The romance in the belief of the
seamen had got hold of her, had touched her. The compliment to herself
she ignored. Indeed, she had already forgotten it.

"Only the other night--" she began.

But she stopped suddenly.

"You know," she said, changing to something else, "that when the
fishermen pass under San Francesco's pedestal they bend down, and lift
a little water from the sea, and sprinkle it into the boat, and make the
sign of the cross. They call it 'acqua benedetta.' I love to see them do
that."

Another big wave struck the launch and made it shiver. The Marchesino
crossed himself, but quite mechanically. He was intent on Vere.

"I wonder," the girl said, "whether to-night San Francesco will not be
beaten by the waves, whether his light will be burning when we reach the
island."

She paused, then she added, in a lower voice:

"I do hope it will--don't you, Madre?"

"Yes, Vere," said her mother.

Something in her mother's voice made the girl look up at her swiftly,
then put a hand into hers, a hand that was all sympathy. She felt that
just then her mother's imagination was almost, or quite, one with hers.
The lights of Naples were gone, swallowed by the blackness of the storm.
And the tiny light at the feet of the Saint, of San Francesco, who
protected the men of the sea, and the boys--Ruffo, too!--would it greet
them, star of the sea to their pool, star of the sea to their island,
their Casa del Mare, when they had battled through the storm to San
Francesco's feet?

"I do hope it will."

Why did Hermione's heart echo Vere's words with such a strenuous and
sudden passion, such a deep desire? She scarcely knew then. But she
knew that she wanted a light to be shining for her when she neared
home--longed for it, needed it specially that night. If San Francesco's
lamp were burning quietly amid the fury of the sea in such a blackness
as this about them--well, it would seem like an omen. She would take it
as an omen of happiness.

And if it were not burning?

She, too, longed to be outside with Gaspare and the sailors, staring
into the darkness with eyes keen as those of a seaman, looking for the
light. Since Vere's last words and her reply they had sat in silence.
Even the Marchesino's vivacity was suddenly abated, either by the
increasing violence of the storm or by the change in Vere. It would have
been difficult to say by which. The lightning flashed. The thunder at
moments seemed to split the sky