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.