Philip d'Avranche, and purpose concerning him. He
gloried now in knowing that Guida might take her place among the honest
women of this world,--as the world terms honesty,--but he had received
the death-blow to his every hope. He had lost her altogether, he who had
watched and waited; who had served and followed, in season and out of
season; who had been the faithful friend, keeping his eye fixed only
upon her happiness; who had given all; who had poured out his heart like
water, and his life like wine before her.

At first he only grasped the fact that Philip d'Avranche was the husband
of the woman he loved, and that she had been abando