The Argosy — page 174: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Divided. 159 He had waited nearly two years for her love, and his patience was beginning to exhaust itself. CHAPTER IV. AT CAMPER, RAOUL’s home at Camper, near a little unknown fishing hamlet, was as unlike anything Denise was accustomed to as it is possible to conceive. The inhabitants were simple, primitive folk, silent and grave, like most toilers by the sea, and with no interests beyond their own home. The place had once been notorious for the smuggling that was carried on in the neighbourhood, and even now was suspected of being a favourite hiding place for contraband goods. About once in two years there would be a panic; the law would swoop down and make several arrests, to the fierce indignation of the people. Then, fora time, all would run smoothly again and Camper be of the world for- gotten as usual. Denise felt a shrinking fear of the rough sailors and fishermen, and of their scarcely less rough womankind. Used as she was to the restraints of a town, she imagined that there were all sorts of dangers lurking for her on the lovely shore, where no one was ever to be met except grim, weather-beaten men and women, grown stern and hard from their constant struggle with danger and familiarity with sudden death. Amongst these people Raoul was a king,a hero. From child- hood he had thrown himself into their ways, run the same perils and learnt by experience their hardships; besides doing what lay in his power, by personal aid and sympathy, to alleviate their melan- choly lot. More than once during the winter, Denise had seen him go out on wild, stormy nights, to help and advise the poor creatures whose nearest and dearest were in peril on the waves. But it was only by accident that she learnt how he, himself, was always the first to take active part in the rescues, the first to launch a boat when the fury of the sea scared off all but the most daring, and the last to give up a forlorn hope if it was within the range of possibility that a life could be saved. The old Chateau, which had been in the possession of the de Kériadecs for centuries, was situated about three quarters of a mile from the edge of the cliffs. The tract of land between it and the shore was rather bleak and desolate, ending in the steep cliff, at the foot of which lay a rugged line of rocks that stretched out to sea in a dangerous reef, upon which many a good boat had foundered. The Chateau itself was a picturesque old building of moderate size, with stained grey walls up which, in some places, the ivy GomilGaooks (SO) mn