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Updated: June 29, 2025
Come what might, there was one thing that he could yet do, and even as the thought possessed him he spoke. "Guida," he said with rushing emotion, "it is not too late. Forgive the past-the wrong of it, the shame of it. You are my wife; nothing can undo that. The other woman she is nothing to me. If we part and never meet again she will suffer no more than she suffers to go on with me.
What he wanted Carterette to tell him Guida never heard, though it concerned herself, for she gave a moan like a dumb animal in agony, and sat rigid and blanched, the needle she had been using embedded in her finger to the bone, but not a motion, not a sign of animation in face or figure. All at once, some conception of the truth burst upon the affrighted Carterette.
"Wherein is the trespass?" asked the Bailly sharply. "Tell your story." After an instant's painful pause, Guida told her tale. "Last night at Plemont," she said in a voice trembling a little at first but growing stronger as she went on, "I left my child, my Guilbert, in his bed, with Dormy Jamais to watch beside him, while I went to my boat which lies far from my hut.
"I went out to their ship last night." The chevalier looked with surprise and satisfaction at the seal on the letter, and, breaking it, spread open the paper, fumbled for the eye-glass which he always carried in his waistcoat, and began reading diligently. Meanwhile Ranulph turned to Guida. "To-morrow Jean Touzel and his wife and I go to the Ecrehos Rocks in Jean's boat," said he.
He saw that Guida herself was unconscious of the revelation she was making, and he showed no surprise, but he caught the note of her simplicity, and responded in kind. He flattered her deftly not that she was pressed unduly, he was too wise for that. He took her seriously; and this was not all dissimulation, for her every word had glamour, and he now exalted her intellect unduly.
"I went out to their ship last night." The chevalier looked with surprise and satisfaction at the seal on the letter, and, breaking it, spread open the paper, fumbled for the eye- glass which he always carried in his waistcoat, and began reading diligently. Meanwhile Ranulph turned to Guida. "To-morrow Jean Touzel and his wife and I go to the Ecrehos Rocks in Jean's boat," said he.
Getting no answer to her words, Guida went first to the hearth and stirred the fire, the old man sitting rigid in his chair and regarding her with fixed, watchful eyes. Then she found two candles and lighted them, placing them on the mantel, and turning to the crasset hanging by its osier rings from a beam, slowly lighted it.
To go to sea with Jean Touzel, folk said, was safer than living on land. Guida loved the sea; and she could sail a boat, and knew the tides and currents of the south coast as well as most fishermen. M. de Mauprat met her inquiring glance and nodded assent. She then said gaily to Ranulph: "I shall sail her, shall I not?" "Every foot of the way," he answered. She laughed and clapped her hands.
He had said that she had helped him, and she believed him; he had proved the soundness of his aims and ambitions; his career was in the world's mouth. The one letter the Chevalier did not read to Guida referred to Philip. In it Detricand begged the Chevalier to hold himself in readiness to proceed at a day's notice to Paris.
She unfolded the letter slowly, and Guida stopped sewing, but mechanically began to prick the linen lying on her knee with the point of the needle. "Well," said Carterette deliberately, "this letter's from a pend'loque of a fellow at least, we used to call him that though if you come to think, he was always polite as mended porringer. Often he hadn't two sous to rub against each other.
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