hearts.

"Then that last time he didn't--no, he didn't go to--her."

The voice was almost a whisper, and Artois knew that she was speaking
for herself--that she was telling herself that her husband's last action
had been--not to creep to the woman, but to stand up and face the man.

"Was it her father?"

The voice was still almost a whisper.

"I think it was."

"Maurice paid then--he paid!"

"Yes. I am sure he paid."

"Gaspare knew. Gaspare knew--that night. He was afraid. He knew--but he
didn't tell me. He has never told me."

"He loved his master."

"Gaspare loved Maurice more than he loved me."

By the way she said that Artois knew that Gaspare was forgiven. And a
sort of passion of love for woman's love welled up in his heart. At
that moment he almost worshipped Hermione for being unable, even in that
moment, not to love Gaspare because Gaspare had loved the dead man more
than he loved her.

"But Gaspare loves you," he said.

"I don't believe in love. I don't want love any more."

Again the voice was transformed. It had become hollow and weary, without
resonance, like the voice of some one very old. And Artois thought of
Virgil's Grotto, of all they had said there, and of how the rock above
them had broken into deep and sinister murmurings, as if to warn them,
or rebuke.

And now, too, there were murmurings about them, but below them from the
sea.

"Hermione, we must speak only the truth to-night."

"I am telling you the truth. You chose to follow me. You chose to hunt
me--to hunt me when you knew it was necessary to me to be alone. It was
brutal to do it. It was brutal. I had earned the right at least to one
thing: I had earned the right to be alone. But you didn't care. You
wouldn't respect my right. You hunted me as you might have hunted an
animal. I tried to escape. But you saw me coming, and you chased me, and
you caught me. I can't get away. You have driven me in here. And I can't
get away from you. You won't even let me be alone."

"I dare not let you be alone to-night."

"Why not? What are you afraid of? What does it matter to you where I go
or what I do? Don't say it matters! Don't dare say that!"

Her voice was fierce now.

"It doesn't matter to anybody, except perhaps a little to Vere and
a very little to Gaspare. It never has really mattered to anybody. I
thought it did once to some one. I thought I knew it did. But I was
wrong. It didn't. It never mattered."

As she spoke a