ghing eyes and
lips, his strong young body, his careless happy voice. And she found
herself instinctively listening by the window to hear that voice again.

Now, as she looked out, the loveliness of the night appealed to her
strongly, and she felt sure that Vere must be still outside, somewhere
under the moon.

Just beneath the window was the narrow terrace, on to which she had
stepped out, obedient to Vere's call, three days ago. Perhaps Vere was
there, or in the garden beyond. She extinguished the lamp. She went to
her bedroom to get a lace shawl, which she put over her head and drew
round her shoulders like a mantilla. Then she looked into Vere's room,
and found it empty.

A moment later she was on the terrace bathed in the radiance of the
moon.

CHAPTER VIII

Vere was outside under the stars. When she had said good-night and had
slipped away, it was with the desire to be alone, to see no one, to
speak with no one till next morning. But the desires of the young change
quickly, and Vere's presently changed.

She came out of the house, and passing over the bridge that connected
together the two cliffs of which the islet was composed, reached the
limit of the islet. At the edge of the precipice was a seat, and there
she sat down. For some time she rested motionless, absorbing the beauty
and the silence of the night. She was looking towards Ischia. She wished
to look that way, to forget all about Naples, the great city which lay
behind her.

Here were the ancient caves darkening with their mystery the silver
wonder of the sea. Here the venerable shore stretched towards lands she
did not know. They called to the leaping desires of her heart as the
city did not call. They carried her away.

Often, from this seat, on dark and moonless nights, she had watched the
fishermen's torches flaring below her in the blackness, and had thrilled
at the mystery of their occupation, and had imagined them lifting from
the sea strange and wonderful treasures, that must change the current of
their lives: pearls such as had never before been given to the breasts
of women, caskets that had lain for years beneath the waters, bottles in
which were stoppered up magicians who, released, came forth in smoke, as
in the Eastern story.

Once she had spoken of this last imagination to Gaspare, and had seen
his face suddenly change and look excited, vivid, and then sad. She had
asked him why he looked like that, and, after a moment of h