He had been gazing at the coast, but now he turned towards his host. Maurice began hastily to eat again.

"I'm afraid not. But we didn't look out for them. We were prosaic and thought of nothing but the fish."

"And is there really a house down there?" said Artois.

"Yes," said Hermione. "It used to be a ruin, but now it's built up and occupied. Gaspare"—she spoke to him as he was taking a dish from the table—"who is it lives in the Casa delle Sirene now? You told me, but I've forgotten."

A heavy, obstinate look came into the boy's face, transforming it. The question startled him, and he had not understood a word of the conversation which had led up to it. What had they been talking about? He glanced furtively at his master. Maurice did not look at him.

"Salvatore and Maddalena, signora," he answered, after a pause.

Then he took the dish and went into the house.

"What's the matter with Gaspare?" said Hermione. "I never saw him look like that before—quite ugly. Doesn't he like these people?"

"Oh yes," replied Maurice. "Why—why, they're quite friends of ours. We saw them at the fair only yesterday."

"Well, then, why should Gaspare look like that?"

"Oh," said Artois, who saw the discomfort of his host, "perhaps there is some family feud that you know nothing of. When I was in Sicily I found the people singularly subtle. They can gossip terribly, but they can keep a secret when they choose. If I had won the real friendship of a Sicilian, I would rather trust him with my secret than a man of any other race. They are not only loyal—that is not enough—but they are also very intelligent."

"Yes, they are both—the good ones," said Hermione. "I would trust Gaspare through thick and thin. If they were only as stanch in love as they can be in friendship!"

Gaspare came out again with another course. The ugly expression had gone from his face, but he still looked unusually grave.

"Ah, when the senses are roused they are changed beings," Artois said. "They hate and resent governance from outside, but their blood governs them."

"Our blood governs us when the time comes—do you remember?"

Hermione had said the words before she remembered the circumstances in which they had been spoken and of whom they were said. Directly she had uttered them she remembered.

"What was that?" Maurice asked, before Artois could reply.

He had seen a suddenly conscious look in Hermione's face, and instantly he was aware of a feeling of jealousy within him.

"What was that?" he repeated, looking quickly from one to the other.

"Something I remember saying to your wife," Artois answered. "We were talking about human nature—a small subject, monsieur, isn't it?—and I think I expressed the view of a fatalist. At any rate, I did say that—that our blood governs us when the time comes."

"The time?" Maurice asked.

His feeling of jealousy died away, and was replaced by a keen personal interest unmingled with suspicions of another.

"Well, I confess it sometimes seems to me as if, when a certain hour strikes, a certain deed must be committed by a certain man or woman. It is perhaps their hour of madness. They may repent it to the day of their death. But can they in that hour avoid that deed? Sometimes, when I witness the tragic scenes that occur abruptly, unexpectedly, in the comedy of life, I am moved to wonder."

"Then you should be very forgiving, Emile," Hermione said.

"And you?" he asked. "Are you, or would you be, forgiving?"

Maurice leaned forward on the table and looked at his wife with intensity.

"I hope so, but I don't think it would be for that—I mean because I thought the deed might not have been avoided. I think I should forgive because I pitied so, because I know how desperately unhappy I should be myself if I were to do a hateful thing, a thing that was exceptional, that was not natural to my nature as I had generally known it. When one really does love cleanliness, to have thrown one's self down deliberately in the mud, to see, to feel, that one is soiled from head to foot—that must be terrible. I think I should forgive because I pitied so. What do you say, Maurice?"

It was like a return to their talk in London at Caminiti's restaurant, when Hermione and Artois discussed topics that interested them, and Maurice listened until Hermione appealed to him for his opinion. But now he was more deeply interested than his companions.

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know about pitying and forgiving, but I expect you're right, Hermione."

"How?"

"In what you say about—about the person who's done the wrong thing feeling awful afterwards. And I think Monsieur Artois is right, too—about the hour of madness. I'm sure he is right. Sometimes an hour comes and one seems to forget everything in it. One seems not to be really one's self in it, but somebody else, and—and—"

Suddenly he seemed to become aware that, whereas Hermione and Artois had been considering a subject impersonally, he was introducing the personal element into the conversation. He stopped short, looked quickly from Hermione to Artois, and said:

"What I mean is that I imagine it's so, and that I've known fellows—in London, you know—who've done such odd things that I can only explain it like that. They must have—well, they must have gone practically mad for the moment. You—you see what I mean, Hermione?"

The question was uneasy.

"Yes, but I think we can control ourselves. If we couldn't, remorse would lose half its meaning. I could never feel remorse because I had been mad—horror, perhaps, but not remorse. It seems to me that remorse is our sorrow for our own weakness, the heart's cry of 'I need not have done the hateful thing, and I did it, I chose to do it!' But I could pity, I could pity, and forgive because of my pity."

Gaspare came out with coffee.

"And then, Emile, you must have a siesta," said Hermione. "This is a tiring day for you. Maurice and I will leave you quite alone in the sitting-room."

"I don't think I could sleep," said Artois.

He was feeling oddly excited, and attributed the sensation to his weak state of health. For so long he had been shut up, isolated from the world, that even this coming out was an event. He was accustomed to examine his feelings calmly, critically, to track them to their sources. He tried to do so now.

"I must beware of my own extra sensitiveness," he said to himself. "I'm still weak. I am not normal. I may see things distorted. I may exaggerate, turn the small into the great. At least half of what I think and feel to-day may come from my peculiar state."

Thus he tried to raise up barriers against his feeling that Delarey had got into some terrible trouble during the absence of Hermione, that he was now stricken with remorse, and that he was also in active dread of something, perhaps of some Nemesis.

"All this may be imagination," Artois thought, as he sipped his coffee. But he said again:

"I don't think I could sleep. I feel abnormally alive to-day. Do you know the sensation, as if one were too quick, as if all the nerves were standing at attention?"

"Then our peace here does not soothe you?" Hermione said.

"If I must be truthful—no," he answered.

He met Maurice's restless glance.

"I think I've had enough coffee," he added. "Coffee stimulates the nerves too much at certain times."

Maurice finished his and asked for another cup.

"He isn't afraid of being overstimulated," said Hermione. "But, Emile, you ought to sleep. You'll be dead tired this evening when you ride down."

"This evening," Hermione had said. Maurice wondered suddenly how late Artois was going to stay at the cottage.

"Oh no, it will be cool," Artois said.

"Yes," Maurice said. "Towards five we get a little wind from the sea nearly always, even sooner sometimes. I—I usually go down to bathe about that time."

"I must begin to bathe, too," Hermione said.

"What—to-day!" Maurice said, quickly.

"Oh no. Emile is here to-day."

Then Artois did not mean to go till late. But he—Maurice—must go down to the sea before nightfall.

"Unless I bathe," he said, trying to speak naturally—"unless I bathe I feel the heat too much at night. A dip in the sea does wonders for me."

"And in such a sea!" said Artois. "You must have your dip to-day. I shall go directly that little wind you speak of comes. I told a boy to come up from the village at four to lead the donkey down."

He smiled deprecatingly.

"Dreadful to be such a weakling, isn't it?" he said.

"Hush. Don't talk, like that. It's all going away. Strength is coming. You'll soon be your old self. But you've got to look forward all the time."

Hermione spoke with a warmth, an energy that braced. She spoke to Artois, but Maurice, eager to grasp at any comfort, strove to take the words to himself. This evening the climax of his Sicilian tragedy must come. And then? Beyond, might there not be the calm, the happiness of a sane life? He must look forward, he would look forward.

But when he looked, there stood Maddalena weeping.

He hated himself. He loved happiness, he longed for it, but he knew he had lost his right to it, if any man ever has such a right. He had created suffering. How dared he expect, how dared he even wish, to escape from suffering?

"Now, Emile," Hermione said, "you have really got to go in and lie down whether you feel sleepy or not. Don't protest. Maurice and I have hardly seen anything of each other yet. We want to get rid of you."

She spoke laughingly, and laughingly he obeyed her. When she had settled him comfortably in the sitting-room she came out again to the terrace where her husband was standing, looking towards the sea. She had a rug over her arm and was holding two cushions.

"I thought you and I might go down and take our siesta under the oak-trees, Maurice. Would you like that?"

He was longing to get away, to go up to the heap of stones on the mountain-top and set a match to the fragments of Hermione's letter, which the dangerous wind might disturb, might bring out into the light of day. But he acquiesced at once. He would go later—if not this afternoon, then at night when he came back from the sea. They went down and spread the rug under the shadow of the oaks.

"I used to read to Gaspare here," he said. "When you were away in Africa."

"What did you read?"

"The Arabian Nights."

She stretched herself on the rug.

"To lie here and read the Arabian Nights! And you want to go away, Maurice?"

"I think it's time to go. If I stayed too long here I should become fit for nothing."

"Yes, that's true, I dare say. But—Maurice, it's so strange—I have a feeling as if you would always be in Sicily. I know it's absurd, and yet I have it. I feel as if you belonged to Sicily, and Sicily did not mean to part from you."

"That can't be. How could I stay here always?"

"I know."

"Unless," he said, as if some new thought had started suddenly into his mind—"unless I were—"

He stopped. He had remembered his sensation in the sea that gray morning of sirocco. He had remembered how he had played at dying.

"What?"

She looked at him and understood.

"Maurice—don't! I—I can't bear that!"

"Not one of us can know," he answered.

"I—I thought of that once," she said—"long ago, on the first night that we were here. I don't know why—but perhaps it was because I was so happy. I think it must have been that. I suppose, in this world, there must aways be dread in one's happiness, the thought it may stop soon, it may end. But why should it? Is God cruel? I think He wants us to be happy."

"If he wants us—"

"And that we prevent ourselves from being happy. But we won't do that, Maurice—you and I—will we?"

He did not answer.

"This world—nature—is so wonderfully beautiful, so happily beautiful. Surely we can learn to be happy, to keep happy in it. Look at that sky, that sea! Look at the plain over there by the foot of Etna, and the coast-line fading away, and Etna. The God who created it all must have meant men to be happy in such a world. It isn't my brain tells me that, Maurice, it's my heart, my whole heart that you have made whole. And I know it tells the truth."

Her words were terrible to him. The sound of a step, a figure standing before her, a few Sicilian words—and all this world in which she gloried would be changed for her. But she must not know. He felt that he would be willing to die to keep her ignorant of the truth forever.

"Now we must try to sleep," he said, to prevent her from speaking any more of the words that were torturing him. "We must have our siesta. I had very little sleep last night."

"And I had none at all. But now—we're together."

He arranged the cushion for her. They lay in soft shadow and could see the shining world. The distant gleams upon the sea spoke to her. She fancied them voices rising out of the dream of the waters, voices from the breast of nature that was the breast of God, saying that she was not in error, that God did mean men to be happy, that they could be happy if they would learn of Him.

She watched those gleams until she fell asleep.



XX

When Hermione woke it was four o'clock. She sat up on the rug, looked down over the mountain flank to the sea, then turned and saw her husband. He was lying with his face half buried in his folded arms.

"Maurice!" she said, softly.

"Yes," he answered, lifting his face.

"Then you weren't asleep!"

"No."

"Have you been asleep?"

"No."

She looked at her watch.

"All this time! It's four. What a disgraceful siesta! But I was really tired after the long journey and the night."

She stood up. He followed her example and threw the rug over his arm.

"Emile will think we've deserted him and aren't going to give him any tea."

"Yes."

They began to walk up the track towards the terrace.

"Maurice," Hermione said, presently, more thoroughly wide-awake now. "Did you get up while I was asleep? Did you begin to move away from me, and did I stop you, or was it a dream? I have a kind of vague recollection—or is it only imagination?—of stretching out my hand and saying, 'Don't leave me alone—don't leave me alone!'"

"I moved a little," he answered, after a slight pause.

"And you did stretch out your hand and murmur something."

"It was that—'don't leave me alone.'"

"Perhaps. I couldn't hear. It was such a murmur."

"And you only moved a little? How stupid of me to think you were getting up to go away!"

"When one is half asleep one has odd ideas often."

He did not tell her that he had been getting up softly, hoping to steal away to the mountain-top and destroy the fragments of her letter, hidden there, while she slept.

"You won't mind," he added, "if I go down to bathe this evening. I sha'n't sleep properly to-night unless I do."

"Of course—go. But won't it be rather late after tea?"

"Oh no. I've often been in at sunset."

"How delicious the water must look then! Maurice!"

"Yes?"

"Shall I come with you? Shall I bathe, too? It would be lovely, refreshing, after this heat! It would wash away all the dust of the train!"

Her face was glowing with the anticipation of pleasure. Every little thing done with him was an enchantment after the weeks of separation.

"Oh, I don't think you'd better, Hermione," he answered, hastily. "I—you—there might be people. I—I must rig you up something first, a tent of some kind. Gaspare and I will do it. I can't have my wife—"

"All right," she said.

She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

"How lucky you men are! You can do anything. And there's no fuss. Ah, there's poor Emile, patiently waiting!"

Artois was already established once more in the chaise longue. He greeted them with a smile that was gentle, almost tender. Those evil feelings to which he had been a prey in London had died away. He loved now to see the happiness in Hermione's face. His illness had swept out his selfishness, and in it he had proved her affection. He did not think that he could ever be jealous of her again.

"Sleeping all this time?" he said.

"I was. I'm ashamed of myself. My hair is full of mountain-side, but you must forgive me, Emile. Ah, there's Lucrezia! Is tea ready, Lucrezia?"

"Si, signora."

"Then ask Gaspare to bring it."

"Gaspare—he isn't here, signora. But I'll bring it."

She went away.

"Where's Gaspare, I wonder?" said Hermione. "Have you seen him, Emile?"

"No."

"Perhaps he's sleeping, too. He sleeps generally among the hens."

She looked round the corner into the out-house.

"No, he isn't there. Have you sent him anywhere, Maurice?"

"I? No. Where should I—"

"I only thought you looked as if you knew where he was."

"No. But he may have gone out after birds and forgotten the time. Here's tea!"

These few words had renewed in Maurice the fever of impatience to get away and meet his enemy. This waiting, this acting of a part, this suspense, were almost unbearable. All the time that Hermione slept he had been thinking, turning over again and again in his mind the coming scene, trying to imagine how it would be, how violent or how deadly, trying to decide exactly what line of conduct he should pursue. What would Salvatore demand? What would he say or do? And where would they meet? If Salvatore waited for his coming they would meet at the House of the Sirens. And Maddalena? She would be there. His heart sickened. He was ready to face a man—but not Maddalena. He thought of Gaspare's story of the fallen olive-branch upon which Salvatore had spat. It was strange to be here in this calm place with these two happy people, wife and friend, and to wonder what was waiting for him down there by the sea.

How lonely our souls are!—something like that he thought. Circumstances were turning him away from his thoughtless youth. He had imagined it sinking down out of his sight into the purple sea, with the magic island in which it had danced the tarantella and heard the voice of the siren. But was it not leaving him, vanishing from him while still his feet trod the island and his eyes saw her legendary mountains?

Gaspare, he knew, was on the watch. That was why he was absent from his duties. But the hour was at hand when he would be relieved. The evening was coming. Maurice was glad. He was ready to face even violence, but he felt that he could not for much longer endure suspense and play the quiet host and husband.

Tea was over and Gaspare had not returned. The clock he had bought at the fair struck five.

"I ought to be going," Artois said.

There was reluctance in his voice. Hermione noticed it and knew what he was feeling.

"You must come up again very soon," she said.

"Yes, monsieur, come to-morrow, won't you?" Maurice seconded her.

The thought of what was going to happen before to-morrow made it seem to him a very long way off.

Hermione looked pleased.

"I must not be a bore," Artois answered. "I must not remind you and myself of limpets. There are rocks in your garden which might suggest the comparison. I think to-morrow I ought to stay quietly in Marechiaro."

"No, no," said Maurice. "Do come to-morrow."

"Thank you very much. I can't pretend that I do not wish to come. And, now that donkey-boy—has he climbed up, I wonder?"

"I'll go and see," said Maurice.

He was feverishly impatient to get rid of Artois. He hurried to the arch. A long way off, near the path that led up from the ravine, he saw a figure with a gun. He was not sure, but he was almost sure that it was Gaspare. It must be he. The gun made him look, indeed, a sentinel. If Salvatore came the boy would stop him, stop him, if need be, at the cost of his own life. Maurice felt sure of that, and realized the danger of setting such faithfulness and violence to be sentinel. He stood for a moment looking at the figure. Yes, he knew it now for Gaspare. The boy had forgotten tea-time, had forgotten everything, in his desire to carry out his padrone's instructions. The signora was not to know. She was never to know. And Salvatore might come. Very well, then, he was there in the sun—ready.

"We'll never part from Gaspare," Maurice thought, as he looked and understood.

He saw no other figure. The donkey-boy had perhaps forgotten his mission or had started late. Maurice chafed bitterly at the delay. But he could not well leave his guest on this first day of his coming to Monte Amato, more especially after the events of the preceding day. To do so would seem discourteous. He returned to the terrace ill at ease, but strove to disguise his restlessness. It was nearly six o'clock when the boy at last appeared. Artois at once bade Hermione and Maurice good-bye and mounted his donkey.

"You will come to-morrow, then?" Maurice said to him at parting.

"I haven't the courage to refuse," Artois replied. "Good-bye."

He had already shaken Maurice's hand, but now he extended his hand again.

"It is good of you to make me so welcome," he said.

He paused, holding Maurice's hand in his. Both Hermione and Maurice thought he was going to say something more, but he glanced at her, dropped his host's hand, lifted his soft hat, and signed to the boy to lead the donkey away.

Hermione and Maurice followed to the arch, and from there watched him riding slowly down till he was out of sight. Maurice looked for Gaspare, but did not see him. He must have moved into the shadow of the ravine.

"Dear old Emile!" Hermione said. "He's been happy to-day. You've made him very happy, Maurice. Bless you for it!"

Maurice said nothing. Now the moment had arrived when he could go he felt a strange reluctance to say good-bye to Hermione, even for a short time. So much might—must—happen before he saw her again that evening.

"And you?" she said, at last, as he was silent. "Are you really going down to bathe? Isn't it too late?"

"Oh no. I must have a dip. It will do me all the good in the world." He tried to speak buoyantly, but the words seemed to himself to come heavily from his tongue.

"Will you take Tito?"

"I—no, I think I'll walk. I shall get down quicker, and I like going into the sea when I'm hot. I'll just fetch my bathing things."

They walked back together to the house. Maurice wondered what had suddenly come to him. He felt horribly sad now—yet he wished to get the scene that awaited him over. He was longing to have it over. He went into the house, got his bathing-dress and towels, and came out again onto the terrace.

"I shall be a little late back, I suppose," he said.

"Yes. It's six o'clock now. Shall we dine at half-past eight—or better say nine? That will give you plenty of time to come up quietly."

"Yes. Let's say nine."

Still he did not move to go.

"Have you been happy to-day, Hermione?" he asked.

"Yes, very—since this morning."

"Since?"

"Yes. This morning I—"

She stopped.

"I was a little puzzled," she said, after a minute, with her usual frankness. "Tell me, Maurice—you weren't made unhappy by—by what I told you?"

"About—about the child?"

"Yes."

He did not answer with words, but he put his arms about her and kissed her, as he had not kissed her since she went away to Africa. She shut her eyes. Presently she felt the pressure of his arms relax.

"I'm perfectly happy now," she said. "Perfectly happy."

He moved away a step or two. His face was flushed, and she thought that he looked younger, that the boyish expression she loved had come back to him.

"Good-bye, Hermione," he said.

Still he did not go. She thought that he had something more to say but did not know how to say it. She felt so certain of this that she said:

"What is it, Maurice?"

"We shall come back to Sicily, I suppose, sha'n't we, some time or other?"

"Surely. Many times, I hope."

"Suppose—one can never tell what will happen—suppose one of us were to die here?"

"Yes," she said, soberly.

"Don't you think it would be good to lie there where we lay this afternoon, under the oak-trees, in sight of Etna and the sea? I think it would. Good-bye, Hermione."

He swung the bathing-dress and the towels up over his shoulder and went away through the arch. She followed and watched him springing down the mountain-side. Just before he reached the ravine he turned and waved his hand to her. His movements, that last gesture, were brimful of energy and of life. He acted better then than he had that day upon the terrace. But the sense of progress, the feeling that he was going to meet fate in the person of Salvatore, quickened the blood within him. At last the suspense would be over. At last he would be obliged to play not the actor but the man. He longed to be down by the sea. The youth in him rose up at the thought of action, and his last farewell to Hermione, looking down to him from the arch, was bold and almost careless.

Scarcely had he got into the ravine before he met Gaspare. He stopped. The boy's face was aflame with expression as he stood, holding his gun, in front of his padrone.

"Gaspare!" Maurice said to him.

He held out his hand and grasped the boy's hot hand.

"I sha'n't forget your faithful service," he said. "Thank you, Gaspare."

He wanted to say more, to find other and far different words. But he could not.

"Let me come with you, signorino."

The boy's voice was intensely, almost savagely, earnest.

"No. You must stay with the signora."

"I want to come with you."

His great eyes were fastened on his padrone's face.

"I have always been with you."

"But you were with the signora first. You were her servant. You must stay with her now. Remember one thing, Gaspare—the signora is never to know."

The boy nodded. His eyes still held Maurice. They glittered as if with leaping fires. That deep and passionate spirit of Sicilian loyalty, which is almost savage in its intensity and heedless of danger, which is ready to go to hell with, or for, a friend or a master who is beloved and believed in, was awake in Gaspare, illuminated him at this moment. The peasant boy looked noble.

"Mayn't I come with you, signorino?"

"Gaspare," Maurice said, "I must leave some one with the padrona. Salvatore might come still. I may miss him going down. Whom can I trust to stop Salvatore, if he comes, but you? You see?"

"Va bene, signorino."

The boy seemed convinced, but he suffered and did not try to conceal it.

"Now I must go," Maurice said.

He shook Gaspare's hand.

"Have you got the revolver, signorino?" said the boy.

"No. I am not going to fight with Salvatore."

"How do you know what Salvatore will do?"

Maurice looked down upon the stones that lay on the narrow path.

"My revolver can have nothing to do with Maddalena's father," he said.

He sighed.

"That's how it is, Gaspare. Addio!"

"Addio, signorino."

Maurice went on down the path into the shadow of the trees. Presently he turned. Gaspare stood quite still, looking after him.

"Signorino!" he called. "May I not come? I want to come with you."

Maurice waved his hand towards the mountain-side.

"Go to the signora," he called back. "And look out for me to-night. Addio, Gaspare!"

The boy's "Addio!" came to him sadly through the gathering shadows of the evening.

Presently Hermione, who was sitting alone on the terrace with a book in her lap which she was not reading, saw Gaspare walking listlessly through the archway holding his gun. He came slowly towards her, lifted his hat, and was going on without a word, but she stopped him.

"Why, Gaspare," she said, lightly, "you forgot us to-day. How was that?"

"Signora?"

Again she saw the curious, almost ugly, look of obstinacy, which she had already noticed, come into his face.

"You didn't remember about tea-time!"

"Signora," he answered, "I am sorry."

He looked at her fixedly while he spoke.

"I am sorry," he said again.

"Never mind," Hermione said, unable to blame him on this first day of her return. "I dare say you have got out of regular habits while I've been away. What have you been doing all the time?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Niente."

Again she wondered what was the matter with the boy to-day. Where were his life and gayety? Where was his sense of fun? He used to be always joking, singing. But now he was serious, almost heavy in demeanor.

"Gaspare," she said, jokingly, "I think you've all become very solemn without me. I am the old person of the party, but I begin to believe that it is I who keep you lively. I mustn't go away again."

"No, signora," he answered, earnestly; "you must never go away from us again. You should never have gone away from us."

The deep solemnity of his great eyes startled her. He put on his hat and went away round the angle of the cottage.

"What can be the matter with him?" she thought.

She remained sitting there on the terrace, wondering. Now she thought over things quietly, it struck her as strange the fact that she had left behind her in the priest's house three light-hearted people, and had come back to find Lucrezia drowned in sorrow, Gaspare solemn, even mysterious in his manner, and her husband—but here her thoughts paused, not labelling Maurice. At first he had puzzled her the most. But she thought she had found reasons for the change—a passing one, she felt sure—in him. He had secretly resented her absence, and, though utterly free from any ignoble suspicion of her, he had felt boyishly jealous of her friendship with Emile. That was very natural. For this was their honeymoon. She considered it their honeymoon prolonged, delightfully prolonged, beyond any fashionable limit. Lucrezia's depression was easily comprehensible. The change in her husband she accounted for; but now here was Gaspare looking dismal!

"I must cheer them all up," she thought to herself. "This beautiful time mustn't end dismally."

And then she thought of the inevitable departure. Was Maurice looking forward to it, desiring it? He had spoken that day as if he wished to be off. In London she had been able to imagine him in the South, in the highway of the sun. But now that she was here in Sicily she could not imagine him in London.

"He is not in his right place there," she thought.

Yet they must go, and soon. She knew that they were going, and yet she could not feel that they were going. What she had said under the oak-trees was true. In the spring her tender imagination had played softly with the idea of Sicily's joy in the possession of her son, of Maurice. Would Sicily part from him without an effort to retain him? Would Sicily let him go? She smiled to herself at her fancies. But if Sicily kept him, how would she keep him? The smile left her lips and her eyes as she thought of Maurice's suggestion. That would be too horrible. God would not allow that. And yet what tragedies He allowed to come into the lives of others. She faced certain facts, as she sat there, facts permitted, or deliberately brought about by the Divine Will. The scourge of war—that sowed sorrows over a land as the sower in the field scatters seeds. She, like others, had sat at home and read of battles in which thousands of men had been killed, and she had grieved—or had she really grieved, grieved with her heart? She began to wonder, thinking of Maurice's veiled allusion to the possibility of his death. He was the spirit of youth to her. And all the boys slain in battle! Had not each one of them represented the spirit of youth to some one, to some woman—mother, sister, wife, lover?

What were those women's feelings towards God?

She wondered. She wondered exceedingly. And presently a terrible thought came into her mind. It was this. How can one forgive God if He snatches away the spirit of youth that one loves?

Under the shadow of the oak-trees she had lain that day and looked out upon the shining world—upon the waters, upon the plains, upon the mountains, upon the calling coast-line and the deep passion of the blue. And she had felt the infinite love of God. When she had thought of God, she had thought of Him as the great Provider of happiness, as One who desired, with a heart too large and generous for the mere accurate conception of man, the joy of man.

But Maurice was beside her then.

Those whose lives had been ruined by great tragedies, when they looked out upon the shining world what must they think, feel?

She strove to imagine. Their conception of God must surely be very different from hers.

Once she had been almost unable to believe that God could choose her to be the recipient of a supreme happiness. But we accustom ourselves with a wonderful readiness to a happy fate. She had come back—she had been allowed to return to the Garden of Paradise. And this fact had given to her a confidence in life which was almost audacious. So now, even while she imagined the sorrows of others, half strove to imagine what her own sorrows might be, her inner feeling was still one of confidence. She looked out on the shining world, and in her heart was the shining world. She looked out on the glory of the blue, and in her heart was the glory of the blue. The world shone for her because she had Maurice. She knew that. But there was light in it. There would always be light whatever happened to any human creature. There would always be the sun, the great symbol of joy. It rose even upon the battle-field where the heaps of the dead were lying.

She could not realize sorrow to-day. She must see the sunlight even in the deliberate visions conjured up by her imagination.

Gaspare did not reappear. For a long time she was alone. She watched the changing of the light, the softening of the great landscape as the evening approached. Sometimes she thought of Maurice's last words about being laid to rest some day in the shadows of the oak-trees, in sight of Etna and the sea. When the years had gone, perhaps they would lie together in Sicily, wrapped in the final siesta of the body. Perhaps the unborn child, of whose beginning she was mystically conscious, would lay them to rest there.

"Buon riposo." She loved the Sicilian good-night. Better than any text she would love to have those simple words written above her sleeping-place and his. "Buon riposo!"—she murmured the words to herself as she looked at the quiet of the hills, at the quiet of the sea. The glory of the world was inspiring, but the peace of the world was almost more uplifting, she thought. Far off, in the plain, she discerned tiny trails of smoke from Sicilian houses among the orange-trees beside the sea. The gold was fading. The color of the waters was growing paler, gentler, the color of the sky less passionate. The last point of the coast-line was only a shadow now, scarcely that. Somewhere was the sunset, its wonder unseen by her, but realized because of this growing tenderness, that was like a benediction falling upon her from a distant love, intent to shield her and her little home from sorrow and from danger. Nature was whispering her "Buon riposo!" Her hushed voice spoke withdrawn among the mountains, withdrawn upon the spaces of the sea. The heat of the golden day was blessed, but after it how blessed was the cool of the dim night!

Again she thought that the God who had placed man in the magnificent scheme of the world must have intended and wished him to be always happy there. Nature seemed to be telling her this, and her heart was convinced by Nature, though the story of the Old Testament had sometimes left her smiling or left her wondering. Men had written a Bible. God had written a Bible, too. And here she read its pages and was made strong by it.

"Signora!"

Hermione started and turned her head.

"Lucrezia! What is it?"

"What time is it, signora?"

Hermione looked at her watch.

"Nearly eight o'clock. An hour still before supper."

"I've got everything ready."

"To-night we've only cold things, haven't we? You made us a very nice collazione. The French signore praised your cooking, and he's very particular, as French people generally are. So you ought to be proud of yourself."

Lucrezia smiled, but only for an instant. Then she stood with an anxious face, twisting her apron.

"Signora!"

"Yes? What is it?"

"Would you mind—may I—"

She stopped.

"Why, Lucrezia, are you afraid of me? I've certainly been away too long!"

"No, no, signora, but—" Tears hung in her eyes. "Will you let me go away if I promise to be back by nine?"

"But you can't go to Marechiaro in—"

"No, signora. I only want to go to the mountain over there under Castel Vecchio. I want to go to the Madonna."

Hermione took one of the girl's hands.

"To the Madonna della Rocca?"

"Si, signora."

"I understand."

"I have a candle to burn to the Madonna. If I go now I can be back before nine."

She stood gazing pathetically, like a big child, at her padrona.

"Lucrezia," Hermione said, moved to a great pity by her own great happiness, "would you mind if I came, too? I think I should like to say a prayer for you to-night. I am not a Catholic, but my prayer cannot hurt you."

Lucrezia suddenly forgot distinctions, threw her arms round Hermione, and began to sob.

"Hush, you must be brave!"

She smoothed the girl's dark hair gently.

"Have you got your candle?"

"Si."

She showed it.

"Let us go quickly, then. Where's Gaspare?"

"Close to the house, signora, on the mountain. One cannot speak with him to-day."

"Why not?"

"Non lo so. But he is terrible to-day!"

So Lucrezia had noticed Gaspare's strangeness, too, even in the midst of her sorrow!

"Gaspare!" Hermione called.

There was no answer.

"Gaspare!"

She called louder.

"Si, signora!"

The voice came from somewhere behind the house.

"I am going for a walk with Lucrezia. We shall be back at nine. Tell the padrone if he comes."

"Si, signora."

The two women set out without seeing Gaspare. They walked in silence down the mountain-path. Lucrezia held her candle carefully, like one in a procession. She was not sobbing now. There were no tears in her eyes. The companionship and the sympathy of her padrona had given her some courage, some hope, had taken away from her the desolate feeling, the sensation of abandonment which had been torturing her. And then she had an almost blind faith in the Madonna della Rocca. And the padrona was going to pray, too. She was not a Catholic, but she was a lady and she was good. The Madonna della Rocca must surely be influenced by her petition.

So Lucrezia plucked up a little courage. The activity of the walk helped her. She knew the solace of movement. And perhaps, without being conscious of it, she was influenced by the soft beauty of the evening, by the peace of the hills. But as they crossed the ravine they heard the tinkle of bells, and a procession of goats tripped by them, following a boy who was twittering upon a flute. He was playing the tune of the tarantella, that tune which Hermione associated with careless joy in the sun. He passed down into the shadows of the trees, and gradually the airy rapture of his fluting and the tinkle of the goat-bells died away towards Marechiaro. Then Hermione saw tears rolling down over Lucrezia's brown cheeks.

"He can't play it like Sebastiano, signora!" she said.

The little tune had brought back all her sorrow.

"Perhaps we shall soon hear Sebastiano play it again," said Hermione.

They began to climb upward on the far side of the ravine towards the fierce silhouette of the Saracenic castle on the height. Beneath the great crag on which it was perched was the shrine of the Madonna della Rocca. Night was coming now, and the little lamp before the shrine shone gently, throwing a ray of light upon the stones of the path. When they reached it, Lucrezia crossed herself, and they stood together for a moment looking at the faded painting of the Madonna, almost effaced against its rocky background. Within the glass that sheltered it stood vases of artificial flowers, and on the ledge outside the glass were two or three bunches of real flowers, placed there by peasants returning to their homes in Castel Vecchio from their labors in the vineyards and the orchards. There were also two branches with clustering, red-gold oranges lying among the flowers. It was a strange, wild place. The precipice of rock, which the castello dominated, leaned slightly forward above the head of the Madonna, as if it meditated overwhelming her. But she smiled gently, as if she had no fear of it, bending down her pale eyes to the child who lay upon her girlish knees. Among the bowlders, the wild cactus showed its spiked leaves, and in the daytime the long black snakes sunned themselves upon the stones.

To Hermione this lonely and faded Madonna, smiling calmly beneath the savagely frowning rock upon which dead men had built long years ago a barbarous fastness, was touching in her solitude. There was something appealing in her frailness, in her thin, anaemic calm. How long had she been here? How long would she remain? She was fading away, as things fade in the night. Yet she had probably endured for years, would still be here for years to come, would be here to receive the wild flowers of peasant children, the prayers of peasant lovers, the adoration of the poor, who, having very little here, put their faith in far-off worlds, where they will have harvests surely without reaping in the heat of the sun, where they will have good wine without laboring in the vineyards, where they will be able to rest without the thought coming to them, "If to-day I rest, to-morrow I shall starve."

As Hermione looked at the painting lit by the little lamp, at the gifts of the flowers and the fruit, she began to feel as if indeed a woman dwelt there, in that niche of the crag, as if a heart were there, a soul to pity, an ear to listen.

Lucrezia knelt down quietly, lit her candle, turned it upside down till the hot wax dripped onto the rock and made a foundation for it, then stuck it upright, crossed herself silently, and began to pray. Her lips moved quickly. The candle-flame flickered for a moment, then burned steadily, sending its thin fire up towards the evening star. After a moment Hermione knelt down beside her.

She had never before prayed at a shrine. It was curious to be kneeling under this savage wall of rock above which the evening star showed itself in the clear heaven of night. She looked at the star and at the Madonna, then at the little bunches of flowers, and at Lucrezia's candle. These gifts of the poor moved her heart. Poverty giving is beautiful. She thought that, and was almost ashamed of the comfort of her life. She wished she had brought a candle, too. Then she bent her head and began to pray that Sebastiano might remember Lucrezia and return to her. To make her prayer more earnest, she tried to realize Lucrezia's sorrow by putting herself in Lucrezia's place, and Maurice in Sebastiano's. It was such a natural effort as people make every day, every hour. If Maurice had forgotten her in absence, had given his love to another, had not cared to return to her! If she were alone now in Sicily while he was somewhere else, happy with some one else!

Suddenly the wildness of this place where she knelt became terrible to her. She felt the horror of solitude, of approaching darkness. The outlines of the rocks and of the ruined castle looked threatening, alarming. The pale light of the lamp before the shrine and of Lucrezia's votive candle drew to them not only the fluttering night-moths, but the spirits of desolation and of hollow grief that dwell among the waste places and among the hills. Night seemed no more beneficent, but dreary as a spectre that came to rob the world of all that made it beautiful. The loneliness of deserted women encompassed her. Was there any other loneliness comparable to it?

She felt sure that there was not, and she found herself praying not only for Lucrezia, but for all women who were sad because they loved, for all women who were deserted by those whom they loved, or who had lost those whom they loved.

At first she believed that she was addressing her prayer to the Madonna della Rocca, the Blessed Virgin of the Rocks, whose pale image was before her. But presently she knew that her words, the words of her lips and the more passionate words of her heart, were going out to a Being before whom the sun burned as a lamp and the moon as a votive taper. She was thinking of women, she was praying for women, but she was no longer praying to a woman. It seemed to her as if she was so ardent a suitor that she pushed past the Holy Mother of God into the presence of God Himself. He had created women. He had created the love of women. To Him she would, she must, appeal.

Often she had prayed before, but never as now, never with such passion, with such a sensation of personally pleading. The effort of her heart was like the effort of womanhood. It seemed to her—and she had no feeling that this was blasphemous—as if God knew, understood, everything of the world He had created except perhaps this—the inmost agony some women suffer, as if she, perhaps, could make Him understand this by her prayer. And she strove to recount this agony, to make it clear to God.

Was it a presumptuous effort? She did not feel that it was. And now she felt selfless. She was no more thinking of herself, was no longer obliged to concentrate her thoughts and her imagination upon herself and the one she loved best. She had passed beyond that, as she had passed beyond the Madonna della Rocca. She was the voice and the heart not of a woman, but of woman praying in the night to the God who had made woman and the night.

From behind a rock Gaspare watched the two praying women. He had not forgotten his padrone's words, and when Hermione and Lucrezia set off from the cottage he had followed them, faithful to his trust. Intent upon their errand, they had not seen him. His step was light among the stones, and he had kept at a distance. Now he stood still, gazing at them as they prayed.

Gaspare did not believe in priests. Very few Sicilians do. An uncle of his was a priest's son, and he had other reasons, quite sufficient to his mind, for being incredulous of the sanctity of those who celebrated the mass to which he seldom went. But he believed in God, and he believed superstitiously in the efficacy of the Madonna and in the powers of the saints. Once his little brother had fallen dangerously ill on the festa of San Giorgio, the santo patrono of Castel Vecchio. He had gone to the festa, and had given all his money, five lire, to the saint to heal his brother. Next day the child was well. In misfortune he would probably utter a prayer, or burn a candle, himself. That Lucrezia might think that she had reason to pray he understood, though he doubted whether the Madonna and all the saints could do much for the reclamation of his friend Sebastiano. But why should the padrona kneel there out-of-doors sending up such earnest petitions? She was not a Catholic. He had never seen her pray before. He looked on with wonder, presently with discomfort, almost with anger. To-night he was what he would himself have called "nervoso," and anything that irritated his already strung-up nerves roused his temper. He was in anxiety about his padrone, and he wanted to be back at the priest's house, he wanted to see his padrone again at the earliest possible moment. The sight of his padrona committing an unusual action alarmed him. Was she, then, afraid as he was afraid? Did she know, suspect anything? His experience of women was that whenever they were in trouble they went for comfort and advice to the Madonna and the saints.

He grew more and more uneasy. Presently he drew softly a little nearer. It was getting late. Night had fallen. He must know the result of the padrone's interview with Salvatore, and he could not leave the padrona. Well, then—! He crept nearer and nearer till at last he was close to the shrine and could see the Madonna smiling. Then he crossed himself and said, softly:

"Signora!"

Hermione did not hear him. She was wrapped in the passion of her prayer.

"Signora!"

He bent forward and touched her on the shoulder. She started, turned her head, and rose to her feet.

"Gaspare!"

She looked startled. This abrupt recall to the world confused her for a moment.

"Gaspare! What is it? The padrone?"

He took off his cap.

"Signora, do you know how late it is?"

"Has the padrone come back?"

Lucrezia was on her feet, too. The tears were in her eyes.

"Scusi, signora!" said Gaspare.

Hermione began to look more natural.

"Has the padrone come back and sent you for us?"

"He did not send me, signora. It was getting dark. I thought it best to come. But I expect he is back. I expect he is waiting for us now."

"You came to guard me?"

She smiled. She liked his watchfulness.

"What's the time?"

She looked at her watch.

"Why, it is nine already! We must hurry. Come, Lucrezia!"

They went quickly down the path.

They did not talk as they went. Gaspare led the way. It was obvious that he was in great haste. Sometimes he forgot that the padrona was not so light-footed as he was, and sprang on so swiftly that she called to him to wait. When at last they came in sight of the arch Hermione and Lucrezia were panting.

"The padrone will—forgive us—when—he—sees how we have—hurried," said Hermione, laughing at her own fatigue. "Go on, Gaspare!"

She stood for a moment leaning against the arch.

"And you go quickly, Lucrezia, and get the supper. The padrone—will be—hungry after his bath."

"Si, signora."

Lucrezia went off to the back of the house. Then Hermione drew a long breath, recovered herself, and walked to the terrace.

Gaspare met her with flaming eyes.

"The padrone is not here, signora. The padrone has not come back!"

He stood and stared at her.

It was not yet very dark. They stood in a sort of soft obscurity in which all objects could be seen, not with sharp clearness, but distinctly.

"Are you sure, Gaspare?"

"Si, signora! The padrone has not come back. He is not here."

The boy's voice sounded angry, Hermione thought. It startled her. And the way he looked at her startled her too.

"You have looked in the house? Maurice!" she called. "Maurice!"

"I say the padrone is not here, signora!"

Never before had Gaspare spoken to Hermione like this, in a tone almost that she ought to have resented. She did not resent it, but it filled her with a creeping uneasiness.

"What time is it? Nearly half-past nine. He ought to be here by now."

The boy nodded, keeping his flaming eyes on her.

"I said nine to give him lots of time to get cool, and change his clothes, and—it's very odd."

"I will go down to the sea, signora. A rivederci."

He swung round to go, but Hermione caught his arm.

"No; don't go. Wait a moment, Gaspare. Don't leave me like this!"

She detained him.

"Why, what's the matter? What—what are you afraid of?"

Instantly there came into his face the ugly, obstinate look she had already noticed, and wondered at, that day.

"What are you afraid of, Gaspare?" she repeated.

Her voice vibrated with a strength of feeling that as yet she herself scarcely understood.

"Niente!" the boy replied, doggedly.

"Well, but then"—she laughed—"why shouldn't the padrone be a few minutes late? It would be absurd to go down. You might miss him on the way."

Gaspare said nothing. He stood there with his arms hanging and the ugly look still on his face.

"Mightn't you? Mightn't you, Gaspare, if he came up by Marechiaro?"

"Si, signora."

"Well, then—"

They stood there in silence for a minute. Hermione broke it.

"He—you know how splendidly the padrone swims," she said. "Don't you, Gaspare?"

The boy said nothing.

"Gaspare, why don't you answer when I speak to you?"

"Because I've got nothing to say, signora."

His tone was almost rude. At that moment he nearly hated Hermione for holding him by the arm. If she had been a man he would have struck her off and gone.

"Gaspare!" she said, but not angrily.

Her instinct told her that he was obliged to be utterly natural just then under the spell of some violent feeling. She knew he loved his padrone. The feeling must be one of anxiety. But it was absurd to be so anxious. It was ridiculous, hysterical. She said to herself that it was Gaspare's excitement that was affecting her. She was catching his mood.

"My dear Gaspare," she said, "we must just wait. The padrone will be here in a minute. Perhaps he has come up by Marechiaro. Very likely he has looked in at the hotel to see how the sick signore is after his day up here. That is it, I feel sure."

She looked at him for agreement and met his stern and flaming eyes, utterly unmoved by what she had said, utterly unconvinced. At this moment she could not deny that this untrained, untutored nature had power over hers. She let go his arm and sat down by the wall.

"Let us wait out here for a minute," she said.

"Va bene, signora."

He stood there quite still, but she felt as if in this unnatural stillness there was violent movement, and she looked away from him. It was fully night now. She gazed down at the ravine. By that way Maurice would come, unless he really had gone to Marechiaro to see Artois. She had suggested to Gaspare that this might be the reason of Maurice's delay, but she knew that she did not think it was. Yet what other reason could there be? He swam splendidly. She said that to herself. She kept on saying it. Why?

Slowly the minutes crept by. The silence around them was intense, yet she felt no calm, no peace in it. Like the stillness of Gaspare it seemed to be violent. It began to frighten her. She began to wish for movement, for sound. Presently a light shone in the cottage.

"Signora! Signora!"

Lucrezia's voice was calling.

"What is it?" she said.

"Supper is quite ready, signora."

"The signore has not come back yet. He is a little late."

Lucrezia came to the top of the steps.

"Where can the signore be, signora?" she said. "It only takes—"

Her voice died suddenly away. Hermione looked quickly at Gaspare, and saw that he was gazing ferociously at Lucrezia as if to bid her be silent.

"Gaspare!" Hermione said, suddenly getting up.

"Signora?"

"I—it's odd the signore's not coming."

The boy answered nothing.

"Perhaps—perhaps there really has been an—an accident."

She tried to speak lightly.

"I don't think he would keep me waiting like this if—"

"I will go down to the sea," the boy said. "Signora, let me go down to the sea!"

There was a fury of pleading in his voice. Hermione hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she answered:

"Yes, you shall go. Stop, Gaspare!"

He had moved towards the arch.

"I'm coming with you."

"You, signora?"

"Yes."

"You cannot come! You are not to come!"

He was actually commanding her—his padrona.

"You are not to come, signora!" he repeated, violently.

"But I am coming," she said.

They stood facing each other. It was like a battle, Gaspare's manner, his words, the tone in which they were spoken—all made her understand that there was some sinister terror in his soul. She did not ask what it was. She did not dare to ask. But she said again:

"I am coming with you, Gaspare."

He stared at her and knew that from that decision there was no appeal. If he went she would accompany him.

"Let us wait here, signora," he said. "The padrone will be coming presently. We had better wait here."

But now she was as determined on activity as before she had been—or seemed—anxious for patience.

"I am going," she answered. "If you like to let me go alone you can."

She spoke very quietly, but there was a thrill in her voice. The boy saw it was useless just then to pit his will against hers. He dropped his head, and the ugly look came back to his face, but he made no reply.

"We shall be back very soon, Lucrezia. We are going a little way down to meet the padrone. Come, Gaspare!"

She spoke to him gently, kindly, almost pleadingly. He made an odd sound. It was not a word, nor was it a sob. She had never heard anything like it before. It seemed to her to be like a smothered outcry of a heart torn by some acute emotion.

"Gaspare!" she said. "We shall meet him. We shall meet him in the ravine!"

Then they set out. As she was going, Hermione cast a look down towards the sea. Always at this hour, when night had come, a light shone there, the light in the siren's house. To-night that little spark was not kindled. She saw only the darkness. She stopped.

"Why," she said, "there's no light!"

"Signora?"

She pointed over the wall.

"There's no light!" she repeated.

This little fact—she did not know why—frightened her.

"Signora, I am going!"

"Gaspare!" she said. "Give me your hand to help me down the path. It's so dark. Isn't it?"

She put out her hand. The boy's hand was cold.

They set out towards the sea.



XXI

They did not talk as they went down the steep mountain-side, but when they reached the entrance of the ravine Gaspare stopped abruptly and took his cold hand away from his padrona's hand.

"Signora," he said, almost in a whisper. "Let me go alone!"

They were under the shade of the trees here and it was much darker than upon the mountain-side. Hermione could not see the boy's face plainly. She came close up to him.

"Why do you want to go alone?" she asked.

Without knowing it, she, too, spoke in an under-voice.

"What is it you are afraid of?" she added.

"I am not afraid."

"Yes," she said, "you are. Your hand is quite cold."

"Let me go alone, signora."

"No, Gaspare. There is nothing to be afraid of, I believe. But if—if there should have been an accident, I ought to be there. The padrone is my husband, remember."

She went on and he followed her.

Hermione had spoken firmly, even almost cheerfully, to comfort the boy, whose uneasiness was surely greater than the occasion called for. So many little things may happen to delay a man. And Maurice might really have made the detour to Marechiaro on his way home. If he had, then they would miss him by taking this path through the ravine. Hermione knew that, but she did not hesitate to take it. She could not remain inactive to-night. Patience was out of her reach. It was only by making a strong effort that she had succeeded in waiting that short time on the terrace. Now she could wait no longer. She was driven. Although she had not yet sincerely acknowledged it to herself, fear was gradually taking possession of her, a fear such as she had never yet known or even imagined.

She had never yet known or imagined such a fear. That she felt. But she had another feeling, contradictory, surely. It began to seem to her as if this fear, which was now coming upon her, had been near her for a long time, ever since the night when she knew that she was going to Africa. Had she not even expressed it to Maurice?

Those beautiful days and nights of perfect happiness—can they ever come again? Had she not thought that many times? Was it not the voice of this fear which had whispered those words, and others like them, to her mind? And had there not been omens? Had there not been omens?

She heard Gaspare's feet behind her in the ravine, and it seemed to her that she could tell by the sound of them upon the many little loose stones that he was wild with impatience, that he was secretly cursing her for obliging him to go so slowly. Had he been alone he would have sped down with a rapidity almost like that of travelling light. She was strong, active. She was going fast. Instinctively she went fast. But she was a woman, not a boy.

"I can't help it, Gaspare!"

She was saying that mentally, saying it again and again, as she hurried onward.

Had there not been omens?

That last letter of hers, whose loss had prevented Maurice from meeting her on her return, from welcoming her! When she had reached the station of Cattaro, and had not seen him upon the platform, she had felt "I have lost him." Afterwards, directly almost, she had laughed at the feeling as absurd. But she had had it. And then, when at last he had come, she had been moved to suggest that he might like to sleep outside upon the terrace. And he had agreed to the suggestion. They had not resumed their old, sweet relation of husband and wife.

Had there not been omens?

And only an hour ago, scarcely that, not that, she had knelt before the Madonna della Rocca and she had prayed, she had prayed passionately for deserted women, for women who loved and who had lost those whom they loved.

The fear was upon her fully now, and she fully knew that it was. Why had she prayed for lonely, deserted women? What had moved her to such a prayer?

"Was I praying for myself?"

At that thought a physical weakness came to her, and she felt as if she could not go on. By the side of the path, growing among pointed rocks, there was a gnarled olive-tree, whose branches projected towards her. Before she knew what she was doing she had caught hold of one and stood still. So suddenly she had stopped that Gaspare, unprepared, came up against her in the dark.

"Signora! What is the matter?"

His voice was surely angry. For a moment she thought of telling him to go on alone, quickly.

"What is it, signora?"

"Nothing—only—I've walked so fast. Wait one minute!"

She felt the agony of his impatience, and it seemed to her that she was treating him very cruelly to-night.

"You know, Gaspare," she said, "it's not easy for women—this rough walking, I mean. We've got our skirts."

She laughed. How unnatural, how horrible her laugh sounded in the darkness! He did not say any more. She knew he was wondering why she had laughed like that. After a moment she let go the branch. But her legs were trembling, and she stumbled when she began to walk on.

"Signora, you are tired already. You had better let me go alone."

For the first time she told him a lie.

"I should be afraid to wait here all by myself in the night," she said. "I couldn't do that."

"Who would come?"

"I should be frightened."

She thought she saw him look at her incredulously in the dark, but was not sure.

"Be kind to me to-night, Gaspare!" she said.

She felt a sudden passionate need of gentleness, of support, a woman's need of sympathy.

"Won't you?" she added.

"Signora!" he said.

His voice sounded shocked, she thought; but in a moment, when they came to an awkward bit of the path, he put his hand under her arm, and very carefully, almost tenderly, helped her over it. Tears rushed into her eyes. For such a small thing she was crying! She turned her head so that Gaspare should not see, and tried to control her emotion. That terrible question kept on returning to her heart.

"Was I praying for myself when I prayed at the shrine of the Madonna della Rocca?"

Hermione was gifted, or cursed, with imagination, and as she never made use of her imaginative faculty in any of the arts, it was, perhaps, too much at the service of her own life. In happiness it was a beautiful handmaid, helping her to greater joy, but in unhappy, or in only anxious moments, it was, as it usually is, a cursed thing. It stood at her elbow, then, like a demon full of suggestions that were terrible. With an inventiveness that was diabolic it brought vividly before her scenes to shake the stoutest courage. It painted the future black. It showed her the world as a void. And in that void she was as something falling, falling, yet reaching nothing.

Now it was with her in the ravine, and as she asked questions, terrible questions, it gave her terrible answers. And it reminded her of other omens—it told her these facts were really omens—which till now she had not thought of.

Why had both she and Maurice been led to think and to speak of death to-day?

Upon the mountain-top the thought of death had come to her when she looked at the glory of the dawn. She had said to Maurice, "'The mountains will endure'—but we!" Of course it was a truism, such a thing as she might say at any time when she was confronted by the profound stability of nature. Thousands of people had said much the same thing on thousands of occasions. Yet now the demon at her elbow whispered to her that the remark had had a peculiar significance. She had even said, "What is it makes one think most of death when—when life, new life, is very near?"

Existence is made up of loss and gain. New beings rush into life day by day and hour by hour. Birth is about us, but death is about us too. And when we are given something, how often is something also taken from us! Was that to be her fate?

And Maurice—he had been led to speak of death, afterwards, just as he was going away to the sea. She recalled his words, or the demon whispered them over to her:

"'One can never tell what will happen—suppose one of us were to die here? Don't you think it would be good to lie there where we lay this afternoon, under the oak-trees, in sight of Etna and the sea? I think it would."

They were his very last words, his who was so full of life, who scarcely ever seemed to realize the possibility of death. All through the day death had surely been in the air about them. She remembered her dream, or quasi-dream. In it she had spoken. She had muttered an appeal, "Don't leave me alone!" and at another time she had tried to realize Maurice in England and had failed. She had felt as if Sicily would never let him go. And when she had spoken her thought he had hinted that Sicily could only keep him by holding him in arms of earth, holding him in those arms that keep the body of man forever.

Perhaps it was ordained that her Sicilian should never leave the island that he loved. In all their Sicilian days how seldom had she thought of their future life together in England! Always she had seen herself with Maurice in the south. He had seemed to belong to the south, and she had brought him to the south. And now—would the south let him go? The thought of the sirens of legend flitted through her mind. They called men to destruction. She imagined them sitting among the rocks near the Casa della Sirene, calling—calling to her Sicilian.

Long ago, when she first knew him well and loved his beauty, she had sometimes thought of him as a being of legend. She had let her fancy play about him tenderly, happily. He had been Mercury, Endymion, a dancing faun, Cupid vanishing from Psyche as the dawn came. And now she let a cruel fancy have its will for a moment. She imagined the sirens calling among the rocks, and Maurice listening to their summons, and going to his destruction. The darkness of the ravine helped the demon who hurried with her down the narrow path, whispering in her ears. But though she yielded for a time to the nightmare spell, common-sense had not utterly deserted her, and presently it made its voice heard. She began to say to herself that in giving way to such fantastic fears she was being unworthy of herself, almost contemptible. In former times she had never been a foolish woman or weak. She had, on the contrary, been strong and sensible, although unconventional and enthusiastic. Many people had leaned upon her, even strong people. Artois was one. And she had never yet failed any one.

"I must not fail myself," she suddenly thought. "I must not be a fool because I love."

She loved very much, and she had been separated from her lover very soon. Her eagerness to return to him had been so intense that it had made her afraid. Yet she had returned, been with him again. Her fear in Africa that they would perhaps never be together again in their Sicilian home had been groundless. She remembered how it had often tormented her, especially at night in the dark. She had passed agonizing hours, for no reason. Her imagination had persecuted her. Now it was trying to persecute her more cruelly. Suddenly she resolved not to let it have its way. Why was she so frightened at a delay that might be explained in a moment and in the simplest manner? Why was she frightened at all?

Gaspare's foot struck a stone and sent it flying down the path past her.

Ah! it had been Gaspare. His face, his manner, had startled her, had first inclined her to fear.

"Gaspare!" she said.

"Si, signora?"

"Come up beside me. There's room now."

The boy joined her.

"Gaspare," she continued, "do you know that when we meet the padrone, you and I, we shall look like two fools?"

"Meet the padrone?" he repeated, sullenly.

"Yes. He'll laugh at us for rushing down like this. He'll think we've gone quite mad."

Silence was the only response she had.

"Won't he?" she asked.

"Non lo so."

"Oh, Gaspare!" she exclaimed. "Don't—don't be like this to-night. Do you know that you are frightening me?"

He did not answer.

"What is the matter with you? What has been the matter with you all day?"

"Niente."

His voice was hard, and he fell behind again.

Hermione knew that he was concealing something from her. She wondered what it was. It must be something surely in connection with his anxiety. Her mind worked rapidly. Maurice—the sea—bathing—Gaspare's fear—Maurice and Gaspare had bathed together often while she had been in Africa.

"Gaspare," she said. "Walk beside me—I wish it."

He came up reluctantly.

"You've bathed with the padrone lately?"

"Si, signora."

"Many times?"

"Si, signora."

"Have you ever noticed that he was tired in the sea, or afterwards, or that bathing seemed to make him ill in any way?"

"Tired, signora?"

"You know there's a thing, in English we call it cramp. Sometimes it seizes the best swimmers. It's a dreadful pain, I believe, and the limbs refuse to move. You've never—when he's been swimming with you, the padrone has never had anything of that kind, has he? It wasn't that which made you frightened this evening when he didn't come?"

She had unwittingly given the boy the chance to save her from any worse suspicion. With Sicilian sharpness he seized it. Till now he had been in a dilemma, and it was that which had made him sullen, almost rude. His position was a difficult one. He had to keep his padrone's confidence. Yet he could not—physically he could not—stay on the mountain when he knew that some tragedy was probably being enacted, or had already been enacted by the sea. He was devoured by an anxiety which he could not share and ought not to show because it was caused by the knowledge which he was solemnly pledged to conceal. This remark of Hermione gave him a chance of shifting it from the shoulders of the truth to the shoulders of a lie. He remembered the morning of sirocco, his fear, his passion of tears in the boat. The memory seemed almost to make the lie he was going to tell the truth.

"Si, signora. It was that."

His voice was no longer sullen.

"The padrone had an attack like that?"

Again the terrible fear came back to her.

"Signora, it was one morning."

"Used you to bathe in the morning?"

A hot flush came in Gaspare's face, but Hermione did not see it in the darkness.

"Once we did, signora. We had been fishing."

"Go on. Tell me!"

Then Gaspare related the incident of his padrone's sinking in the sea. Only he made Maurice's travesty appear a real catastrophe. Hermione listened with painful attention. So Maurice had nearly died, had been into the jaws of death, while she had been in Africa! Her fears there had been less ill-founded than she had thought. A horror came upon her as she heard Gaspare's story.

"And then, signora, I cried," he ended. "I cried."

"You cried?"

"I thought I never could stop crying again."

How different from an English boy's reticence was this frank confession! and yet what English boy was ever more manly than this mountain lad?

"Why—but then you saved the padrone's life! God bless you!"

Hermione had stopped, and she now put her hand on Gaspare's arm.

"Oh, signora, there were two of us. We had the boat."

"But"—another thought came to her—"but, Gaspare, after such a thing as that, how could you let the padrone go down to bathe alone?"

Gaspare, a moment before credited with a faithful action, was now to be blamed for a faithless one. For neither was he responsible, if strict truth were to be regarded. But he had insisted on saving his padrone from the sea when it was not necessary. And he knew his own faithfulness and was secretly proud of it, as a good woman knows and is proud of her honor. He had borne the praise therefore. But one thing he could not bear, and that was an imputation of faithlessness in his stewardship.

"It was not my fault, signora!" he cried, hotly. "I wanted to go. I begged to go, but the padrone would not let me."

"Why not?"

Hermione, peering in the darkness, thought she saw the ugly look come again into the boy's face.

"Why not, signora?"

"Yes, why not?"

"He wished me to stay with you. He said: 'Stay with the padrona, Gaspare. She will be all alone.'"

"Did he? Well, Gaspare, it is not your fault. But I never thought it was. You know that."

She had heard in his voice that he was hurt.

"Come! We must go on!"

Her fear was now tangible. It had a definite form, and with every moment it grew greater in the night, towering over her, encompassing her about. For she had hoped to meet Maurice coming up the ravine, and, with each moment that went by, her hope of hearing his footstep decreased, her conviction that something untoward must have occurred grew more solid. Only once was her terror abated. When they were not far from the mouth of the ravine Gaspare suddenly seized her arm from behind.

"Gaspare! What is it?" she said, startled.

He held up one hand.

"Zitta!" he whispered.

Hermione listened, holding her breath. It was a silent night, windless and calm. The trees had no voices, the watercourse was dry, no longer musical with the falling stream. Even the sea was dumb, or, if it were not, murmured so softly that these two could not hear it where they stood. And now, in this dark silence, they heard a faint sound. It was surely a foot-fall upon stones. Yes, it was.

By the fierce joy that burst up in her heart Hermione measured her previous fear.

"It's he! It's the padrone!"

She put her face close to Gaspare's and whispered the words. He nodded. His eyes were shining.

"Andiamo!" he whispered back.

With a boy's impetuosity he wished to rush on and meet the truant pilgrim from the sea, but Hermione held him back. She could not bear to lose that sweet sound, the foot-fall on the stones, coming nearer every moment.

"No. Let's wait for him here! Let's give him a surprise."

"Va bene!"

His body was quivering with suppressed movement. But they waited. The step was slow, or so it seemed to Hermione as she listened again, like the step of a tired man. Maurice seldom walked like that, she thought. He was light-footed, swift. His actions were ardent as were his eyes. But it must be he! Of course it was he! He was languid after a long swim, and was walking slowly for fear of getting hot. That must be it. The walker drew nearer, the crunch of the stones was louder under his feet.

"It isn't the padrone!"

Gaspare had spoken. All the light had gone out of his eyes.

"Si! Si! It is he!"

Hermione contradicted him.

"No, signora. It is a contadino."

Her joy was failing. Although she contradicted Gaspare, she began to feel that he was right. This step was heavy, weary, an old man's step. It could not be her Mercury coming up to his home on the mountain. But still she waited. Presently there detached itself from the darkness a faint figure, bent, crowned with a long Sicilian cap.

"Andiamo!"

This time she did not keep Gaspare back. Without a word they went on. As they came to the figure it stopped. She did not even glance at it, but as she went by it she heard an old, croaky voice say:

"Benedicite!"

Never before had the Sicilian greeting sounded horrible in her ears. She did not reply to it. She could not. And Gaspare said nothing. They hastened on in silence till they reached the high-road by Isola Bella, the road where Maurice had met Maddalena on the morning of the fair.

It was deserted. The thick white dust upon it looked ghastly at their feet. Now they could hear the faint and regular murmur of the oily sea by which the fishermen's boats were drawn up, and discern, far away on the right, the serpentine lights of Cattaro.

"Where do you go to bathe?" Hermione asked, always speaking in a hushed voice. "Here, by Isola Bella?"

She looked down at the rocks of the tiny island, at the dimness of the spreading sea. Till now she had always gloried in its beauty, but to-night it looked to her mysterious and cruel.

"No, signora."

"Where then?"

"Farther on—a little. I will go."

His voice was full of hesitation. He did not know what to do.

"Please, signora, stay here. Sit on the bank by the line. I will go and be back in a moment. I can run. It is better. If you come we shall take much longer."

"Go, Gaspare!" she said. "But—stop—where do you bathe exactly?"

"Quite near, signora."

"In that little bay underneath the promontory where the Casa delle Sirene is?"

"Sometimes there and sometimes farther on by the caves. A rivederla!"

The white dust flew up from the road as he disappeared.

Hermione did not sit down on the bank. She had never meant to wait by Isola Bella, but she let him go because what he had said was true, and she did not wish to delay him. If anything serious had occurred every moment might be valuable. After a short pause she followed him. As she walked she looked continually at the sea. Presently the road mounted and she came in sight of the sheltered bay in which Maurice had heard Maddalena's cry when he was fishing. A stone wall skirted the road here. Some twenty feet below was the railway line laid on a bank which sloped abruptly to the curving beach. She leaned her hands upon the wall and looked down, thinking she might see Gaspare. But he was not there. The dark, still sea, protected by the two promontories, and by an islet of rock in the middle of the bay, made no sound here. It lay motionless as a pool in a forest under the stars. To the left the jutting land, with its turmoil of jagged rocks, was a black mystery. As she stood by the wall, Hermione felt horribly lonely, horribly deserted. She wished she had not let Gaspare go. Yet she dreaded his return. What might he have to tell her? Now that she was here by the sea she felt how impossible it was for Maurice to have been delayed upon the shore. For there was no one here. The fishermen were up in the village. The contadini had long since left their work. No one passed upon the road. There was nothing, there could have been nothing to keep a man here. She felt as if it were already midnight, the deepest hour of darkness and of silence.

As she took her hands from the wall, and turned to go on up the hill to the point which commanded the open sea and the beginning of the Straits of Messina, she was terrified. Suspicion was hardening into certainty. Something dreadful must have happened to Maurice.

Her legs had begun to tremble again. All her body felt weak and incapable, like the body of an old person whose life was drawing to an end. The hill, not very steep, faced her like a precipice, and it seemed to her that she would not be able to mount it. In the road the deep dust surely clung to her feet, refusing to let her lift them. And she felt sick and contemptible, no longer her own mistress either physically or mentally. The voices within her that strove to whisper commonplaces of consolation, saying that Maurice had gone to Marechiaro, or that he had taken another path home, not the path from Isola Bella, brought her no comfort. The thing within her soul that knew what she, the human being containing it, did not know, told her that her terror had its reason, that she was not suffering in this way without cause. It said, "Your terror is justified."



At last she was at the top of the hill, and could see vaguely the shore by the caves where the fishermen had slept in the dawn. To her right was the path which led to the wall of rock connecting the Sirens' Isle with the main-land. She glanced at it, but did not think of following it. Gaspare must have followed the descending road. He must be down there on that beach searching, calling his padrone's name, perhaps. She began to descend slowly, still physically distressed. True to her fixed idea that if there had been a disaster it must be connected with the sea, she walked always close to the wall, and looked always down to the sea. Within a short time, two or three minutes, she came in sight of the lakelike inlet, a miniature fiord which lay at the feet of the woods where hid the Casa delle Sirene. The water here looked black like ebony. She stared down at it and saw a boat lying on the shore. Then she gazed for a moment at the trees opposite from which always, till to-night, had shone the lamp which she and Maurice had seen from the terrace. All was dark. The thickly growing trees did not move. Secret and impenetrable seemed to her the hiding-place they made. She could scarcely imagine that any one lived among them. Yet doubtless the inhabitants of the Casa delle Sirene were sleeping quietly there while she wandered on the white road accompanied by her terror.

She had stopped for a minute, and was just going to walk on, when she heard a sound that, though faint and distant, was sharp and imperative. It seemed to her to be a violent beating on wood, and it was followed by the calling of a voice. She waited. The sound died away. She listened, straining her ears. In this absolutely still night sound travelled far. At first she had no idea from what direction came this noise which had startled her. But almost immediately it was repeated, and she knew that it must be some one striking violently and repeatedly upon wood—probably a wooden door.

Then again the call rang out. This time she recognized, or thought she recognized, Gaspare's voice raised angrily, fiercely, in a summons to someone. She looked across the ebon water at the ebon mass of the trees on its farther side, and realized swiftly that Gaspare must be there. He had gone to the only house between the two bathing-places to ask if its inhabitants had seen anything of the padrone.

This seemed to her to be a very natural and intelligent action, and she waited eagerly and watched, hoping to see a light shine out as Salvatore—yes, that had been the name told to her by Gaspare—as Salvatore got up from sleep and came to open. He might know something, know at least at what hour Maurice had left the sea.

Again came the knocking and the call, again—four, five times. Then there was a long silence. Always the darkness reigned, unbroken by the earth-bound star, the light she looked for. The silence began to seem to her interminable. At first she thought that perhaps Gaspare was having a colloquy with the owner of the house, was learning something of Maurice. But presently she began to believe that there could be no one in the house, and that he had realized this. If so, he would have to return either to the road or the beach. She could see no boat moored to the shore opposite. He would come by the wall of rock, then, unless he swam the inlet. She went back a little way to a point from which dimly she saw the wall, and waited there a few minutes. Surely it would be dangerous to traverse that wall on such a dark night! Now, to her other fear was added fear for Gaspare. If an accident were to happen to him! Suddenly she hastened back to the path which led from the high-road along the spit of cultivated land to the wall, turned from the road, traversed the spit, and went down till she stood at the edge of the wall. She looked at the black rock, the black sea that lay motionless far down on either side of it. Surely Gaspare would not venture to come this way. It seemed to her that to do so would mean death, or, if not that, a dangerous fall into the sea—and probably there were rocks below, hidden under the surface of the water. But Gaspare was daring. She knew that. He was as active as a cat and did not know the meaning of fear for his own safety. He might—

Out of the darkness on the land beyond the wall, something came, the form of some one hurrying.

"Gaspare!"

The form stopped.

"Gaspare!"

"Signora! What are you doing here? Madonna!"

"Gaspare, don't come this way! You are not to come this way."

"Why are you here, signora? I told you to wait for me by Isola Bella."

The startled voice was hard.

"You are not to cross the wall. I won't have it."

"The wall—it is nothing, signora. I have crossed it many times. It is nothing for a man."

"In the day, perhaps, but at night—don't, Gaspare—d'you hear me?—you are not—"

She stopped, holding her breath, for she saw him coming lightly, poised on bare feet, straight as an arrow, and balancing himself with his out-stretched arms.

"Ah!"

She had shrieked out. Just as he was midway Gaspare had looked down at the sea—the open sea on the far side of the wall. Instantly his foot slipped, he lost his balance and fell. She thought he had gone, but he caught the wall with his hands, hung for a moment suspended above the sea, then raised himself, as a gymnast does on a parallel bar, slowly till his body was above the wall. Then—Hermione did not know how—he was beside her.

She caught hold of him with both hands. She felt furiously angry.

"How dare you disobey me?" she said, panting and trembling. "How dare you—"

But his eyes silenced her. She broke off, staring at him. All the healthy color had left his face. There was a leaden hue upon it.

"Gaspare—are you—you aren't hurt—you—"

"Let me go, signora! Let me go!"

She let him go instantly.

"What is it? Where are you going?"

He pointed to the beach.

"To the boat. There's—down there in the water—there's something in the water!"

"Something?" she said.

"Wait in the road."

He rushed away from her, and she heard him saying: "Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"—crying it out as he ran.

Something in the water! She felt as if her heart stood still for a century, then at last beat again somewhere up in her throat, choking her. Something—could Gaspare have seen what? She moved on a step. One of her feet was on the wall, the other still on the firm earth. She leaned down and tried to look over into the sea beyond, the sea close to the wall. But her head swam. Had she not moved back hastily, obedient to an imperious instinct of self-preservation, she would have fallen. She sat down, there where she had been standing, and dropped her face into her hands close to her knees, and kept quite still. She felt as if she were in a train going through a tunnel. Her ears were full of a roaring clamor. How long she sat and heard tumult she did not know. When she looked up the night seemed to her to be much darker than before, intensely dark. Yet all the stars were there in the sky. No clouds had come to hide them. She tried to get up quickly, but there was surely something wrong with her body. It would not obey her will at first. Presently she lay down, turned over on her side, put both hands on the ground, and with an effort, awkward as that of a cripple, hoisted herself up and stood on her feet. Gaspare had said, "Wait in the road." She must find the road. That was what she must do.

"Wait in the road—wait in the road." She kept on saying that to herself. But she could not remember for a moment where the road was. She could only think of rock, of water black like ebony. The road was white. She must look for something white. And when she found it she must wait. Presently, while she thought she was looking, she found that she was walking in the dust. It flew up into her nostrils, dry and acrid. Then she began to recover herself and to realize more clearly what she was doing.

She did not know yet. She knew nothing yet. The night was dark, the sea was dark. Gaspare had only cast one swift glance down before his foot had slipped. It was impossible that he could have seen what it was that was there in the water. And she was always inclined to let her imagination run riot. God isn't cruel. She had said that under the oak-trees, and it was true. It must be true.

"I've never done God any harm," she was saying to herself now. "I've never meant to. I've always tried to do the right thing. God knows that! God wouldn't be cruel to me."

In this moment all the subtlety of her mind deserted her, all that in her might have been called "cleverness." She was reduced to an extraordinary simplicity like that of a child, or a very instinctive, uneducated person.

"I don't think I'm bad," she thought. "And God—He isn't bad. He wouldn't wish to hurt me. He wouldn't wish to kill me."

She was walking on mechanically while she thought this, but presently she remembered again that Gaspare had told her to wait in the road. She looked over the wall down to the narrow strip of beach that edged the inlet between the main-land and the Sirens' Isle. The boat which she had seen there was gone. Gaspare had taken it. She stood staring at the place where the boat had been. Then she sought a means of descending to that strip of beach. She would wait there. A little lower down the road some of the masonry of the wall had been broken away, perhaps by a winter flood, and at this point there was a faint track, trodden by fishermen's feet, leading down to the line. Hermione got over the wall at this point and was soon on the beach, standing almost on the spot where Maurice had stripped off his clothes in the night to seek the voice that had cried out to him in the darkness. She waited here. Gaspare would presently come back. His arms were strong. He could row fast. She would only have to wait a few minutes. In a few minutes she would know. She strained her eyes to catch sight of the boat rounding the promontory as it returned from the open sea. At first she stood, but presently, as the minutes went by and the boat did not come, her sense of physical weakness returned and she sat down on the stones with her feet almost touching the water.

"Gaspare knows now," she thought. "I don't know, but Gaspare knows."

That seemed to her strange, that any one should know the truth of this thing before she did. For what did it matter to any one but her? Maurice was hers—was so absolutely hers that she felt as if no one else had any concern in him. He was Gaspare's padrone. Gaspare loved him as a Sicilian may love his padrone. Others in England, too, loved him—his mother, his father. But what was any love compared with the love of the one woman to whom he belonged. His mother had her husband. Gaspare—he was a boy. He would love some girl presently; he would marry. No, she was right. The truth about that "something in the water" only concerned her. God's dealing with this creature of his to-night only really mattered to her.

As she waited, pressing her hands on the stones and looking always at the point of the dark land round which the boat must come, a strange and terrible feeling came to her, a feeling that she knew she ought to drive out of her soul, but that she was powerless to expel.

She felt as if at this moment God were on His trial before her—before a poor woman who loved.

"If God has taken Maurice from me," she thought, "He is cruel, frightfully cruel, and I cannot love Him. If He has not taken Maurice from me, He is the God who is love, the God I can, I must worship!"

Which God was he?

The vast scheme of the world narrowed; the wide horizons vanished. There was nothing beyond the limit of her heart. She felt, as almost all believing human beings feel in such moments, that God's attention was entirely concentrated upon her life, that no other claimed His care, begged for His pity, demanded His tenderness because hers was so intense.

Did God wish to lose her love? Surely not! Then He could not commit this frightful act which she feared. He had not committed it.

A sort of relief crept through her as she thought this. Her agony of apprehension was suddenly lessened, was almost driven out.

God wants to be loved by the beings He has created. Then He would not deliberately, arbitrarily destroy a love already existing in the heart of one of them—a love thankful to Him, enthusiastically grateful for happiness bestowed by Him.

Beyond the darkness of the point there came out of the dimness of the night that brooded above the open sea a moving darkness, and Hermione heard the splash of oars in the calm water. She got up quickly. Now her body was trembling again. She stared at the boat as if she would force it to yield its secret to her eyes. But that was only for an instant. Then her ears seemed to be seeking the truth, seeking it from the sound of the oars in the water!

There was no rhythmic regularity in the music they made, no steadiness, no—no—

She listened passionately, instinctively bending down her head sideways. It seemed to her that she was listening to a drunken man rowing. Now there was a quick beating of the oars in the water, then silence, then a heavy splash as if one of the oars had escaped from an uncertain hand, then some uneven strokes, one oar striking the water after the other.

"But Gaspare is a contadino," she said to herself, "not a fisherman. Gaspare is a contadino and—"

"Gaspare!" she called out. "Gaspare!"

The boat stopped midway in the mouth of the inlet.

"Gaspare! Is it you?"

She saw a dark figure standing up in the boat.

"Gaspare, is it you?" she cried, more loudly.

"Si."

Was it Gaspare's voice? She did not recognize it. Yet the voice had answered "Yes." The boat still remained motionless on the water midway between shore and shore. She did not speak again; she was afraid to speak. She stood and stared at the boat and at the motionless figure standing up in it. Why did not he row in to land? What was he doing there? She stared at the boat and at the figure standing in it till she could see nothing. Then she shut her eyes.

"Gaspare!" she called, keeping her eyes shut. "What are you doing? Gaspare!"

There was no reply.

She opened her eyes, and now she could see the boat again and the rower.

"Gaspare!" she cried, with all her strength, to the black figure. "Why don't you row to the shore? Why don't you come to me?"

"Vengo!"

Loudly the word came to her, loudly and sullenly as if the boy were angry with her, almost hated her. It was followed by a fierce splash of oars. The boat shot forward, coming straight towards her. Then suddenly the oars ceased from moving, the dark figure of the rower fell down in a heap, and she heard cries, like cries of despair, and broken exclamations, and then a long sound of furious weeping.

"Gaspare! Gaspare!"

Her voice was strangled in her throat and died away.

"And then, signora, I cried—I cried!"

When had Gaspare said that to her? And why had he cried?

"Gaspare!"

It came from her lips in a whisper almost inaudible to herself.

Then she rushed forward into the dark water.



XXII

Late that night Dr. Marini, the doctor of the commune of Marechiaro, was roused from sleep in his house in the Corso by a violent knocking on his street door. He turned over in his bed, muttered a curse, then lay still for a moment and listened. The knocking was renewed more violently. Evidently the person who stood without was determined to gain admission. There was no help for it. The good doctor, who was no longer young, dropped his weary legs to the floor, walked across to the open window, and thrust his head out of it. A man was standing below.