This was Ranulph Delagarde, who had gone in and out at his will, but that was casually and not too often, and he was discreet and spoke no word of love.

Sometimes she talked to him of things concerning the daily life with which she did not care to trouble Sieur de Mauprat.

In ways quite unknown to her he had made her life easier for her.

She knew that her mother had thought of Ranulph for her husband, although she blushed whenever--but it was not often--the idea came to her.

She remembered how her mother had said that Ranulph would be a great man in the island some day; that he had a mind above all the youths in St.Heliers; that she would rather see Ranulph a master ship-builder than a babbling ecrivain in the Rue des Tres Pigeons, a smirking leech, or a penniless seigneur with neither trade nor talent.