When he had told his story, still hungry for applause, he repeated the account of how the tatterdemalion brigade of Frenchmen came down upon him out of the night, and how he should have killed Rullecour himself had it not been for an officer who struck him down from behind.
During the recital Ranulph had drawn near.

He watched the enthusiasm with which the crowd received every little detail of the egregious history.

Everybody believed the old man, who was safe, no matter what happened to himself, Ranulph Delagarde, ex-artilleryman, ship-builder--and son of a criminal.

At any rate the worst was over now, the first public statement of the lifelong lie.

He drew a sigh of relief and misery in one.