she could hear his footsteps--longing to go faster. But she was
breathless, her heart was beating, there was terror in her soul. What
was that? A rattle of stones in the darkness, and then an old voice
muttering "Benedicite!"

She opened her eyes and moved suddenly, like one intolerably stirred.
What a foe the imagination can be--what a foe! She got up and went to
the window. She must drive away that memory of the ravine, of all that
followed after. Often she lingered with it, but to-night, somehow, she
could not, she dared not. She was less brave than usual to-night.

She leaned out of the window.

"Am I a fool?"

That was what she was saying to herself. And she was comparing herself
now with other people, other women. Did she know one who could not
uproot an old memory, who could suffer, and desire, and internally weep,
after more than sixteen years?

"I suppose it is preposterous."

She deliberately chose that ugly word to describe her own condition
of soul. But instantly it seemed to her as if far down in that soul
something rose up and answered:

"No, it is not. It is beautiful. It is divine. It is more--it is due. He
gave you the greatest gift. He gave you what the whole world is always
seeking; even in blindness, even in ignorance, even in terrible vice. He
gave you love. How should you forget him?"

Far away on the sea that was faintly silvered by the moon there was
a black speck. It was, or seemed from the distance to be, motionless.
Hermione's eyes were attracted to it, and again her imagination carried
her to Sicily. She stood on the shore by the inlet, she saw the boat
coming in from the open sea. Then it stopped midway--like that boat.

She heard Gaspare furiously weeping.

But the boat moved, and the sound that was in her imagination died away,
and she said to herself, "All that was long ago."

The boat out there was no doubt occupied by Neapolitan fishermen, and
she was here on the islet in the Sea of Naples, and Sicily was far
away across the moonlit waters. As to Gaspare--she was sure he was not
weeping, faithful though he was to the memory of the dead Padrone.

And Vere? Hermione wondered what Vere was doing. She felt sure, though
she did not know why, that Vere had not gone to bed. She realized
to-night that her child was growing up rapidly, was passing from the
stage of childhood to the stage of girlhood, was on the threshold of
all the mysterious experiences that life holds for those